"Even Wolfowitz has been infuriated with a few judgment lapses by Kellems"

Pot...kettle...black.

These are indeed rare and wondrous times. No matter where one turns, the Bush house of cards is collapsing, the cards are fluttering down.

Wolfie is looking to blame others for his own unsound judgments and unethical activities. He's also looking for big bucks to line his pockets, as he did with his neo-concubine Riza, with gold.

"Do As I Say, Not As I Do" has become Wolfie's mantra-- for he hypocritically lectures others about "corruption" [sic], when he is one of the most corrupt, corrosive & despicable crooks to rise-out of the neo-fascist neo-con Bush/Cheney junta.

Wolfie, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Gonzales, et. al.-- their pattern of behaviour is to bilk the U.S. taxpayers; the world community; and the poor of the world, and all the while telling anyone who challenges their lies, hypocricy and blood-thirsty destructiveness: "screw you"!

=== I'm not wildly opposed to hypocrisy: when the options are to have someone hypocritically pressure another into doing the right thing, and having no one pressure them into doing the right thing, I'll take the latter. ===

I suspect from the context that you meant "the former", not "the latter".

But respectfully I have to disagree. How about this: when taking a position against corruption, don't do corrupt things yourself, or even things that have the smell of corruption. There are millions of purchasing agents, auditors, loading dock workers, church collection plate counters, etc around the world who are faced with temptation every single day and do NOT yield to it. Why is it too much to ask of those to whom great power has been entrusted that they too not abuse that power for their own gain? Do people get a special pass on ethics after they reach a certain "station" in life? More evidence of our attempt to return to feudalism IMHO.

I will say that the question of Riza is difficult. In the corporate world the solution is usually to transfer the executives involved to positions where they have no cross-connection but which do not involve a decrease in status. Since Wolfowitz was taking the senior executive position that was going to be tricky, and there is the issue of fairness to Riza who was after all there first. But at the same time I doubt many BoD hiring committees today would ever hire a new CEO who came with a built-in romantic conflict-of-interest.

sPh

Unindicted war criminal.

Wolfowitz is the point man for parallel propaganda campigns. Dish out money in the UK to spike some stories about the war on terror, ditto anywhere in the EU, even more so developing lands and regional efforts near war theatres...

Follow the Money.

Right: "former" was intended. Thanks for catching that.

How about this: when taking a position against corruption, don't do corrupt things yourself, or even things that have the smell of corruption. There are millions of purchasing agents, auditors, loading dock workers, church collection plate counters, etc around the world who are faced with temptation every single day and do NOT yield to it. Why is it too much to ask of those to whom great power has been entrusted that they too not abuse that power for their own gain?

I don't disagree with this in the slightest, but I think it doesn't quite address the situation. What I am saying is that, stipulating that you are dealing with an individual or nation whose actions don't measure up to the standards they put forth, it is preferable that these hypocritical agents go ahead and act hypocritically, if the result will be, say, a net drop in corruption.

Clearly preferable to that is agents who hold themselves to a consistent standard, and are able to exert genuine moral authority.

To put the point another way, if you really believe in human rights, you should be critical of pretty much every government that holds state power, to varying degrees. The non-governing citizenry aside, there just isn't anyone who isn't something of a hypocrite when it comes to calling out other states on their human rights record. But silence isn't preferable to hypocritical (if effective) speech.

But I'm just diverting the conversation. Initially, I agree, the Riza situation seemed tough - she appears to have good qualifications, the job at State was sort of a diversion from her interests, and it seemed somewhat reasonable to me that she would be compensated for the derailment of her career. It also seemed (seems) like this issue is being used, to a degree, as a proxy for more direct fights about PW's actions at the Bank and before. But the more I hear about his apparent self-dealing, the more I think he deserves the ax. (Maybe they could reinstate Riza to her old job...).

You may be right, and corruption may not be the best place for me to argue this.  If corruption is cheating, I think we are probably wired to respond differently to widespread abuses of this kind than widespread human rights abuses - if everyone cheats, there is little point in holding yourself to standards.  If everyone tortures, the story is different.

I get on this high horse sometimes because I have frequently been confronted in the last couple of years with the opinion that if a country (the U.S.) has a spotty record on, say, human rights, they have no business criticizing the record of some other country.  Of course, they don't; but that doesn't mean that U.S. criticism (well, in a different era, anyway) can't have a positive effect.  And that outcome seems preferable to guilty silence.

Whoa. The only thing that could make this mess any worse would be if it resulted in landing Jeff Sachs the World Bank job.

Accumulating Peripherals

"I'm not wildly opposed to hypocrisy: when the options are to have someone hypocritically pressure another into doing the right thing, and having no one pressure them into doing the right thing, I'll take the latter. And I have to give PW some credit for taking corruption more seriously than his predecessors."

Where I would disagree with your assessment is your belief that Wolfie takes "corruption more seriously than his predecessors".

Wolfie's so-called "anti-corruption" platform was a ruse; a scam; i.e. just another neo-con ponzy scheme to dupe us into believing that he was fighting corruption. Instead, Wolfie used coercive methods to pressure nations into serving the neo-con Bushies' corporate backers-- and those corrupt regimes who already "play ball" with the corporations that devise this U.S. regime's foreign policy are let "off-the-hook".

