Woofie

What goes around comes around.

During the Asian economic meltdown in 1997, the West condescendingly said the reason for the crisis was due to “corruption,cronyism and nepotism” practised in the Asian countries. This mantra was chanted all over the world even by some self righteous Asians themselves without much thinking.

The controversy around Paul Wolfowitz, the current president of the World Bank is very ugly. The moral authority of the former US deputy defence secretary is in pieces. At war with his staff but backed by US administration, Wolfowitz played a direct part in getting his Libyan-born girlfriend, Shaha Riza, into a tax-free job at the State Department paying more than Secretary Condi Rice.

Wolfowitz is a brilliant man,he did his Phd at the University of Chicago.He was always with the neoconservative circles during the 70s and the 80s. Later on, he was made an ambassador to Indonesia where he learnt to speak Bahasa, and generally did a a good job with President Suharto and his cronies who were basically American clients.

He came to more prominence when as assistant secretary of defence, he wrote that American military must remain strong and must be in a position to defeat any combination of powers anywhere in the world under any circumstances. Nothing wrong with that. He was also one of the dominant voices in the neoconservative circles in wanting to attack Iraq which has killed so many people unnecessarily and which hasn’t solved anything in terms of world terrorism. Plenty wrong with this.

The timing for the controversy erupted at the worst time for Wolfowitz when he is fighting to overcome much resistance to his noble attempt against corruption in the World Bank’s US$24 billion annual lending.

His attempt to replenish the bank’s depleting lending budget by raising up to US$25 billion in new funds from its richer members also appears doomed.

Those of us who look to the West for moral leadership, this surely, must be a good lesson. Not everything coming out from there is straight as an arrow. Power corrupts . As human beings we make mistakes, and the double standards we can do without.

While we Asians were roundly condemned because of “corruption,cronyism and nepotism” , the President of the United States, George Bush, is supportive of this kind of behaviour by his crony. Does the West, therefore, have the moral high ground to tell leaders like Mugabe and others to behave for doing exactly the same?

As for Wolfowitz, he should just ride into the sunset with his partner, and study his own moral poverty. World poverty can do without this kind of leadership.