Paul Wolfowitz open thread

He’s gone!
(But still not at all, it seems me, “held to account” by the US or Iraqi citizenry for the harm he has inflicted on both our countries.)

14 thoughts on “Paul Wolfowitz open thread”

  1. Just as the neocons did so many things primarily for political and financial gain, it occurs to me that if Wolfwowitz, Perle, Feith, Bush,jr, Rumsfeld, et al live for another 20 or 25 years, the pendulum may slowly turn back against them and they may be called to account for their crimes by 2025 or 2030 or so, and the irony would be that they’d face prosecution less because of their intrinsic criminality than because people will want scapegoats for the economic meltdown that could well be in store.
    If the US finds herself on the brink of ruin and people (finally)realize that the political and financial recklessness of BushCo were instrumental in bringing us to that point, then, finally, sufficiently large numbers of people may back criminal prosecution of the neocons. (Without trying to be morbid,Cheney making it to 85 plus is probably a long shot, and I don’t see him going to Leavenworth.)

  2. The $375K payoff, or whatever they paid him, was money well spent – even if it allows him to claim later that he wasn’t fired, he did it for the good of the Bank, blah blah….
    I couldn’t help noticing, as the details leaked out, that PW is a foul-mouthed bully, just like Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld.
    The neocons seem now to be falling with increasing speed. The phrase “domino effect” spreings to mind 🙂

  3. Let’s not be too rough on Paul. Lets not hate him for being a fit, dapper, virile American man who climbed to the very top by tooth and claw taking every tough decision he saw he had to. I’m sure he rationalised to himself he was making the world a better place, just like nearly every human being including all the other villains of history. Of course rationalising you are ameliorating the human condition is not the same as rationally doing it, it’s simply imagining you are. But by his Neocon fruits we knew him. Especially at the World Bank going by the Salon.Com article; where it seems the ground had not been broken with shock and awe in preparation for his coming.

  4. January 26, 1998
    The Honorable William J. Clinton
    President of the United States
    Washington, DC
    Dear Mr. President:
    We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War.
    We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies,
    The group of war mongering and criminals
    Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett
    Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky
    Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad
    William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman
    Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber
    Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

  6. Looks like being an Iraq war supporter STILL is a requirement for the job of World Bank President.
    The odious Wolfowitz is gone but rumors are that that the equally odious Tony Blair is in line to succeed him.
    –

  7. I have heard that Rummy is to replace Wolfowitz. It really doesn’t matter, though, does it?

  8. Shirin,
    There is an Iraqi proverb:
    عصــفور كِفــل زرزور واثنناتهــم طــيارة”

  9. Herman Wijffels, the Dutchman who chaired the WB committee investigating Wolfowitz, has said it ultimately wasn’t his girlfriend which led to his fall: it was his “disastrous leadership”. http://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/article427173.ece/Wijffels_Paul_Wolfowitz_was_desastreus_leider
    Wijffels doesn’t mince words. Wolfowitz “maakte de bank volstrekt onveilig” [best translated as: “Wolfowitz terrorized the neighbourhood”] and “changed a culture of trust into one of suspicion”. Worse, “he had no coherent strategy for the future of the bank”

  10. oh, I think he had a strategy all right – not one decent people of the world would approve of…..

  11. Quite the Couple
    ” May 3, 2007 – Only a few years ago, Shaha Riza was what is known in journalistic parlance as a flack. She was a media relations person, in other words—and a fairly junior one—whose job it was to reach out to reporters like me so that we would write about various World Bank activities. As recently as mid-2004, Riza was faxing and e-mailing PR releases to reporters around town, requesting that we contact her about exciting new Bank initiatives like a “$38 million investment loan to help the Government of Jordan develop efficient transport and logistics services,” or the “$359 million in loans for two projects aimed at helping the government of Iran improve housing conditions for poor and middle-income urban neighborhoods as well as expand access to clean water and coverage of sanitation services.” At the bottom of each missive she listed her number (202 458 1592) and her e-mail (sriza@worldbank.org). Guess what? Many of us never called.”

  13. Sorry to be late on this, but I’ve been quite busy lately and I’m only catching up wiht the blogs now.
    Wolfowitz fate at the World Bank is quite interesting. In the US media people only talk about his personnal errors. But this has to be replaced in context.
    Akshay already offered a better explanation, but IMO, it doens’t go deep enough.
    Wolfowitz was a perfect example of the US arrogance toward the international organizations and the other countries. He was chosen at this post by the US because the Bushies wanted to use the WB as a tool in Iraq and wider in ME or otehr developping countries : he explicitly told that the WB should reward good countries making progress toward democracy (aka produce government friendly toward the US and toward Westernized capitalims.
    It’s not the first time that you see nepotism in the International organization and if that was his only error, he may well have survived to the crisis. Wolfowitz fall because he was waging the kind of unilateral policy the Bushies advocate for. He discarded programs and WB officials who had years of experience. He made a bid to fight against corruptions and to end cooperation with countries allowing corruption. But like the Bushies he government with double standards. That’s what the internal officers of the WB didn’t like.
    But he was forced to resign by the WB board, where the EU countries were all set against him. EU countries wants multilateralism and they are fed up by US unilateralism, by the way they are destroying the international organization. That’s the message they wanted to send to the Americans. And that’s the real reason of Wolfowitz’s shameful fall.
    I’m sooo happy he has been fired. I just fear that the Bushies haven’t got the message and will send another Wolfowitz sosie to replace him. On the other hand, the WB didn’t do much good to the Developping countries. Argentina after his financial crisis got out of the WB, refusing to apply her draconian conditions and guess what : they were able to catch up without the WB. Now Chavez is offering alternative money. So may be that after all the WB isn’t so important.
    Anyway, this all shows that the Bushies are now on a sliding slope and they will have to pay the price of their errors. At least, I hope it.

  14. Wolfowitz has a tail and it is Straussian. He is a leading one of the group mentored by that bitter Jewish political thinker. But Wolfie is going down not as a wise leader who exemplifies the virtue of this group, but as a selfish, whining, petty scoundrel who used his office to advance a skirt then tried to hide it, then tried to bluff it out, then went off blaming others and complaining he always tried to help the poor. And what a howler that last was. So the more he is kept front and center as a good example of what the calibre of the Straussian group is, the more he will assist in blackening the rest. He shows the morality of the Trailer Park boys, and the more that is brought home to people, the easier it will be to explain how and
    why the practitioners of the Straussian view are bound to be people like that. He does not deserve sympathy, as anyone who reviews his tenure and activity at the World Bank can see, but he can serve as a useful example of what the Straussians planned to do the the rest of us.

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