In other words, Wolfie's "anti-corruption" scam is just smoke-and-mirrors fraud-- just like his traitorous lies, deceptions & falsehoods perpetrated upon the American people in the lead-up to the neo-con Bush/Cheney junta's disastrous blood-bath in Iraq.

Wolfie is corrupt & hypocritical in the most cynical manner -- lacking any integrity whatsoever.

This is why donor nations & contributors should boycott any and all funds to the World Bank until this despicable little man Wolfie is gone. Wolfie deserves to be put on trial for War Crimes & Crime Against Humanity, along-side Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Feith, Perle, et. al.-- and, certainly should never serve in any office that requires the public trust.

To disagree would be to quibble.  But let me quibble.

I don't want to argue that you are wrong - frankly, I have no idea whether PW is misguided but principled (guided by misguided principles?) or whether he is more venal than that.  But I will ask you this.  You say:

Wolfie's so-called "anti-corruption" platform was a ruse; a scam; i.e. just another neo-con ponzy scheme to dupe us into believing that he was fighting corruption. Instead, Wolfie used coercive methods to pressure nations into serving the neo-con Bushies' corporate backers

In what sense does freezing Chadian loans accomplish this?  The freeze got Chad's government back to the table, and (in theory) will put the bulk of the profits back in the hands of the people.

I'm not impressed generally with this example: the World Bank trusted an untrustworthy government, and the end result is that they were forced to capitulate to an unacceptable degree to its demands.  But I don't see how the intention was to force Chad to serve any corporate backers. 

Bush defends Wolfowitz in the worst way possible:

“My position is that he ought to stay; he ought to be given a fair hearing,” Mr. Bush said. “He’s helped the World Bank recognize that the eradication of world poverty is an important priority for the bank.”

But that is just the purported mission of the World Bank institutions.  Wolfowitz helped the World Bank read it's own mission statement?  If part of what is happening here is that Bank employees are revolting against Wolfowitz's high-handedness, I don't see how this helps his case.... 

It is really not clear what sort of "capitulation" took place in Chad when Wolfowitz and Deby concluded their agreement.

But, I am simply not persuaded that the people of Chad benefitted irrespective of the hype. For example, consider this excerpt:--

...Publicly, the standoff seemed to allow both men to save face. But quietly, in a visit to N'Djamena in July, Wolfowitz and Deby came to a new agreement. This accord allowed for most of the oil revenue to be spent on Chad’s “administration” and “security,” and all money earmarked for a future generations fund to be eliminated. Essentially, this new agreement meant Deby could invest the entire revenue from Chad’s oil fields into bullets and guns. In the stroke of a pen, with no press to herald the change, all of the years of posturing by Bank officials and efforts by civil society groups for development proceeds from the oil revenue had been reduced to a cynical deal: give us the oil, and do with your revenue what you will.

Some argued an exception should be made to the bank accord. Sudanese Janjaweed, on a killing spree in Darfur, were threatening Chad’s stability. Chad needed to protect itself. Perhaps. Or was it that Deby was simply solidifying his iron-fisted control over a country with little public support, while hiding behind the self-righteous banner of self-defense? Would this violence have ever erupted if the oil had not begun to flow in Chad? It may never be entirely clear. But, one year later, indisputable is the fact that World Bank money intended for poverty alleviation is instead being used to buy bullets and guns to fight in one of the most brutal battles being fought in the world today.

It is also painfully clear, as the blood spills on both sides of the Chad border, that the consortium of international oil companies and their allies at the World Bank are being careful to make sure nothing stops a drop of oil from flowing to global markets.

Source:-- World Bank OK With Blood For OIL, http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/05/world_bank_ok_with_blood_for_oil.php

Who wins from this arrangement?

* Arms manufacturers-- and, don't forget that the U.S. sells more munitions, guns, tanks, bombs, etc. than any other nation on earth.

* Oil corporations-- and, don't forget that U.S. companies such as Exxon-Mobil, Shell, etc. are making historical record-level profits.

* Corrupt politicos "on-the-take"-- and, don't forget to study the stock portfolios for the Bush Crime Family, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, their neo-con toadies like Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, et. al.

Clearly Wolfie talks-up his phony "anti-corruption" game to the hilt in public, and then quietly agrees the oh so corrupt-cum-blood-thirsty-take "quietly" -- and, how much do you really think got to the poor in Chad?

My reckoning is that Big Oil & Carlyle Group made out just fine...

I think this article is somewhat out of date.  My only source, though, is personal communcations with an attorney in Chad who has worked on the issue - and I really can't say whether that makes it a better or worse source than the one you cite.

As I understand it, the original agreement called for 70% of the profits to be spent on education, health and other defined social welfare projects.  10% was to go into future social welfare investments, and the gov't could spend the rest as it wished.  After the pipeline was completed, predictably, the legislature repealed or else amended the law that implemented the agreement to allow the money to be spent all at the discretion of the government.  At this stage, much of it was earmarked for military buildup.  In the subsequent negotiations, the Deby government agreed to reinstate the original agreement as regards present-day expenditures, but not money saved for the future.  The government thus gained 10%.  But as things stand at this moment, the remaining 70% must be spent as origninally agreed.  There is no reason to think that this is how things will play out.  

