Steely resolve
The Wolfowitz Matter is fairly enthralling. The level of narcissism and self-absorbtion that must be involved rivets the attention.
Wolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her “intractable position” in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit…The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said some board members hope a strong statement of dissatisfaction would persuade the Bush administration to withdraw support for Wolfowitz. But the White House views the stakes as larger than control of the World Bank, said a senior administration official, with U.S. resolve and power on the line — in particular the longstanding right of the United States to name the head of the institution.
‘Resolve’ – they’re big on resolve in this administration. Well they would be, wouldn’t they – given how incompetent they are, given their inability to take advice or listen to people not in the magic circle, given their insistence on putting political hacks with no relevant experience in crucial, often highly technical jobs – how could they not value ‘resolve’? That way stupid, venal, greedy, mindless mistakes become tests of character, which they always pass with flying colours simply by being obstinate and refusing ever to admit error. What a good wheeze. Merit, ability, experience, knowledge, good judgment, all go out the window, because all that matters is resolve and power. Great! Terrific! They can’t find their own rumps in the dark, but they’re resolute and thuggish; perfect! Just what one wants running 1) the US and 2) powerful international institutions. Spiffy.
“Mr. Wolfowitz placed his own personal interests in opposition to the interests of the institution,” the report found. “In so doing, he undermined the legal safeguards the institution had in place to protect itself from the harm it has unfortunately now come to experience.” The report reserved its sharpest judgment for the public struggle Wolfowitz has waged to save his job in recent weeks, criticizing the bank’s probe in the press. “It has turned an internal governance matter into an ugly public relations campaign,” the report said, asserting that in unleashing “public attacks,” Wolfowitz “denigrates the very institution he was selected to lead.”
Well but that’s because it’s not about the World Bank, it’s about Paul Wolfowitz. Let’s get our priorities straight, shall we?
I woke up this morning listening to BBC Radio 4 and heard some bloke with a North American accent whining about how the efforts to oust Mr W amounted to a ‘coup’ and was all because of ‘anti-American Europeans’. I’d just woken up and couldn’t remember the name sorry, however it was a fantastic (in the literal sense) ad hominen defence of Paul without answering any of the charges against him. Wish I could remember the name.
Some PNAC rent-a-quote type chap I guess.
I dunno, Dave, in a way I’m not so sure it is a little bit of politics. I hated the corruption and venality of the Clinton admin, and said so noisily; I despised it when Clinton told a roomfull of rich people who’d paid LottaBucks per head to have lunch with him, ‘Your money shouldn’t get you influence, but it should get you access.’ And I would despise this pre-emption of expertise and knowledge by clannish hackish loyalty if it were a Dem doing it.
BJN, was it on Today? If so it should be easy to find out the name: they list their interviews. Maybe I’ll have a look.
Canada’s “New Government” (the polite neocons) is also supporting Wolfie.
Spiffy.
More from Dave at the Galloping Beaver
Yes, it was Today; some guy named David Rifkind (or perhaps Rifkin), who was in the Reagan and Bush 41 Justice departments. He sounds…not clever.
Let’s not forget that Wolfowitz was one of the chief architects of the invasion of Iraq. Talk about incompetence! In what was was he deserving of a promotion to head the World Bank? I consider him a war criminal who should be in the dock at the Hague.
BTW, I’ve read that he and Christopher Hitchens are pals. It’s a wiggly world.
I think the Libertarian response to this is the best: Excess concentration of power inevitably leads to narcissistic “leaders” and corruption. Maybe we don’t really need a “World Bank” at all? Maybe it’s just nothing but pork and corruption and self-serving policies that harm the recipient nations more than they help? Wolfowitz is just a symptom of a deeper problem.
I do not like Wolfowitz. That scene in the execrable Fahrenheit 9/11 where he licks his comb made me retch and he is as guilty as Bush for the lack of effective post invasion planning, but I am not convinced that he is as culpable in this as the majority consensus tells me.
The Wall Street Journal (yes, I KNOW) has run a couple of articles based on the actual documents in the case, and it seems that PW is guilty of little more than credulity. After all, he offered to recuse himself from any involvement in decision concerning Riza and was told by the ethics committee (no less) that this was not necessary.
There is also good evidence (not least from PW deputy who has now denied that he ever thought such a thing) that Riza actually deserved her promotion and that her salary increase was commensurate with that. Certainly one more capable and intelligent woman in a position of influence can’t be a bad thing.
