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Naomi Klein on Wolfowitz

Now I knew this would be interesting:

The more serious lie at the center of the controversy is the implication that the World Bank was an institution with impeccable ethical credentials–until, according to forty-two former Bank executives, its credibility was "fatally compromised" by Wolfowitz. (Many American liberals have seized on this fairy tale, addicted to the fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign.) The truth is that the bank's credibility was fatally compromised when it forced school fees on students in Ghana in exchange for a loan; when it demanded that Tanzania privatize its water system; when it made telecom privatization a condition of aid for Hurricane Mitch; when it demanded labor "flexibility" in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka; when it pushed for eliminating food subsidies in post-invasion Iraq. Ecuadoreans care little about Wolfowitz's girlfriend; more pressing is that in 2005, the Bank withheld a promised $100 million after the country dared to spend a portion of its oil revenues on health and education. Some antipoverty organization.

Klein exhibits no love for the outgoing president, of course, but she's even less satisfied to witness a sclerotic and corrupt organization claim, "Well, I've never," when it had all along… I submit this as perhaps the first example in a long while that the shadow-bathed machinations of a neocon have not been the real story according to the anti-globalists.

 

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