Posted on 04/17/2007 9:55:41 PM PDT by Kitten Festival
The latest "scandal" to hit the Bush administration involves Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary turned World Bank president. But forget his missteps in handling his girlfriend's departure from the Bank.
His biggest mistake has been failing to recognize that the Bank has lost its raison d'etre. That is reason enough to choose new leadership. Bank lending programs have consistently failed; the world is awash in private investment capital. The status quo is no longer sustainable.
Wolfowitz was a poor choice from the start. He never was particularly interested in international development. Before signing on as president, he demanded a sufficient salary increase so his pay would match that of the head of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF's managing director had previously played a similar game of financial one-upmanship, at the obvious expense of taxpayers around the world who ultimately fund both the Bank and Fund.
Once ensconced in power, Wolfowitz pushed a $500 million lending program Iraq, which raised the specter, fair or not, of an attempt to use the independent institution to advance Bush administration policies. But what is now threatening his position is his treatment of Bank employee and girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza, for whom he ordered a $60,000 pay increase before detailing her to the U.S. State Department.
The specifics are complicated and personal animus motivates many of his critics. But the apparent conflict of interest is particularly embarrassing since he has initiated a campaign against corruption abroad.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Wolfowitz has not an ounce of moral fiber in his body.
He should be fired and the President should be out front on this.
There’s three reasons this should not have been done.
1. Iraq is the second-most corrupt country in the world, bar none, according to transparency international, it is on their site. Places like Rwanda and Somalia are clean compared to it. The money WILL be stolen. For a bigtime corruption-fighter, Paul has picked a mighty peculiar place to throw WB money around.
2.Bank rules forbid lending in warzones. There is no reason to break that rule. I suspect it’s being done to augment the WOT illicitly because already it’s a no-victory money pit. But throwing money and overpaid NGO types after it won’t help. In light of the corruption, all it’s going to do is foment more war as big sums of cash in hellholes always do. Nobody on the WB staff wants to work there, by the way, the conditions are not conducive to actual banking.
3. Investment is attracted naturally by good policies. The WB itself doesn’t require good policies the way real banks do - stuff like credit ratings, records of payment, ability to pay back. With all the money the WB can shovel out the door, a government can retain all the hostile-to-investment policies it likes because the WB money is always there and there are no consequences for bad policies. Singapore developed itself with good policies. Chad kept itself a fourth-world by taking WB money in lieu of good policies.
I have one more reason, but it escapes my memory for the moment, I’ll write it later
I think we should get rid of the deadwood so that new shoots can form. Wolfowitz is a sucker on a rosebush, whose self-serving corruption, record of war-failure, lies to us about how easy and cheap the war would all be, have potential to suck the life from our party as we struggle to defend him while the democrats grow big and bloom big. I think he ought to be thrown over the side instead of be permitted to fail upward as he continuously does. If he were successful at anything at all, i might think different, but he is a total failure as a leader. Bush wouldn’t have him to lead the Iraq mission he was so nervous about his leadership abilities. But now that he’s at the WB among all the leftists, he’s given them a tangible bone to gnaw on, probably their first legitimate one in years, which is why they are so chomp-happy. He’s a loss and we should cut this loss now.
One last thing, re your last statement - the WB model is the Africa model. To use its loans as one’s crutch for prosperity, is a bad idea. Africa has taken a trillion dollars in WB loans and just look at the place. Singapore has taken little or none. Building Iraq on the Africa model of the world bank is pure madness. Africa’s results speak for themselves.
Is the reason...Wolfowitz was in the Bush administration?
No, Paul is the author of Paul’s problems. he could have easily avoided them but the cash was there and he thought no one was looking. You’d THINK he’d be smarter about that, knowing he was surrounded by leftists, and had done a lot to alienate them but he thought he was bulletproof and the left would treat him like docilely (as if they left had any scruples) as he provoked the apes in their cage and made them want to get back at him. Normal people would know enough to avoid that situation. He thought waxing about global warming and abusing america for its border wall would appease them while his cronies screamed at them for taking pencils in his great anticorruption campaign. He would have been better to stick to his rightwing principles, defended america and treated the leftists of the world bank with kindness so that they felt they had some turf to defend in him. How could he be so stupid?
Oh quit the moronic insults. If you don’t have any arguments, why not keep your trap shut until you have something intelligent to say?
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