Category Archives: War crimes

What is the Opportunity/Cost of the Australian Defence Budget? What of peace?

Australia follows, is that in the public interest given the creation of circumstances which are collapsing our economy and making us dependent. Is that wise? What is sovereignty in truth? As a citizen I care nothing for propaganda, cyber warfare, them vs us, information control, satellite based surveillance and smart cities. I see where it is all going. I care about the suffering I see in the Australian people who have had their livelihoods destroyed, who are experiencing restrictions, who are contemplating ending their lives tonight. I send love to my people. I send love to the United States. I send Love to Russia, I send love to China. I ask for all to awaken the dragon.

Posted on April 19, 2020 | Views: 325

by Lisa Chiu: It’s More than Just Your Sign…

Awaken

The well-trodden (no pun intended) story of the Chinese zodiac is cute, but a bit trite. The tale usually begins with the Jade Emperor, or Buddha, depending on the teller, who summoned all the animals of the universe for a race, or a banquet, depending on the teller. The 12 animals of the zodiac all headed to the palace. The order that they came in determined the order of the zodiac. The order is as follows:

Rat: (1984, 1996, 2008, add 12 years for each subsequent year)
Ox: (1985, 1997, 2009)
Tiger: (1986, 1998, 2010)
Rabbit: (1987, 1999, 2011)
Dragon: (1976, 1988, 2000)
Snake: (1977, 1989, 2001)
Horse: (1978, 1990, 2002)
Ram: (1979, 1991, 2003)
Monkey: (1980, 1992, 2004)
Chicken: (1981, 1993, 2005)
Dog: (1982, 1994, 2006)
Pig: (1983, 1995, 2007)

During the journey, however, the animals got involved in everything from high jinx to heroism. For example the rat, who won the race, only did so through guile and trickery: it jumped onto the back of the ox and won by a nose. The snake, apparently also a little sneaky, hid on the hoof of a horse in order to cross a river. When they got to the other side, it scared the horse and beat it in the contest. The dragon, however, proved to be honorable and altruistic. By all accounts, the dragon would have won the race as it could fly, but it had stopped to help villagers caught in a flooding river cross safely, or it stopped to assist the rabbit in crossing the river, or it stopped to help create rain for a drought-ridden farmland, depending on the teller.

My question to Australian Defence forces, given you are not a super power the aim is not to win as we are a small power, but what if it is to help with the real war that catalysed the bush fires, the floods, climate change, pollution, poverty and next will be famine (food security).

Colonel Jim Channon recommends that the military be deployed to restore planetary systems and work as a force for peace. Why not work for 100% of humanity in the shortest time (Buckminster Fuller). Jim was featured in the film “Men that Stare at Goats” which starred Jeff Bridges and George Clooney. This is his planning document that many in defence have looked over. He was a popular speaker as he stepped outside of the military box yet he knew the military. https://wearethemutants.com/2018/06/12/warrior-monks-and-video-technoids-documents-of-the-first-earth-battalion-1979-1982/

The only winning is when we all win. That is homeostasis.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/australia-defence-budget-270b-earmarked-on-new-weapons-fleets-troops/news-story/090f76eb6bf090e3ab315ef9d6f8dd30 Australia defence budget: $270b earmarked on new weapons, fleets, troops

Australia defence budget: $270b earmarked on new weapons, fleets, troops

The PM has announced billions will be spent on new hypersonic weapons, spy satellites and missile shields to keep intruders away from our waters. Benedict Brook and AAP85 commentsnews.com.auJuly 1, 20202:14pm

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PM warns Australians to prepare for a ‘more dangerous, more disorderly world’ Beijing’s South China Sea reaction ‘doesn’t correspond with reality’

Liberal MP Dave Sharma has downplayed talk of tensions with China over Australia’s submission to the United Nations rejecting Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea.