“Libertarian response to this is the best: Excess concentration of power inevitably leads to narcissistic “leaders” and corruption”
Why is this ‘Libertarian’? It was common sense 200, even 100 years ago: Lord Acton’s ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Tying it to a political ‘philosophy’ based on the idea that the state should get out of the way of rich people who want to do drugs and shaft the poor merely devalues a cliché into a polemic.
Ophelia:
Can yuo kindly answer Christopher Hitchens’ question: Why should a career woman be forced out of her job when she had done nothing wrong?
And: why should she not dig her heels in and demand a lot of compensation? She had every right to expect to continue in her job, was even short-listed for a promotion, and so had reasonable expectations about her future financial situation.
How would any of us react in her position? If it was tried on me I would be issuing invitations to go forth an multiply, but not in so many words (to quote Woddy Allen).
Have you looked at more than the front story? It seems that there are a lot of people with a lot of money at stake trying to remove him.
It also appears that he took the problem to the banks ethics committee BEFORE taking the action, and that their directions were partly at fault.
And the lady herself appears to have had a strong case for compensation, in that HER career was being compromised because of their relationship.
If two Chris’s agree it must be right! PW’s “crime” has been to attempt to combat corruption, particularly in linking funding with good government, and not surprisingly this has upset a lot of powerful people. Alright he wasn’t as clever as he could have been in dealing with the Riza problem, and he doesn’t seem to have been given much help by the committee that should have dealt with it, but that’s just an excuse. The real reason the World Bank’s staff want him out is because he’s on their case.
And as the EU’s financial reports are rejected by independent auditors every year I don’t seem them as occupying the moral high ground on this issue.
I realise that a lot of people dislike Paul Wolfowitz for a variety of reasons but I am surprised at the suggestion that he is a political ‘hack’. If he were, I think he would have risen much higher than the number two position at the Pentagon. In fact, he has always struck me as a highly principled and modest man. It’s true that he identified Iraq as the main security threat in the Middle East long before any one else had paid any attention and worked diligently at pressing that view, but I see no reason to suspect he did not honestly hold it to be true, in which case his only crime if he was wrong was to be wrong. As far as ‘one of the chief architects of the Iraq war’ is concerned, I think that is nonsense. I don’t think he had more than an advisory strategic role.
It seems pretty clear to me that he is the victim ion this World Bank farrago. He made a serious attempt to recuse himself from all dealings with Riza from the offset but was not allowed to. If he was not leading a determined and effective ant-corruption campaign at the Bank at the moment, I doubt anybody would have found anything untoward in his dealings. Far from being a ‘hack’, I think this affair illustrated his political naivety. I hope he sticks it out, but I think the pigs at the trough will squeeze him out eventually.
If it is knee-jerk anti-Americanism to dismiss Wolfowitz’s protestations because of his role in the Iraq war, it is similarly naive to paint the man as some hapless victim of the very organisation he is the president of.
Chris Whiley
“EU’s financial reports are rejected by independent auditors every year”
– my first thoughts exactly.
There is a fascinating comparative study available to someone with the resource to examine the shenanegans in both Washington and Brussels.
I thought the problem with the EU budget was that the member states don’t spend the money they’re given properly, or account for it, so the EU accounts can’t be signed off (I seem to remember the member states refusing to do anything to guarantee the spending themselves). But since the EU member states are the culprits themselves they’re accountable to themselves, so it is really their internal problem if you will. Whereas the World Bank is accountable to its members for the spending in a minority of countries. [obviously it isn’t quite as bipolar as this, since some EU countries put a lot of money in, and don’t get a huge amount out]
PM, yes, I was thinking of the Eurostat issues as covered [only it would appear] in the Private Eye. If the baseline data is skewed (allegedly, allegedly god damn it!), then the whole finance operation is compromised…
“If it is knee-jerk anti-Americanism to dismiss Wolfowitz’s protestations because of his role in the Iraq war”
I don’t think it’s knee-jerk anti-Americanism so much as knee-jerk anti-Wolfowitzism. he seems to be the neoconservative that everybody loves to hate. I’m not quite sure why. I think it has something to do with the fact that he actually is idenftifiable as a neoconservteve (whereas most of the people to whom the label is appended turn out to be plain old ‘conservatives’), and something to do with the psychological effect of ‘Wolf’ in the name summoning up all sorts of dark Jungian stirrings. Of course, for some the presence of ‘-owitz’ in the name is much more alarming but they are hardly worth wasting time on.
