Sen. Patty Murray Asks Students Why Bin Laden is Popular

I couldn't make a comment on this and not put my foot in my mouth.

I thought she made some really good points. I think Chris Vance is being sensationalist in his response. Why shouldn't she be allowed to open discussion on the topic with the public? If we DID put the $ from warfare into aide, the world would be a much better place.

Simple, in their view he wounded the Great Satan.

i certainly think it was a valid topic to be brought up, not all that different from examining how Hitler came to power in prewar Germany, as an aside to that is the study commissioned by the US government following WWII in attempting to discern the "nature" of fascism with the results being the "F-Scale" as a means to measure the propensity towards fascist ideologies. The interesting result of the study was that fascism was equated with "low tolerance for ambiguity" ie people needing clearly defined black and white answers to difficult questions are more likely to become fascist. It seems to be of current import today with the issues we have confronting us.

For one thing I think Murray forgets that the US has, for decades, been the largest provider of aid, both food and materials, to these under-developed nations.

She also, it seems, neglected to mention the "strings" that came with the support from Bin Laden. Yes, he did provide food and infrastructure facilities to a lot of people. But a condition of that was that those people had to be Islamic, had to listen to Bin Laden's approved Clerics and follow Bin Laden's approved version of Islam. So many people in those countries support him because those that didn't have largely either starved to death or been killed by his supporters. Would she approve of the US using those same tactics?

I have no problem with her asking the question or raising the issue. She should however, provide the complete story.

I don't believe for an instant that anyone could or would forget the aid the U.S. provides for underdeveloped nations. What is being pointed out is the U.S. need a lot better PR to sell itself around the world. When all the media, especially the media within these countries, is printing news about the swords about to fall on foreign countries and how we are out hunting Bin Laden as a criminal, many of these people don't understand. Many see us as oppressors and aggressors and I'm not saying that's right -- it's just reality. The U.S. has been very poor at promoting itself around the world because we often use the hard sell. Maybe we should be requiring that our diplomats go back to school and learn some ethical persuation.

Right now, anyone in the US who doesn't speak of Bin Laden as the devil incarnate will be seen as un-American. Patty Murray made that error (in the eyes of some), and there are also those who want to get at a Democrat after what happened to Trent Lott.

But, of course, Murray's from Washington, as is Jim McDermott, and lots of folks think we must be weird to elect such people to Congress...

To a large extent I think this is a bit backwards. The US certianly may hard sell at the UN and when dealing with governments at senior levels but once aid flows to the individual it's done without requiring much of anything on their part. When we setup a hospital, food bank, etc.. whoever shows up gets taken care with very few questions.

Bin Laden on the other hand, didn't deal with the UN or governments at all. His hard sell was straight to the individuals and they either became followers or, in the case of many, died. I don't believe that is a tactic we should be attempting to emulate.

The hard sell is what makes it into the media. There's little effort to counter that -- it is called, of course, propaganda and all of the aid isn't in the form of building hospital, food banks, etc. It's in the form of arms sales, for instance, that should be perceived by the citizens of that country as aiding in their defense. There's a wide gap in our propaganda machine that doesn't give a clear picture of what the U.S. is trying to do for these countries beside erect a MacDonalds on their main street.

If you want to characterize Bin Ladin's charity as a hard sell, that's fine but do those that are receiving it believe that? They do believe he is benevolent and we need to counter that in any way we can.

There are many essays you can find on this subject -- I've read them over the years in The Atlantic and Harper's for instance.

"The US", as a Sovereign State, does a poor job of "Selling Itself" to other societies, societies which treasure Levi's, covet Harley Davidsons, drink Coca-Cola, and buy Hollywood Movies. American Corporations take great pains to engender global approval and acceptance of themselves and their products. The Government as an entity is both less sophisticated and less successful in the endeavor than is The Private Sector. It is quite apparent Our Government is thoroughly uncontaminated by the profit motive.



timber

Perhaps they need some assistance in how to sell their product -- they're too use to the negative campaign ads as a way to deseminate information. We are, after all, a government that becomes a product to sell. Nothing wrong with advertising and there's good propaganda and bad propaganda. I don't believe Murray would be that stupid not to realize that Osama Bin Laden's philanthrophy is a propaganda device and we can counter it without getting into the same tactics. Our government may seem to be uncontanimated by the profit motive -- government isn't a business. Profit isn't always measure in dollars. We can profit by the return of goodwill by other nations.

We definitely do not want to give the impression that, "here's some money, now we want you to become a democratic, Christian, power-to-the-buck consumer society like us." If were going to become the interventionist around the world, we should clean up our own house in many areas. Start with education...

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that US corporate interests do such a good job of selling in these countries. Coke, McDonald's, Britney Spears: This is the very stuff that the Taliban hates us for. I'm not saying coporations shouldn't market overseas, but we have to be realistic about some of the implications.

I don't have the answer, but vilifying Bin Laden doesn't get us very far. Hunt him down and bring him to justice--sure. But then what?

Basing a chain of Barbeque Pork Bar-and-Restaurant Strip Clubs out of the town of his birth ... with its headquarters building a magnificent edifice built atop the site of bin Laden's birth home would be a considered by some to be the most appropriate "then what". Of course, that's the thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. I devoutly hope saner minds are working on the matter.



timber

There is a perception outside of the United States that the US only involves itself in situations where it's own interests are threatened. I personally have insufficient knowledge of world events/politics to determine whether that perception is valid or due to the US Governments inability to "sell itself".

That's what is being sold to us here at home and I don't believe it is the perception of much of the population around the world. There's where we run into the Catch 22 of government policy and/or the press in many countries selling us as imperialist. Not everyone has access to a radio and I haven't explored recently what stations broadcast our sales pitch (propaganda). We used leaflets and dropped radios during the Afghan War. No envelopes with money insides to my knowledge.

We had a saying in the Navy used to describe people of Senator Murray's intellectual calibre;

"She wouldn't float head down"

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