An artists impression of a US X-51A Waverider hypersonic vehicle used to demonstrate hypersonic flight which is all the rage in weapons. Picture: AFP PHOTO / US AIR FORCE /Source:AFP

Australia will ramp up defence spending to $270 billion over the next decade as the country prepares for a “post-COVID world that is poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly,” the Prime Minister said this afternoon.

Around $90bn of that will be spent on advanced new kit, including “hypersonic” weapons, fighter jets and a cyber warfare capability. Australia will also put its own spy satellites in space.

It’s a ballsy move designed to project Australia’s military might, show it can hit back if provoked and give it more muscle on the world stage.

But Mr Morrison thinks it’s necessary, telling the Australian Defence Force Academy today that, “the Indo-Pacific is the epicentre of rising strategic competition.”

“We have seen recently on the disputed border between India and China, in the South China Sea, and in the East China Sea.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces today that the Government will invest $270 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade the capability and potency of the Australian Defence Force. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces today that the Government will invest $270 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade the capability and potency of the Australian Defence Force. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMOSource:Supplied

China is extending its influence into Pacific areas where Australia, New Zealand and the US have long been the pre-eminent powers.

RELATED: Big holes in Australia’s defences north of the 26th parallel

The aim is for Australia to not only to guard its patch of the Pacific but also fend off cyber-attacks and warfare. The budget boost will see the ADF grow by 800 personnel.

“The Indo-Pacific is where we live. We want an open, sovereign Indo-Pacific, free from coercion and hegemony, Mr Morrison said.


Just as relations have deteriorated with China, so Australia’s has been increasing its military links to India and other nations on our side of the world.

NED-135-China-military-build-up - 0

In the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the new Force Structure Plan, released by Scott Morrison today, he announced defence spending would hit at least 2 per cent of gross domestic product in the 2020/21 financial year. The government will give Defence $270 billion over the next decade – up from the $195 billion promised in 2016.

The PM said Australia needed stronger deterrence capabilities to “influence their calculus of costs involved in threatening Australian interests”.

“The simple truth is this: even as we stare down the COVID pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly,” he said.

Australian authorities have raised recent concerns over cyber-attacks from China and Russia, terror cells throughout the Indo-Pacific and the shifting regional power balance between China and the US.

NEW WEAPONS, SATELLITES AND JETS

Defence will get lots of cash to spend on fancy new technology.

The first cash splash is almost modest compared to what is also on the cards, with the ADF to get the US built AGM-158C long range anti-ship missiles, at a cost of $800 million.

AGM-158C long range anti-ship missiles which Australia is buying $800 million worth of.

AGM-158C long range anti-ship missiles which Australia is buying $800 million worth of.Source:Supplied

Australia then intends to spend $10bn to jump on the hypersonic bandwagon – the must have missile of the 2020s.

These hypersonic weapons, if they can be made to work, have two major benefits. Firstly, they are incredibly fast and can head towards the enemy at speeds of greater than Mach 5. Secondly, they can duck and weave in an effort to evade enemy defences.

That’s in contrast to current long-range missiles that follow a predictable arc as they head towards their target.

These could be used to protect critical shipping lanes that Australia depends upon. For instance, 90 per cent of the oil Australia uses is imported and much of that passes through Singapore.

A hypersonic missile built by Boeing. Picture: US air force

A hypersonic missile built by Boeing. Picture: US air forceSource:News360

Chinese People's Liberation Army concept art showing hypersonic projectiles falling among a US carrier battlegroup.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army concept art showing hypersonic projectiles falling among a US carrier battlegroup.Source:Supplied

Protecting the Planet from Destructive Billionnaires – Vandana Shiva

In the public interest.

The video is titled:  ‘Bill Gates is continuing the work of Monsanto’, Vandana Shiva tells FRANCE 24

Data mining to benefit the those who control the data.  It is a very serious issues. Ethics drives to the heart of the problem.