Nick S, I thought the Eurostat problem was more with plain old fraud rather than skewing data (although I can’t say I’ve followed it closely, it started a few years ago didn’t it? is it still going?)
PM, yes, I was avoiding that term. And yes, I believe, at least on the basis of the Eye’s reports that it has continued, and Brussels has found it very hard to indict itself over it.
Stalwarts like Kinochio have leapt to its shoddy defense too, which makes it all the more excruciating.
There’s fraud and financial incompetence that no European PLC would stand, evident in all the Brussels institutions, and evident the DGs’ agencies (e.g. CoR). Everyone knows it’s happening but there’s no political will to deal internally. My degree in European Politics exposed a few issues to me in the 90s and I have followed things on and off since, and I have someone in journalism in Brussels who keeps me up to speed. He does tell me that Washington is racking up the really big points though…
John M: “As far as ‘one of the chief architects of the Iraq war’ is concerned, I think that is nonsense. I don’t think he had more than an advisory strategic role.”
The guy was deputy secretary of “defense,” and, in your own words, “he identified Iraq as the main security threat in the Middle East long before any one else had paid any attention and worked diligently at pressing that view.” Maybe “architect” was the wrong word. How about “warmonger”?
BTW: Google “Paul Wolfowitz” + architect Iraq war, and you’ll get nearly 300K results.
Doug, Google “George Bush”+genius and you get 800k plus results. Google proves nothing!
Jeez! And all along I was thinking that GW was a genius.
I thought we already used the google to prove that OB was a drunk.
“Maybe “architect” was the wrong word. How about “warmonger”?”
I don’t think that works any better. Wolfowitz supported the war, of course, but there wouldn’t have been one, I don’t think, if his analysis had been accepted as correct much earlier. He was a ‘war-monger’ in the same sense that anti-war demonstrators were ‘pro-Saddamites’.
I just wanted to highlight what appears to me to be the key point in the WaPo article that OB linked to:
“[T]he investigating committee found that Riza had no legitimate grievance meriting a settlement. It flatly dismissed Wolfowitz’s contention that the ethics committee forced him to supervise the details of her contract, saying that he could have delegated them to a vice president.”
I don’t know about the machinations going on at the WB, but I would say that in view of Wolfowitz’s role in instigating the invasion of Iraq, I wouldn’t trust him to be an ethical fellow. I’m not sure that “warmonger” is the correct word for him, because war was not necessarily his preferred method for the US to seize control of Iraq. I think his thinking was along the lines of Malcolm X’s dictum: “By any means necessary.”
“Why should a career woman be forced out of her job when she had done nothing wrong?”
She shouldn’t. Maybe Wolfowitz should have declined the job. It’s rather like the Bush admin handing all the fat Iraq reconstruction contracts to their dearest friends (leaving UK contractors for instance standing around wondering ‘Huh?’). You’d think it would have occurred to them that that might look just slightly dubious.
OB: “Maybe Wolfowitz should have declined the job”
A number of other senior members of the bank have their spouses working for the same organisation. It seems as if there was one rule for PW and one for those who really do have their hands in the cash register.
I think the distinction here is that Wolfowitz would have been Riza’s immediate supervisor. You do agree that supervisors and their subordinates shouldn’t be involved in sexual relationships with each other, no?
Yeh, I’ve seen reports of that. If it’s true it does raise questions.
Maybe there is a stricter rule for the top boss? Then again maybe that was an ad hoc creation.
Hey, make me one!
I was answering R’ham there, I crossed with Pyotr. I meant I’ve seen reports that there are spouses at the WB.
Does anyone know if there is in fact a different rule (in place before PW arrived) for the top boss? Don’t make me look it up…
The key to this is that Wolfowitz could have and should have delegated the task of finding a new position for his lover to a VP – someone without his personal involvement and interest in her career. The fact that he was aware enough of the perceived conflict to go to the ethics committee in the first place means that that when they put it back in his lap – for WHATEVER reasons – he should then have delegated the task.
Think about it this way: Does the PRESIDENT of the World Bank need to personally involve himself in ANY hiring decisions below the Senior VP level? Absolutely not. So Wolfowitz’s decision to handle Riza’s promotion personally using his connections and influence was unethical, period. Riza’s competence or deservingness for a nearly 40% raise has nothing to do with it, except insofar as the massive pay scale upgrade makes Wolfowitz’s decision to personally involve himself in securing her a new position look even worse. But the ethical violation itself is not merely a matter of appearance, it is a display of nepotistic cronyism of the sort that conflict-of-interest rules are specifically intended to thwart: The allegations made above that the World Bank itself is corrupt in various ways in no way mitigates Wolfowitz’s display of corruption: The accusation of World Bank hypocrisy is a transparent tu quoque fallacy maneuver.
