- If you really don't know what the "World Bank"
is all about, you would think that President Bush was joking in nominating
Paul Wolfowitz to be the new president of the Bank, replacing Jim Wolfensohn.
One of the chief architects of the Iraq war, Wolfowitz is a political theorist,
a 61-year-old man who spent most of his adult life at blackboards and lecterns
teaching students about international politics. He may know how to operate
an Automatic Teller Machine when in need of ready cash, but he knows absolutely
nothing about banking. Wolfensohn, who was a New York investment banker
before President Clinton named him to the post a decade ago, at least knows
something about banking. His partner in New York, to which I suppose he
will return, is Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve,
our nation's central bank. Wolfie the Warrior, by contrast, is the lifetime
sidekick, even prot»g», of Richard Perle, probably the most
important intellectual in the service of the military-industrial complex.
If you want to know how Professor Wolfowitz got the job, follow the money.
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- That's what the World Bank is all about. It was created
as an adjunct of the United Nations at the end of World War II, along with
its brother institution, the International Monetary Fund. On paper, its
function was to lend money to developing countries to help them grow. Its
real job has been to serve the interests of the major money-center banks
and the multinational corporations who make the big bucks in World Bank
development projects. The Bank, which is really a "fund," persuades
a poor country like Ghana, for example, to build a new industrial complex
in order make stuff for export. It will lend the money to Ghana -- which
it gets from global taxpayers including you and me -- and arrange for the
complex to be built by one of the favored corporations in the military-industrial
complex. The list always includes Bechtel Corporation, Halliburton, and
Kellogg Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton. These outfits go in
and build the projects because the locals have no expertise.
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- In "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" John
Perkins explains in some detail the mechanics of this gigantic money machine.
It not only promotes unnecessary industrial complexes in Ghana, which rust
away in bankruptcy when they prove to be uneconomic. The aim of the military-industrial
complex is not only "industrial," but also military. The name
most closely associated with Halliburton, of course, is Vice President
Cheney, who was Defense Secretary in the first Gulf War, with Paul Wolfowitz
even then at his side (urging all-out war with Iraq even after Saddam put
up the white flag and retreated to Baghdad before the war began!!) Rats.
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- The name most associated with Bechtel is George P. Shultz,
once its top dog, now a mere director. Shultz was Treasury Secretary under
Richard Nixon (helping talk him into floating the U.S. dollar), Secretary
of State under Ronald Reagan, and currently a member of the Defense Policy
Board, which until last year Richard Perle chaired.
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- Shultz also introduced Governor George W. Bush to Condoleezza
Rice, who in turn introduced Paul Wolfowitz to Governor Bush back in 1999.
Shultz of course knew at the time that Wolfie and Perle and their neo-con
Cabal were planning a war in Iraq, and we know nice, little "doable"
wars (Wolfie's word), are meat and potatoes for the military-industrial
complex. Instead of squeezing nickels and dimes out of the taxpayers to
persuade Ghana to build a steel mill it doesn't need and can't run, even
little wars run into the billions. And everyone gets into the act. The
arms makers who produce airplanes, tanks, guns, jeeps and humvees get to
blow up a country (like Iraq) and Bechtel and Halliburton come in right
behind to rebuild it. In announcing the Wolfowitz appointment today, President
Bush said the World Bank is a big organization and Wolfowitz has experience
running a big organization, the Pentagon!! As far as the military-industrial
complex is concerned, Wolfowitz did a FANTASTIC job. He was only expected
to plan for a $30 billion war and he screwed up so badly that it is now
a $200 billion war, and counting. Anyone who can screw up that badly deserves
a promotion, to the World Bank.
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- So you see it doesn't really matter that Wolfowitz doesn't
know the first thing about banking or the economics of development projects.
He will sit behind the biggest desk at the Bank and take the telephone
calls from the Big Banks and the Multinationals, telling him what to do,
and providing him with experts like John Perkins, who did the actual dirty
work as an economic hit man, and now writes his confessions. When the White
House needs a big favor for one of its big hitters, it need only put in
a call to Wolfie, who will throw the right switch. That's exactly the way
it worked with Jim Wolfensohn these past ten years, and if you don't believe
me, look around and you will note how many poor countries got poorer during
his reign, and how many big bucks were made at Bechtel and Halliburton.
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- There will of course be complaints from various global
diplomats about the obvious incompetence of Wolfowitz, just as there were
puzzled head-scratchings around the world about the incompetence of Condi
Rice as Secretary of State or John Bolton as UN Ambassador. But money talks
in all the places where the directors of the World Bank live, and they
will be advised to clam up by the local military-industrial money machines.
Perle will also have his pals at The Weekly Standard and Fox News speculate
that when Condi is President, Wolfie will be her veep (which is how it
happened we`ve seen talk of Condi for President in 2008). Nor can we expect
any complaints from Congress, because in one way or another there is too
much money at stake, too many reputations looking toward bigtime lobbying
jobs when its time to give up a seat in Congress.
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- If this seems harsh, as if I'm writing about something
new under the rocks on which our Uncle Sam perches, I suggest you read
my 1978 book, "The Way the World Works," which describes how
the British Empire worked in exactly this fashion. My best example was
the first multinational corporations, the British railroad builders. Once
they ran out of places to build rail lines in the U.K., they persuaded
Parliament to promote railroads in the colonies, and were enormously successful
in talking the Raj into criss-crossing India with railroads in the mid-19th
century. It was one thing in England, where the companies could only build
where there was a clear sign the line would be profitable, because it was
their own money at risk. In India, the locals borrowed the money from the
Bank of England and hired the builders to put in rail lines that couldn't
possibly be profitable. India was burdened with debts from these schemes
well into the 20th century.
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- Even after it gained independence in 1948, India was
persuaded by British and American economists to keep tax rates high and
to devalue the rupee, to keep them poor and unable to compete with the
big guys. Who did the British and American economists work for? Why the
World Bank, of course, and also the IMF, whose job is to go into the poor
countries when they can't pay back their loans, and lend them the money
to do so -- as long as they agree to raise taxes again, devalue their currency,
and build new industrial complexes that are constructed by Bechtel and
Halliburton.
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- So you see why it makes perfect sense to have Wolfowitz
at the World Bank. He's terrific at doing wars, and wars are much more
profitable than nickel-and-dime industrial projects. That's the way the
world works. Always has been.
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- - Jude Wanniski is a former associate editor of The Wall
Street Journal, expert on supply-side economics and founder of Polyconomics,
which helps to interpret the impact of political events on financial markets.
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- http://www.counterpunch.com/wanniski03172005.html
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