Life is not a Word program it is a self regulating system that is far beyond what we think.  No-one has the right to change the molecular structure of natures blueprint. Those that do are ending life on earth as they do not operate in a wholistic mindset, they are self profiting, that is the critical issues that only sees self interest not best interest.

SAS soldier Braden Chapman speaks out about War Crimes

The article below is from the ABC and discusses Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan. War is not a game, real people die. No-one thinks deeply about the real suffering for families of each death, how terror impacts communities and the reality that violence cannot bring peace no matter how you dress it up. Only peace brings peace.

All violence has the same root, powerlessness. The destruction of war or violence deepens powerlessness which expands violence. It is a formula that has never been about peace, it has always been endless war as men believe force works. War is an imbalance with our true nature.

Immediately looking at the story below I contemplate the Australian Federal Police raids on the ABC. The person of interest was David McBride, an SAS officer who was raising concerns about military abuses and as a lawyer investigating humanitarian law.

Refer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWoKgKyudk
Refer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNp7pHbZ0HE

This issue is a murky one in the sense that where is the line drawn in respect of lawful killing. I always feel uneasy with the words ‘lawful killing’ contrasted to the situation when civilians are arrested and jailed if they commit murder. Yet in the military setting they have safeguards as they are in the business of killing. They use buzz words such as national security, defending democracy, ridding the war of terrorism when it is evident through important whistle-blowers that the wars are not about defence but oil interests. It is evident that there is a revolving door into government by commercial interests who are making money out of disasters, a term coined ‘disaster capitalism’. Disaster capitalism makes clear that defence contractors are paid in one day what a regular soldier makes in one week and do not have government oversight at all. The large military industrial complex is embedded in government as contractors alongside government employees with high level secret clearances. This is called the ‘deep state’.

My heart goes to the Afghan citizens who have experienced decades of heart wrenching abuse, who are the poorest people on the planet and who have suffered like no other with no outpouring of compassion for their plight. They have experienced their families murdered, Taliban oppression, harassment and murder of women who break (in their eyes) sharia law, they witness their country invaded, ransacked, polluted with depleted uranium and turned to rubble with no legal consequence. They have been so hungry that they eat grass and dirt. The perpetuated violence was the continuance of the cold war orchestrated by elements in the United States attempting to create another Vietnam for Russia. The CIA paid mercenaries (extremists) to come in to Afghanistan and fight the Russians. The violent war lords had no allegiance other than to money were ruthless in their violation of human rights, executions and exploitation. This country which was once a peaceful country where families were incredibly close, poetry and music was their entertainment as they survived the harshest winters and invaders to become a hardy people. Their innocence was shattered.

I recall Donald Rumsfeld regarding Afghanistan as not a good target as it was a pile of rocks. He wanted more spectacular targets to feel he was fighting a real war and could test out weaponry. Thus, we are not talking responsible leadership focused on the noble vision of securing peace and security, but rather an cold and calculated interest in perpetuating violence without any regard for civilians using the name of national security which is today code for commercial interests who have co-opted the US government through donations or political status. It was Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector in Iraq who stated the US was engaged in an illegitimate war of aggression. The same applied to Afghanistan. He was critical of John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister who he regarded as turning Australian into the 51st State of the US. He advised for us to take down the Australian flag and hoist up the US flag. Thus, Australian military activities in Afghanistan are under the command of the US and the real issue is under humanitarian law how are civilians (unarmed) protected.
Refer my recordings of Scott Ritter at the University of Melbourne: https://www.worldpeacefull.com/peace-journalism/

This link is how a few US Generals viewed the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/04/donald-rumsfeld-iraq-war

The Australian government followed US policy and entered Afghanistan to fight ‘terrorism’. The close ‘oil’ relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi Royal family and the revelations about the Clinton Foundation and Isis funded by the Saudi’s, suggests the interests having nothing to do with the public interest but are commercial profiting from conflict. The fact that the Saudi’s funded the US invasion of Afghanistan matching dollar for dollar (see Charlie Wilson’s war) reveals foreign interference and collaboration with other agenda’s playing out. The US nationally promoted the cold war fight with Russia and ironically the Taliban went to Texas to meet with Unocol to construct a gas pipeline. The profits from the deal between oil barons, the US government and the Taliban provided material aid to an extremist regime (created by the war with Russia) that violated human rights justified by extreme Islam. The Taliban hung people in Kabul stadium, religious police raids, oppressed and stoned women to death and applied harsh punishments for anyone violating Sharia law.