That Wolfowitz has responded to being caught out on an obvious conflict-of-interest error with a massive PR campaign is perhaps more blameworthy than his actual transgression. Hell, he’s even blamed Riza herself for part of this – in a victim-blaming move characteristic of a Bush administration crony, as OB correctly pointed out.
Yes, Wolfowitz is one of the smart, competent Bush administration cronies, which is an improvement over most of them. But he’s no more ethical, and has never shown any signs of being more ethical. Leaping to his defense because the World Bank is chock-full of other people with no better ethics seems… dubious.
I’ve read, with no backing links at this time, arguments that his vaunted anti-corruption campaign was meaningless publicity and blather with absolutely no follow through, a total lack of management comeptency (Assistant SecDef was his very first management position, and he left key positions unfilled for months if not years, and there appeared to be a pretty universal dislike of the man among his subordinates.
Why should we believe he is a victim of a nefarious conspiracy?
Rockingham:
I got the idea that PW would be supervising Riza from the WaPo article:
“The ethics committee told Wolfowitz he could not directly supervise Riza, who also worked at the bank, after he arrived in 2005.”
BTW, did you know that the State Dept. job that PW set Riza up in was paying her a salary higher than that of Secretary of State Rice?
Here’s an interesting article on the affair:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2079878,00.html
Juicy quote:
“According to Mr [Xavier] Coll’s [head of HR at the WB] notes: “At the end of the conversation Mr Wolfowitz became increasingly agitated and said that he was ‘tired of people … attacking him’ and ‘you should get your friends to stop it’. Mr Wolfowitz said, ‘If they fuck me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too’,” naming several senior bank staff he felt were vulnerable.”
Nice guy. I don’t care whether his name is Wolfowitz or Lambson.
Pyotr, hey, look at my first post – I don’t like the guy, I just think that he is not being treated fairly by the bank and that maybe there is a hidden agenda in trying to oust him.
And Xavier Coll is not some dedicated long term bank employee, he is a career politico like PW. He has changed his story several times so I am not entirely predisposed to believe him.
Wolfowitz’s reported statement about his ability to fuck his opponents is not altogether inexplicable if he believes he is the victim of a smear campaign. As the executive directors of the bank are all politicians from their respective countries, any scandal is likely to ruin their careers.
As to Riza’s salary, she is not being paid by the state department so the comparison to Rice’s salary is irrelevant. In the UK it is quite usual for the top levels of the civil service to be paid more than the government ministers they serve. There are other, less tangible, benefits to being the political head of a government department.
OB, I don’t know whether there is a different rule for the top boss, but why should there be? Arguably there is greater scope for nepotism at the lower (i.e. less visible)levels of any organisation.
My hat is complete. I am safe now from the Lizard People.
There is a Wall Street Journal article the reference to which I have unfortunately lost. It quotes a memo in which Wolfowitz is told by the ethics committee to effect the compensation dela because he is the one with the authority to do so.
Which is quite extraordinary: she’s having to give up her job on the orders of the ethics committee because of a potential conflict of interest in any dealings she might have with him and now he’s being ordered to deal directly with her on a financial matter.
It is astonishing how determined people are to ignore the record in order to satisfy their prejudices against Mr Wolfowitz (how should that be pronounced, by the way?).
Here are a few quotes taken from the Washington Post articles (but the documents are all on the public record) that cast a different light on things. First of all there is this from Roberto Danino, the bank’s then general counsel to PW’s lawyers before PW accepted the job (May 27 2005):
“First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member.”
Notice that PW brought this up officially before anyone else. Not so sneaky, it seems to me. Perhaps he was playing a clever neocon long game (noble lies and all that)?
Of cours, if that perfectly normal proposal had been accepted there would have been no issue now or at any time (PW was not, of course, a line manager to Riza. I think there were about three management layers between them). But it was not accepted. Instead an ethics committee was established to look into the issue. And what did they decide? Oddly enough, they decided that (in a letter from Melkert the head of the committee to PW):
“The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction.”
