World Bank chief (Paul Wolfowitz) attacks US over falling aid

[wicket]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060731/pl_afp/worldbankaidusafrica_060731203803

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz strongly criticized the US government for scaling back its aid to a bank development program that helps some of the poorest countries.

The former US official said it was "deeply worrying" that
President George W. Bush's administration had cut back its contributions to the bank's International Development Association (IDA).

There is a "moral obligation" for Washington to do more, Bush's former US deputy defense secretary said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation here. IDA is a World Bank agency that provides favorable financing to some of the world's poorest and most heavily indebted countries, many of them located in sub-Saharan Africa.

The United States continues to account for more than 13 percent of IDA funding, Wolfowitz said. "However, US commitment to IDA has declined from a historical level of 20 percent to the current 13," he said.

[Robbien]

1. Since many of these "financing" agreements carry such a heavy

price such as enforced globalization and privatization, it is probably a good thing there are fewer agreements being made.

[54anickel]

5. Evidence that BushCo are failing to live up to the multitude of back room

deals and promises. The Neocons and elitists are getting restless.

[warrens]

8. I think I'm with you on that

This bunch adds a WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF MEANING to the term "strings attached." It's more or less war by other than military means.

[bemildred]

2. This weasel needs to be in the dock at the ICC.

He could compare notes with Slobo, had Slobo not moved on ...

[sinkingfeeling]

3. First, Paul, since the administration has been following 'foreign policy'

as endorsed by you and your fellow Neo-cons, we're getting pretty well broke. Secondly, it's probably a good thing that the IDA has less money since they force countries to harm their own people with the demands made prior to a loan.

[leesa]

4. Awwww, Wolfowitz isn't able to entrap his quota of desperate countries

How are we gonna manipulate 'em if we can't get 'em on the hook?

[PA Democrat]

6. Yes, there are still resources such as water

and oil that haven't been privatized for the benefit of the multi-national corporations.

[AlamoDemoc]

7. here's perfect snip from yellowTimes.org artical in 2003

"Clive Cook, writing in National Journal, says that "suspicion of imperialism seems to unite not only all varieties of critics, but also those same critics and the administration they are criticizing. The president and his advisers would furiously deny that their plans for Iraq have anything to do with empire.

"Is nobody willing to speak up for imperial ambitions - and to say that an American Empire is exactly what the world needs?"

Here is one neo-conservative commentator who has no qualms about laying out the real agenda. It's the empire, stupid! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are far too astute to give their crusade its real name. Their opponents however, need not be similarly constrained. Come the day that the administration comes clean and demands that we all take a stand, for or against the empire, the movement, if it has by then solidified around this fundamental cause, can with one voice shout out, we don’t want an empire!
"Containing China is, however, only one element in the grand design that aims to establish a New American Century. This vision of America's role as global leader is the brainchild of a group of individuals, many of whom (most notably Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Elliot Abrams, and Zalmay Khalilzad) hold key positions in the current Bush administration. As expressed in their Statement of Principles published in 1997, their aim is "to make the case and rally support for American global leadership." To the end, they argue that America "must shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire."

[acmavm]

9. Screw Wolfie. Thanks to him and the rest of the criminal cable

we're broke and in debt up to our eyeballs. He needs to be subject of a government investigation or two himself for lying to the American people and war crimes.

The guy's a traitor, just like the rest of 'em.

[KamaAina]

10. Looks like Wolfie should've read the whole PNAC manual before signing

Read the fine print: "PNAC is not responsible for the ruin of any small, underdeveloped country that happens to get in the way of PNAC's path to world domination..."