Wolfie as corruption fighter? seems hard to swallow.

[Truth2Tell]

Is anyone else having trouble buying the MSM line on Paul Wolfowitz as an anti-corruption champion at the World Bank?

Time Magazine seemed to launch this storyline out of the gate last September when Simon Robinson reported that EU and developing countries taking issue with Wolfie's "corruption" agenda were "angry last year when Wolfowitz suspended $1 billion worth of projects in Bangladesh, Chad, Congo, Ethiopia, India and Kenya because of corruption. The funding resumed after countries agreed to implement anti-graft safeguards — measures that Wolfowitz's critics called window dressing." http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1537088,00.html

The latest comes from Sarah Baxter in The Times of London today: "...his ousting can also be read as a tale in which the vaunted international community would prefer the World Bank to allow rampant corruption to flourish in developing nations than see a reviled neocon succeed as its president." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1812924.ece

In between, everyone from right-wing pundit David Frum to re-born neocon Christopher Hitchens have weighed in with the same narrative. Various writers at The WaPo and Nicholas Kristof at The NYT have also repeatedly beat the Wolfie anti-corruption crusader drums.

Question: Is it a coincidence that the countries from which The Wolf Man chose to play hard-ball with World Bank aid are also the geo-political fulcrums of the new War on Terror? After all, we need Kenya and Ethiopia to help us in Somalia. We need India to help us press the right message with Pakistan, etc.

Could it be that this has not been entirely about "corruption"? Anyone know more about this?

[opihimoimoi]

1. Wolfie has fucked himself with his own misguided actions...nuff said

He is an Inept Crony.....period

[TahitiNut]

2. I get the impression that's why Shaha Riza got the exxtraordinary salary.

:silly:

[Truth2Tell]

3. I guess she was a neo-concubine. nt

[Canuckistanian]

4. He actually fights FOR corruption

Bad research department at Time.

[spindrifter]

5. Wolfowitz glombed onto the "anti-corruption"

bit because he didn't know the first thing about development. In actuality, the WB was already into fighting corruption in countries that received bank aid. And the WB is not going to stop trying to fight corruption. The problem the WB development people face is where to draw the line. You cannot stop giving money to help poor people if you hold them hostage to the anti-corruption theme.

[Wiley50]

6. I can imagine Wolfie swallowing a lot of corruption

and lots of other vile evil stuff too

He and Cheney are monsters