Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq Attaq, is now reported to be resigning his consolation prize job, with its tax-free salary, as President of the World Bank due to a corruption scandal involving his girlfriend, Shaha Riza.
Something of more historical interest is what influence his Arab liberal girlfriend had on Wolfowitz's misbegotten thinking about the
Perhaps Wolfie's motivation was, "Personal: I liked a particular Arab, and I thought that freedom for the race would be an acceptable present," as Lawrence of Arabia once explained when asked why he led the Arabs of the desert into
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came...
So, in case you were wondering what this crazy Iraq war was all about, maybe you could say, "It was all for love."
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
They keep calling her Paul's "GIRLfriend"...Shaha Riza(whose name recalls the old Three Stooges routine: "Maha?" "Ah Ha"...)long ago lost the right to be referred to by any form of the word "girl". Maybe we should start saying she is Wolfowitz' "draught horse love interest"...
ReplyDeleteSorry, but that's an easily refutable theory. Wolfowitz didn't change his views one bit when he met Shaha just a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteNo, Wolfowtiz is more of a big picture Neocon who doesn't limit his wrath to Israel's neighbors. In the early 1970s, the Neocons were able to falsely portray the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as a battle against Soviet influence in the Middle East. Then, they began vigorously agitating to keep the dying Cold War alive. By the late 1970s, the Cold War was on life support, so Wolfowitz & Co. cooked up Team B. They fooled Reagan into extending the Cold War another 10 years, until Gorbachev finally called Reagan's bluff and ended the Cold War himself. Needless to say, the Neocons were furious when Reagan belatedly accepted reality.
Ace and Steve --
ReplyDeleteIgnoring the obvious now aren't we?
Wolfowitz was brought on as President of the World Bank when his Girlfriend was already working there. He kicked the question over to the Ethics Committee about what to do and they in turn kicked it back to him with the recommendation that she be paid off to leave, but would not allow him to recuse himself from how much she'd be paid.
Catch-22. And various other folks who are critical of him (Malloch Brown, etc) have squeezes and relatives on at the World Bank.
Wolfowitz was target #1 because he wanted to end corruption and make anti-corruption measures mandatory in World Bank lending. And the bureaucracy wanted to lend money to the same corrupt cronies.
This was not about Iraq but about corruption. Of course, Wolfwowitz is a Jew, and a supporter of the Iraq War, so people lose all sense of proportion and get into deranged Rosie O'Donnell nonsense.
The UN, World Bank, and other international organizations exist for one reason: to wash and launder corrupt gains. His opposition to this regime is why Wolfowitz is gone.
It's a matter of public record that the Soviet Support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Black September, etc. was large and ongoing and aimed at controlling as much Arab regimes as possible. After losing Egypt and Jordan, the Soviets wanted back in the game and the Palestinians were their ticket. After the Eastern Bloc fell all sorts of documentation on how much money, support (for terror training and passports and the like for radical Palestinians) and so on was made public.
There was a Cold War, the Russians DID have an Empire, and DID seek to constantly extend it. The Russians fell because the Saudis pumped out the oil in the mid-80's and they could not afford to pay their troops and subject regimes with oil prices so low.
This has nothing to do with neocons, "Jews" and everything with how the world works. It is a sign of intellectual weakness to blame everything on Jews. Pathetic.
[The neocon argument made by those noted Jews Bush and Cheney was that support for dicators hadn't worked, containment such as it was of Saddam hadn't worked, it was time for something new to try and use Western Reform to erase Jihad. It was at least worth trying over say, nuking nations into oblivion first.]
Anonymous Neocon, you're not ignoring the obvious, you're intentionally hiding it.
ReplyDeleteWolfie personally dictated the terms of Shaha Riza's contract, which were:
By 2010, when Wolfowitz's five-year term expired, she would reach a salary of $244,960, significantly above the maximum of $226,650 allowable for her pay grade.
And that is more than the Secretary of State Condy Rice. This was Wolfie trying to avoid appearance of corruption? LOL!
More importantly, Wolfie brought a group of cronies to the World Bank and gave them massive pay raises.
This corrupt behavior is no surprise, since Wolfie was a key supporter of Indonesian dictator Suharto at a time when Suharto was ranked the most corrupt dictator in the world (and incidentally presided over one of the worst genocides of the century).
Had Wolfowitz presented an actual plan to root out corruption at the World Bank (mere evidence of corruption might have sufficed), he could have used that in his defense. But he didn't.
So Bush has yet another disastrous appointment go down in flames, raising the question: Is Bush a Manchurian candidate controlled by the Democratic Party?
After losing Egypt and Jordan, the Soviets wanted back in the game and the Palestinians were their ticket.
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a Neocon.
The U.S. could easily have blocked the Soviets by ourselves supporting the Palestinians. It would have given us a ton of credibility in the Middle East, crucial since we do huge business there. Instead, we chose to support Israeli terrorism and thus anger our business partners. Obviously, we acted directly against our own interests, as happens invariable when we take the advice of the Neocons.