Paul Wolfowitz Architect of Destruction

Paul Wolfowitz is in the news again, this time for hypocritical and self serving actions taken while President of the World Bank.

Mr. Wolfowitz came to the World Bank after serving in the George W. Bush administration as US Deputy Secretary of Defence, the right hand man of former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield. Wolfowitz was one of the super hawks in the so-called neo- conservatives in the Republican Party. He was one of the chief architects of the Iraq war.

As seems to be common in the Bush administration he was rewarded for his faulty vision of the dynamics of the Middle East and for total incompetence in the planning for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by being supported by Bush for the high profile and high paying position of President of the World Bank.

You might remember that Paul Bremer, who made a total muck up of the administration of Iraq after the fall of Saddam, was presented by President Bush the Medal of Freedom, the highest possible US award to a civilian. Rewarding incompetency and corruption is a trademark of the Bush White House so the continuing support of Wolfowitz should come as no surprise.

Wolfowitz stormed into the World Bank vowing to clean up corruption. So what does he do? The latest controversy Mr. Wolfowitz is involved with is the generous (about $60,000 a year) pay raise he gave to his girl friend who just happens to also work at the World Bank. Then he lied about the Board of Directors being aware of and of approving the raise.

So much for his worthless pledge to stamp out corruption.

The bigger question in all of this is how do such flawed, ruthless, self serving, incompetent, sorry men rise to positions of great power and prestige in the United States and around the world? George W. Bush seems to have surrounded himself with a great many of them. The old saying “birds of a feather flock together” seems to be all too true in the corrupt Bush administration.

But why do good people who have the power of the vote put up with it? Could it be that Americans are that lazy and uncaring about how their government and high ranking officials operate? That is, as long as they continue to get their little slice of the pie handed out by the politicians.

Could it be that so much of the real power is behind the scenes and elected officials are just so many puppets on a string? Including to a great degree the President of the United States himself. Are elected officials so in debt to the special interest groups who provide huge amounts of the many millions of dollars required to gain them office so that “the special interest groups men and women” are appointed to positions of power even if they stink as honest administrators and are lousy human beings?

Or is it that it just the way this world works?

Do ruthless, dishonest, and ambitious men often rise to the top because they are ruthless, dishonest, and ambitious? Is it they are more than willing to do what ever it takes to reach their self serving goals? They seem to roll right over more decent people on their way to the top. Is it get out of their way or be crushed?

I wish I had all of the answers but I do not. I only know that in the high powered world of power politics bad behavior like Mr Wolfowitz exhibits is often rewarded. Even when the behavior is totally unacceptable the punishment is often only a tiny slap to the wrist.

Again consider Wolfowitz, his unacceptable actions, and the consequences of those actions. After a few days of deciding what to do about the man the Board of Directors of the World Bank does — nothing.

Wolfowitz says he is sooooo very sorry and remains as President. This man has helped to cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars by pushing hard for a war that didn’t have to be fought. His actions have contributed to over 3200 US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, with more than 25,000 wounded. His decisions and recomendations directly contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and to the withholding of funds to member countries of the World Bank that has taken funds away from the poorest of the poor. But yet he is again rewarded.

Paul Wolfowitz. What a shameless man.

See how social networking in the right circles can be so rewarding? It pays to be part of the Bush cartel.

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