It's not a great program any way you cut it - enforcement is dubious, and activists in Chad are very suspicious of how it will be implemented.  One could well question why the World Bank thought this program, which it touted as a new way to approach poverty, would hold, and by allowing the Deby admin. to pocket the additional 10%, they certainly made it that more likely that future deals along the same lines will fall through.  And one should never, ever trust anybody where oil is concerned.  But I am fairly certain that this article distorts what actually happened in N'Djamena. 

Apologies... I thought that my reply would be posted directly under yours.

My reply is below at:--

On April 30, 2007 - 5:54pm Ego Peto Verum

Frankly, the more one finds out about Wolfie's sordid & squalid deal with Deby, the more one realizes just how unfit he is-- for the hypocrisy & cynicism inherent in his staged-productions feining "anti-corruption" when instead Big Oil, et. al. are profitting big-time at the expense of the people of Chad, are truly nauseating to behold.

[See below at 5:54pm]

OK, I'm not eager to keep the position of defending PW, or to stretch the limits of my knowledge beyond the breaking point, so I'll just say that I'll look into it more based on what you've provided.  What I would say by way of making my case, however, is that an honest anti-corruption effort at the WB, which would include policing deals like that made with Deby, would be a good thing; I would hope that the next Bank President would extend what Wolfowitz has done to the point of making it legit. 

Of course.  Later on in the article, Paul W. is quoted saying: "If only my colleagues weren't so threatened by my superior intellect, and so dim witted, they'd see that these charges of arrogance have no merit.  I'm really one of them."

Or something like that.

Come on, don't fault sex scandals! There are 2 at the moment bringing down the king, when 6 years of battle over policy including clear evidence of treasonously fraudulent reasons for going to war could not.

I say: Go, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, go! I am fairly certain that the smartest thing she did was make sure several other people also had copies of her phone bill records. I just hope that White House official has the initials KR, but, of course, that would be too much to ask for. But I sure hope it is a name we recognize.

The big thing that "Wolfie" got going was a change against family planning.  I heard one of his apologists stating that family planning shouldn't have anything to do with the World Bank, and that abstinance was a legitimate goal.

Poverty and high birth rate are tied together, and anyone who doesn't get that doesn't deserve to be listened to, never mind be the head of an international ANYTHING! 

The Wolf is just one more loser from Geoerge's criminal cabal.  He has gotten more money and fame than he ever should have gotten.  He deserves to be in jail rather than giving himself, his incompetent friends, and his girlfriend tax-free six-figure salaries.  Can anyone here imagine getting a tax-free salary?  Oh, and don't forget:  she was guaranteed glowing performance  reports.  This is the hypocrite who was supposed to get rid of nepotism and corruption in Africa!

I am so sick of what these people have done to our country!

Jan

Did she have any male "contractors" working for her?

Accumulating Peripherals

Indicted by the people, just waiting for the process. que no?

Does that mean Darth Cheney reports to KR?

He's "qualified", but so is Wolfowitz. But his substantive policy views would be a disaster in that job. He has a messianic faith that simply pouring vasts sums of aid money into the third world will somehow kick-start a development revolution. His earlier messianic belief -- that Communist economies could be modernized only through a "shock therapy" approach, not a path of gradual reform -- proved woefully misguided, as any comparison of the relative successes of Russia vs. China over the past two decades should demonstrate; and this one most likely will too, if he's ever given the resources to test it out. Putting him at the head of a lending and grantmaking institution with a hundred billions dollars to play with does not seem like a wise idea.

Accumulating Peripherals

Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia have transitioned reasonably well. So have East Germany, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and Slovakia is doing quite well lately. In fact, basically all countries that leave Communism do pretty well. Some do worse; but guess what? They tend to be the ones that start out with serious handicaps (overwhelmingly rural, saddled with massive rusting, useless industrial plants, poorly educated, far from capitalist trading partners.) If you look at Czechia, Poland and Slovenia, what is their salient feature, besides Sachs's involvement? They were the most industrialized, best educated countries in Eastern Europe, and the closest to the West, apart from E. Germany.

Sachs was also "involved" in Russia. He claims his recommendations were never "really" implemented there; in fact, his recommendations were so ill-suited to the Russian situation that they were impossible, as a matter of practice, to implement. They required complete and immediate control of all levers of economic power by a like-minded group of technocratic experts. In the real world, you never get that kind of total control, and your ideas need to be structured so that a little bit of them will help a little, and a lot will help a lot. Sachs's "shock therapy" idea was such that a lot might have helped a lot, but a little was worse than nothing.

There was an idea circulating in the late '80s that it was impossible for an economy to make a gradual transition from planning to the market. Sachs became the champion of that idea. It was utterly wrong. That should have suggested to Sachs that revolutionary One Big Ideas for Fixing the World Now tend to be misguided. Instead, he has come up with a sort of inverse of his earlier One Big Idea. People should stay far away from it.

Accumulating Peripherals