Ref https://www.counterpunch.org/2002/01/10/bush-enron-unocal-and-the-taliban/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

The is the “pink elephant” in the room where all look the other way, it is the profit that matters not the human rights of people. Torture emerges from the same indifference to humanity that is profiled in the psychopath. I always remember Bill Clinton’s announcement of decoupling of human rights from trade (as a red flag) and later the US exited the UN Human Rights Council as a statement of ‘who they have become’. That should alarm the Australian government given the Australian people’s values and what we regard as the very basis of democratic principles and the rule of law. This demonstrates a culture of violent abuse that is called business as usual, as it is profit that matters not human life. Does this make America great? I am sure Abraham Lincoln would turn in his grave as life, liberty and happiness is distorted for the benefit of the few not the many.

Afghanistan is the poorest country on earth and was used for a proxy war benefiting commercial interests without any regard for civilians. There has been no compassion for these long suffering people who survived against the odds. They would see the great evil in the West as their country was polluted with depleted uranium, villages bombed, civilians addicted to heroin, women turning to prostitution and an illegal child trafficking trade. They are a beautiful and kind people, very humble and simple who had no defence against forces greedily seeking their resources and not standing in nobility to protect an abused people. The greed is a core issue.

The most important issue in this sad tale is the US shadow government and deep state has to be put on the global agenda and referred to the International Criminal Court for ‘crimes against humanity’. These are unaccountable powerful organisations, corporations and non profits engaged in illegal endless wars, the drug trade, guns and trafficking. Kevin Shipp (former CIA) stated Hillary Clinton heads up ‘a criminal cartel’ in Washington D.C.. This must be investigated in an international court of law. Otherwise the dark intelligence war becomes one of assassinations to silence whistle-blowers furthering the targeted killing of civilians rather than justice. Refer https://www.fortheloveoffreedom.net/

Refer https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/julian-assange-clinton-foundation-isis-same-money-saudi-arabia-qatar-funding-a7397211.html

As a peacemaker it is vital that the truth comes out if peace is what we truly desire for our children and grandchildren. Yes, it can be scary as those who feel threatened will use legal or bullying means to silence others. The rule of law by neutral judges holding the real scales of justice must be the nonviolent pathway that leads to peace and reconciliation as accountability is central to trust in government. This has to be done as the violence is ‘not who we are’ as we become awakened to the fact that we live in a global village where not only are we each others keepers (responsible for each other) but to know ‘what you do to another returns to the self’ (universal law). For those who believe they are fighting for a higher power I can assure you that power is love as truth. Denial and powerlessness stays silent in the shadows. True power is the love that shines the light on the darkest corner, for even those languishing in ignorance and hatred are calling for the light of change. Karma can only be removed by unconditional love. So there is a way out of darkness.

My last point is I want my country to become sovereign and protect the civilians interests not follow the unofficial licence to abuse and murder civilians in illegitimate wars that do not benefit our country. May those in positions of power find the wisdom to Advance Australia fair for the highest good of all. Australia could position itself as a mediators not accomplice in crimes against the people. What stops them bringing this behaviour to Australian citizens when oppression orders a crack down and criminalises dissent? We must all remain vigilant to the wolf in sheep’s clothing or the smiling assassin.