There then followed a long exchange between Coll and PW which Coll found at the time (he seems to be shifting his position now) to be satisfactory, but Riza rejected the offer made to her. I don’t blame her, I think she may have felt a little hard done by getting kicked out of a good job with excellent promotion prospects because I had slept with a bank manager official before they even came to the bank. It was then that PW acted and instructed Coll to make a particular settlement, just as, let’s remember, the ethics committee had told him to.
And what did the ethics committee think? Presumably, they took a dim view of the deal, given how Melkert is now so damning of PW. But then we have this from Melkert in a letter to PW in October:
“because the outcome is consistent with the Committee’s findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed.”
So. Wolfowitz attempted to recuse himself and was refused. He was instructed by the ethics committee and acted. The ethics committee agreed that his action was appropriate and that the matter was closed. So where has the scandal gone? It surely can’t have anything to do with PW heading up the first serious anti-corruption campaign at the Bank? That must be a coincidence.
“Which is quite extraordinary: she’s having to give up her job on the orders of the ethics committee because of a potential conflict of interest in any dealings she might have with him and now he’s being ordered to deal directly with her on a financial matter.”
Patently absurd, of course. A stitch up? The very thought! I wonder whether anyone is going to reprimnd that ethics committee for being so frankly crap, though?
Note how there are two sides to this story, yet it is mostly written so as to set off the kind of response OB made. Is there any possibility here of confirmatory bias acting in the writers?
ChrisPer’s point is well made. All I have seen so far is actual documents which go in Wolfowitz’s favour and a lot of interpretation against him. On balance I am leaning to his side, not least because I have seen no refutation of the documents’ contents yet.
Who cares? They’re all rich, corrupt, scumbags. Watching them fight amongst themselves is the only fun we’re likely to get amongst all the misery they dish out. I honestly don’t care about the rights and wrongs of one particular spat, Wolfowitz, and anyone in a similar position, has already done enough harm in the world to deserve anything they get.
Or is that not considered enough, as a position?
Dave. If it weren’t too late I’d say stand against Gordon Brown, your fiver gets my signature ;-)
Dave, I couldn’t agree more.
John M, you make a very good case. It appears that you’ve read more on this case than I have. I see now that Wolfowitz really is not a knave, but a hapless fool who allowed himself to be maneuvered by his corrupt colleagues into a position where they could make it appear that he is, indeed, a knave.
“OB, I don’t know whether there is a different rule for the top boss, but why should there be?”
1) But my question was not whether there should be but whether there was; it was a factual question not a moral one. I was asking if there was a clear, written, understandable reason for the different rules that had been mentioned – the fact that there are spouses at the WB.
2) As for why should there be, I can think of several reasons, having to do with appearances (Caesar must not only be, but be seen to be), public relations, authority and reputation, etc.
Chris Wiley – this talking point has gone the conservative rounds. “PW’s “crime” has been to attempt to combat corruption, particularly in linking funding with good government…” Actually, that is hilariously inaccurate. While Wolfowitz was concerned enough about corruption to sever loans to rural india, he was so unconcerned about corruption that his major move at the bank has been to try to install a bank office in Baghdad. Now, one of the things about Iraq is that it is, on any list you care to consult, either the most or in the top ten of the most corrupt governments on earth. So the anti-corruption drive turns out to be (oh, the surprise!) a selective mechanism for punishing various countries, especially those that might not be toeing the Bush line, while it is simply ignored when rewarding American clients. How very … typical.
As for poor Reza, hmm. You would think that her violation of Bank rules by not reporting her work for the defense department in Iraq in 2003-2004 – a plum mission awarded her by Wolfowitz, who was in the Defense department at the time – might actually have impinged on her chances of advancement. In other words, another less connected person would have gotten fired.
Corruption in the case of these Bushies is, as so often, merely a mask for the syndrome of psycho powermongering.
The brainless mantra about Wolfowitz fighting corruption (in the face of the evidence that he isn’t, even professionally) will continue to make the rounds, however. Memes never die. This is why truth, alas, matters less and less.
I see no reason why it should be Wolfowitz’s “anti-corruption drive” motivating his opponents when none of them wanted to see the man in office in the first place, based entirely on his provenance and wider political issues unconnected with any policy he may later have implemented.
Thanks, roger.
The idea that any Bushite is in trouble because he is a revolutionary fighting corruption is utterly laughable. Just like Rumsfeld was a REBEL against the OLD WAYS of fighting wars by screwing up in Iraq.
Wingnut Welfare will take care of them all, though. They don’t pay for any of their mistakes in any real sense.
