Friday, April 13, 2007

Wolf in the World Bank's Clothing

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Leftwing supporters of the invasion of Iraq have often made the claim that Paul Wolfowitz represented the true spirit of Neo-Conservatism - a man with a genuine democratic, humanitarian instinct. They contrast this with the greed of say Dick Cheney.

Personally, I have always been rather sceptical of this - Wolfowitz seemed to do little to champion the cause of human rights when he was ambassador to Indonesia. Still I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he started at the World Bank (there were lots of people I would have preferred but I thought I'd reserve my judgment of him once his performance became clear).

So I read with some interest this rather generous review of his tenure in the New Yorker, once again willing to at least consider the positive picture painted.

And then I read this.

Somehow it just seems so symptomatic of what went wrong in Iraq. Putative champions of democracy and anti-corruption being undemocratic and corrupt themselves.

Wonderful.

6 comments:

|3run0 said...

Oops.. Posted my Wolfowitz comment on the wrong thread. To keep true to form, I could point out that Harry's has an http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/04/12/rip_kurt_vonnegut.php on Vonegut's passing

|3run0 said...

Now that was bizarre html... Here is a proper link

Terence said...

woah - for a moment I was like, "no way, Kurt Vonnegut has been implicated in the World Bank scandal too"...

|3run0 said...

It would be even scarier if you thought he was Wolfie's love interest...

Terence said...

aarrkk! I just visualised that. Grimace.

[shudders and decides to turn computer off for the day]

Alexander said...
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