It is the truth that sets us free. ‘us’ has two meanings.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/former-australian-sas-soldier-braden-chapman-speaks-out-about-unlawful-killings-and-war-crimes-in-afghanistan/ar-BB11gHcQ?ocid=spartandhp

 

Special Air Service Regiment sandy berets © Commonwealth of Australia Special Air Service Regiment sandy berets They are Australia’s elite special forces, the lethal operatives of the Special Air Service Regiment, the SAS.

For years, the secrets about what they did in the valleys, fields and mud villages of Afghanistan have remained hidden.

Until now. 

Former SAS operative Braden Chapman first deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, when the brutal conflict there was in its 11th year.

With a major inquiry soon to report on suspected war crimes, Chapman, who was on many covert missions, has decided to speak out about what he saw.

He said he witnessed soldiers in SAS patrols commit executions in cold blood.

A Four Corners investigation has uncovered a culture of impunity and cover-up within the SAS.

“When you’re back at the unit, people would make jokes about the size of the rug that they’ve swept everything under, and that one day it’ll all come out and people are going to be thrown in jail for murder or anything else that they’ve done,” Chapman said.

Attached to 3 Squadron SAS as a signals intelligence officer, Chapman’s mission was to track Taliban targets.

He said there was a “buzz of elitism” being part of the SAS.

“It is the best thing you could do for your career to go to that unit, especially when you’re a lower rank and you’re actually gonna get to do a lot of hands-on stuff.” 

But he was soon shocked at the behaviour of some of his comrades. 

“They’re going to look back and see that we were the guys in there murdering people, and invading, and not there to do something that is honourable,” he said.

‘Almost like target practice’

In May 2012, Chapman was on patrol with 3 Squadron SAS in a village.

The unit was moving towards a target building, when they saw an Afghan man leave the area.

“When we got to within maybe 20 to 30 metres away and he saw us, he quickly grabbed his phone from his pocket and he threw it. And at that stage he stopped. He put his hands up just like that, then just stood there,” Chapman said.

“As we got closer to him, the soldier then just fired and hit him twice in the chest and then shot him through the head as he walked past him.”

Chapman said the soldier was an experienced member of 3 Squadron SAS.

“I was only 5 to 10 metres behind him at the time,” he said.

“The visual image to me was, the guy had his hands up and then it was almost like target practice for that soldier.”

Chapman was ordered to go through the dead Afghan man’s pockets.

Another Australian patrol with an assault dog then arrived at the scene.

3 Squadron SAS soldiers during deployment in Afghanistan in 2012.

“It [the dog] actually came and started chewing on the head of the man who’d been shot. And I remember looking to the dog handler and saying, ‘Can you get this thing away from it,’ because it was pretty gruesome,” Chapman said.

“And he’s just like, ‘Oh, let him have a taste.'”

Chapman said the killing by his fellow SAS patrol member disturbed him greatly.

“In my books, it’s murder.”

Just days later the helmet camera of another SAS operator captured members of 3 Squadron discussing the soldier who had killed the Afghan man with his hands up. 

“F***ing bullshit. Not happy with it.”

“[The soldier is] a brother, but, ‘Bash who I want. Shoot at whoever. Kill a kid. Oh well, just keep shooting c***s.'”

The soldier who shot the man is still serving in the special forces.

‘Straight-up execution’

During the same month, a 3 Squadron SAS patrol was searching for an insurgent bombmaker when another unlawful killing took place.

The patrol’s dog handler and another SAS soldier, who Four Corners has called Soldier C, were headed towards a mud compound when a young Afghan man in his 20s was spotted in a wheat field by one of the Black Hawk helicopters ahead.

What happened next was captured on a helmet camera. 

Soldier C aims his assault rifle at the Afghan man.

The man is cowering on the ground and appears to only have a set of red prayer beads in his right hand.

Soldier C turns to the dog handler and asks: “You want me to drop this c***?”

The dog handler tells him to ask the patrol commander.