Which raises another, more general point – if Wolfowitz is really profoundly concerned about corruption, what on earth is he doing working for the Bush administration? The people who put industry insiders at the head of all the government departments that are supposed to be regulating them?
Cross-post. Two minds with but a single thought, Brian!
Hitchens is a big fan of Wolfowitz, and Nick Cohen thought he was great when they met at Annabelle’s nightclub. They somehow deluded themselves that Wolfowitz meant to liberate Iraq, and working backwards from there that he was somehow liberal when amb. to Indonesia and before that the Philippines (in fact Wolfie made sure Marcos had plenty of guns and backed Suharto for much of the time). Incidentally, I am not sure “incompetence” describes the Bush plan for Iraq – it has gone badly because their aims were wrong, not just their execution
You are right on, Ann On!
Ann On, Wolfowitz aside, what on earth was wrong with the aim of removing a murderous dictator like Saddam? The invasion was rushed, there was far too little international consensus and co-operation, the post invasion planning was non existent, and apparently no one bothered to pick up a book or newspaper to read about the sectarian hatreds within Islam, but the aim of deposing a thug like Saddam was right.
Now, who’s for doing the same to Mugabe?
Yeah, Mugabe needs to be disappeared, but isn’t that up to the Zimbabweans?
“The invasion was …, but ….”
We Slavs have a saying: “If your mouth were a garden, you could grow mushrooms in it.”
In the context of the existence of the UN, and in the absence of its sanction, the USA had exactly the same right to invade Iraq as Iraq did to invade Kuwait, which is to say, none.
It doesn’t matter what you say about the moral intentions of the ‘coalition’, or the iniquity of the UN’s actual record on human rights. Bush and co. just didn’t have any right to do that, it was an exercise of pure force. And that’s the problem, because where does it end? When a superpower acts as if it sees no overarching restraint to its own will, every other state assumes the right to do the same. We move a significant step closer to a reversion to pre-1945 values, where overt military action is the norm in international relations. In a nuclear world, where all our livelihoods depend on intricate global connections, we ought to be seeking methods of restraining state power, not letting it loose for a contest of strength.
And simple, practical men will tell me I’m wrong, and then they will unleash hell, as such men have done throughout history.
There’s an interesting summary of the affair at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6655019.stm.
I think Wolfowitz is innocent. What is described as “extraordinary” in my last post was indeed the situation.
“Which raises another, more general point – if Wolfowitz is really profoundly concerned about corruption, what on earth is he doing working for the Bush administration?”
After all, no true Scotsman …
Well Wolfowitz is gone, the till drawer is open once more and everyone can relax.
John M, are you saying that Wolfowitz was some kind of guardian of the till drawer? That’s gonna take some ‘splainin’!
Pyotr “Yeah, Mugabe needs to be disappeared, but isn’t that up to the Zimbabweans?”
Yeah, and aren’t they are doing a bang up job? Probably to do with the fact that they have to spend too much time looking for food to forment a revolution – but maybe that was Mugabe’s plan all along. Face it, there are times when intervention to rescue the people of a county from oppression is justified, everything else is just cant.
Pyotr “”The invasion was …, but ….”
We Slavs have a saying: “If your mouth were a garden, you could grow mushrooms in it.””
Well I cannot think of a more elegant way in which I have been told I am full of shit (and that happens quite a bit) but it doesn’t amount to an argument does it? Have a nice weekend all!
The American aims in Iraq were to demonstrate their overwhelming power by removing Saddam and dominating the Iraqi political and economic system with an occupation to mould the country as they saw fit: The occupation and the removal of Saddam went together, they were both simple demonstrations of force. Of course it is good that Saddam has gone, but that good is outweighed by the bad of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi’s and a miserable colonial occupation. The US never intended removing Saddam then benignly handing Iraq to Iraqi’s, and people who thought this was the plan were fooling themselves. Its no use them wailing about US “incompetence” -the incompetence is their own, they incompetenly mis judged US aims and methods before the Iraq attack.
“lets do the same for Mugabe”: There is a real indigenous resistance to Mugabe, in the shape of the Movement for Democratic Change (and others)- don’t you think we should ask them if they want an Iraq-style “liberation” ? Perhaps you don’t want to ask because they are likely to take one look at Iraq and say “no thanks”.
The best support we can offer to the MDC is allowing Zim. exiles to live and organise in the UK rather than trying to deport them all the time, or making them live in poverty here.
This is precisely the role Britain played in relation to South Africa (despite the best efforts of M Thatcher) and in the end , although it was a long and often bloody struggle, it helped with the end of Apartheid.
Dave – China and India. Their ability to clone any military technology within impressively short timesacales ought to be enough of a brake on the ‘free’ world’s profligate overseas ass-hattery.
Ann On, you are confusing intentions with execution. And I don’t think that I have advocated an Iraq style invasion for Zimbabwe, just removal of an obscene individual. The problem with the Iraq invasion was that the US rushed into it, presumably to give the impression that something was happening in the war on terror. Personally I think that they should have concentrated on properly establishing a strong Afgan democracy following the invasion there in 2001 (were you against that as well?), while at the same time making a proper case for regime change in Iraq, such case including force if all else failed.
The Iraq ‘occupation’ is not colonial. There is an elected Iraqi government and the US and the UK have consistently said that they will leave if requested to do so by said government. In the meantime, it is incumbent on them to try and stem the tide of sectarian violence.
And how exactly are the Americans to blame for incidents like this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6660585.stm
which was targeted by Iraqis at Iraqi civilians and not American troops?
Rockingham, I doubt that there will be any military removal of Mugabe, so the argument is academic. But since we are talking about endangering people – even people’s food supply, as you point out — how are we going to intervene on the prosperous Northern economies – the U.S., Canada, Japan, the EU – who seem intent on continuing to add huge quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere in spite of the huge and known threat this poses to vast swathes of the Southern Hemisphere? On the one hand, there is the status symbol of the big vehicle, on the other hand, growing rice and millet in Southern India. Wouldn’t you agree that if these states continue to promise the taming of the vehicles of mass destruction but, in effect, do nothing, that their leadership should be removed?
But if we have learned our lesson from Iraq and might be cautious in simply invading and occupying these countries, perhaps we can support simpler interventions. For instance, we could oppose the attempt by the U.S. to impose its IP standards on the rest of the world. By trying to crush Thailand’s production of generic anti-aids drugs, for instance, the U.S. is putting many more people at risk in Africa than Mugabe is. I’d like to hear the humanitarian interventionist approach. Surely we need some sticks here, since carrots haven’t been working.
I don’t quarrel with the overall point, but is this actually true?
“By trying to crush Thailand’s production of generic anti-aids drugs, for instance, the U.S. is putting many more people at risk in Africa than Mugabe is.”
It sounds (off the top of my head) wrong to me. Zimb. has a much bigger population than Thailand, doesn’t it? And mass starvation is a more inclusive threat than Aids, at least unless the infection rate is extremely high – more like South Africa’s than Thailand’s – no?
I’m wrong about the populations. Marie-Therese looked it up (as I should have – was rushing) and tells me Thailand has 62 million, Zimb 11. (62 million! In that tiny country. Wow – I didn’t know that. That’s some heavy duty population density.) Okay – depending on the infection rate, roger’s point could be quite right.
Roger, I don’t dispute your point, but it doesn’t invalidate mine. Taking action against all those things is justified, but they are not mutually exclusive. You seem to be saying that Mugabe should remain in power until the US sorts out its drug patents. I am not sure the inhabitants of Harare would agree with you.
Anyway as I said, I have not advocated a military removal of Mugabe. Intervention means more than invasion. But it also means more than some pisspoor and never enforced travel restrictions by the EU. Intervention should be effective and should be planned soberly with as wide an international consensus as is practicable, which was not the case with the invasion of Iraq – a point I have made above.
OB, I think you misunderstood roger’s point about Thailand. I believe their government is attempting to market globally anti-HIV/AIDS drugs that would be much cheaper, and therefore more available, than the patented ones, but that attempt is being blocked by certain US agents. He was saying (I think) that the opposition to marketing these drugs is putting more lives at risk *in Africa* than Mugabe’s rule is.
To market globally? I thought Thailand wanted only to market cheaper drugs in Thailand? Isn’t that it? If I remember correctly, there is a legal provision – within WTO rules, it must be – that makes that possible in medical emergencies: patents can be waived in cases of this kind, but I think it’s on a nation by nation basis: each nation can negotiate its own deal, but I don’t think anyone can do the global thing. Drug companies can, if they want to go that road, but I don’t think countries can…
I guess I’ll have to look it up.
“Iran is to start manufacturing
“Islamic bicycles” for women that will conceal their figures,…[A]n Iran newspaper said; “this bike will have a cabin which will conceal half of the cyclist’s body”.
Islamic Bikes for women,, I tell ye. Somebody should tell the Iranian government to get “ON YER BIKE,” or – to take “a running jump” or – “to go an take a hike”. The women should then sue the government for coercing them to cycle in dangerous conditions.
I noticed also in same space, the following
Wolfowitz to resign in June
/france24Public/en/archives/news/business/20070518-WorldBank-Wolfowitz-to-resign-in-June.html
World Bank President Wolfowitz resigns
/en/archives/news/business/20070518-WorldBank-Wolfowitz-to-resign-in-June …
Yep, Wolfowitz gave in yesterday.
Drat, the articles I’ve found aren’t quite clear – it looks as if Thailand is working on cheap drugs for Thailand, but it’s not spelled out.
Anyway the US is putting the screws on, to the disgust of Clinton (B) and MSF among others, so the basic point is the same.
“Thailand’s ruling junta has earned a reputation for ineptitude since it seized power in September. But the generals are now winning points worldwide for an attack on pharmaceutical giants like Merck, Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. By invoking vague World Trade Organization rules that allow governments to void drug patents during public- health emergencies, Bangkok has since November approved generic production of two popular anti-AIDS drugs and one blood thinner, slashing their cost to patients by up to 90 percent. Bangkok is now urging companies to begin discounting other drugs; Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla warned last month that “if negotiations fail, we are ready to act.
Experts have likened the WTO drug rules to nuclear weapons—deterrents best never used. Since the rules came into effect in 2001, drug companies have largely avoided becoming targets by slashing prices or extending royalty-free licenses to poor nations. Thailand is among the first middle-income countries to actually suspend a foreign drug patent under the WTO rules. With a per capita income of $2,750 a year, Thailand represents a class of nations that could put a huge dent in drug-company profits if they follow suit.
Humanitarian groups like Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders argue that overpriced meds can cripple public-health budgets in emerging nations like Thailand as well as in poorer places, and have encouraged other governments to follow Bangkok’s lead. But Western governments are alarmed. U.S. trade representatives have urged Thailand to reconsider its decision; Abbott Laboratories of Chicago announced it would no longer market new drugs in Thailand after the junta issued a generic license for one of its AIDS drugs. Anti-AIDS activists called the pullout “immoral,” but advocates of free trade see Thailand’s move as a big threat. “This is a massive political movement against intellectual property,” says Philip Stevens, director of the health program at the International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. “It’s not specific to Thailand, and it seeks to make medicine into public, not private, goods.”
Yet the Thai generals did not act without prompting. In a 2006 study, the World Bank predicted that despite a model AIDS-prevention program, Thailand would see a surge in costs as the virus grows resistant to older antiretroviral drugs. New, patented drugs would drive up the yearly cost per patient from $481 to more than $6,700 because they’re not available in generic form. The World Bank said Bangkok should consider compulsory licensing for key new AIDS treatments, but warned of the likely “political” trouble to come.
OB, danged if I understand the situation. Really, I should have let roger speak for himself.
“U.S. trade representatives have urged Thailand to reconsider its decision; Abbott Laboratories of Chicago announced it would no longer market new drugs in Thailand after the junta issued a generic license for one of its AIDS drugs. Anti-AIDS activists called the pullout “immoral,” but advocates of free trade see Thailand’s move as a big threat.”
When I hear the words “free trade,” I reach for my pistol.
An aside,from Wiki
“Grace Marufu Mugabe has three children: As first lady, she has been the subject of much criticism for her lifestyle. When she was included in the 2002 EU travel sanctions on her husband, one EU parliamentarian was quoted as saying that the ban “will stop Grace Mugabe going on her shopping trips in the face of catastrophic poverty blighting the people of Zimbabwe.” The London Telegraph called her “notorious at home for her profligacy” in 2003 coverage of a trip to Paris”.
It reminds me of Imelda Marcos from The phillippines, who some years ago – [on a somewhat similar basis] made International headlines
Should have read > “Markos”
P.S. Imelda Markos was the wife of former Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Markos, and she was found to have thousands of pairs of luxury shoes in her closet. I’m sure her cat also enjoyed wearing shoes.
Am going off topic here!
Résumé of Doom
By MAUREEN DOWD
Excerpt: “Deputy Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush: 2001-2005
Responsibility: Starting a war.
Achievements: Mismanaged the world’s most powerful army. Shattered the
system of international diplomacy that kept the peace for 50 years.
Undermined the credibility of American intelligence operations. Needlessly
brought humankind to the brink of nuclear war. Destroyed Iraq.”
Full: http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/opinion/20dowd.html?hp
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