Soldier C then asks the same question twice to the patrol commander, whose response is inaudible on the video.

Within seconds, Soldier C squeezes the trigger and the bullet tears into the Afghan man on the ground.

The Australian shoots him twice more and then walks off.

Chapman was not aware of this shooting until Four Corners showed him the video, but knows the identity of the soldiers involved.

“He’s asked someone of a superior rank what he should do. But it comes down to the soldier pulling the trigger. It’s a straight-up execution.”

The killing of the civilian, identified as Dad Mohammad, was later investigated by the Australian Defence Force (ADF), after Afghan tribal elders complained.

Soldier C told ADF investigators he had killed the Afghan man because he had been seen with a radio.

He also said he shot the young man from 15 to 20 metres away, in self-defence.

But the video shows he was fewer than two metres away while the man was lying on the ground.

Dad Mohammad's father Abdul Malik said his son had face wounds. © ABC / Four Corners Dad Mohammad’s father Abdul Malik said his son had face wounds. The ADF investigators concluded that Dad Mohammad was lawfully killed because he posed a direct threat to the Australians.

Four Corners can reveal that Soldier C is still serving in the special forces.

As part of a major inquiry into allegations of war crimes within the special forces in Afghanistan, the Inspector-General of the ADF is investigating whether it was common practice to plant radios on bodies.

Chapman said throughout his deployment, there was systematic use of planted weapons and radios to justify killings.

“I did see plenty that were planted,” the former soldier said.

“They definitely got them off somebody else and walked over and sat it next to a body.”

Chapman said weapons were also planted on dead Afghans.

“Other members of my troop back in Australia, they did use to joke about how the same serial number [of a gun] was in every single photo of a dead Afghani,” he said.

“So, you know, inferring that somebody was planting these AK-47s.”

‘Someone’s lied giving evidence’

Another incident that still haunts Braden Chapman involved the death of an elderly Afghan man, Haji Sardar, during a raid on the village of Sarkhume in mid-March 2012.

Chapman is the only Australian witness to speak publicly about what happened to Haji Sardar.

He said Haji Sardar was initially shot in the leg by the SAS-led patrol.

An Australian medic helped patch up the wound, which was not life-threatening.

A senior SAS soldier then took the injured man away.

“Some time later he came back and our medic asked him, ‘What happened, where is he?’ Because he’d worked on him, he [the medic] considered him his patient. And then he [the soldier] just…shook his head and said, ‘He didn’t make it.'”

Chapman said the SAS medic was upset, because he believed the man had been killed.

“He was just saying that the man, he was fine. There was no way he would have died, and he knew that the soldier had killed him,” he said.

After complaints by villagers, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) found Haji Sardar had been beaten to death by an Australian soldier.

“Haji Sardar was first injured and then taken away for investigation and died as a result of torture,” said AIHRC chairwoman Shaharzad Akbar.

AIHRC chairwoman Shaharzad Akbar and Haji Sardar after he was killed.

Australian Defence Force investigators later determined that Haji Sardar had been carrying a weapon and that his killing was lawful.

AIHRC was told by villagers that Haji Sardar was an unarmed civilian.

“I’d say that someone’s lied giving evidence because there’s no way that you can justify an execution,” Chapman said.

Four Corners has obtained hours of footage shot by members of 3 Squadron SAS during the unit’s 2012 rotation through Afghanistan.

It shows the destruction of buildings, motorbikes and the shooting of dogs.

“We try and say that we’re there to help and the Taliban are bad. But if we go in and we start destroying infrastructure or destroying their private vehicles and burning down their homes it doesn’t really send the right message,” Chapman said.

“They’re going to run straight back to the Taliban, who usually are not doing that.”

Potential for war crimes charges

Braden Chapman’s squadron and its time in Afghanistan in 2012 are of key interest to the Inspector-General’s investigation.

Glenn Kolomeitz, a former special operations lawyer for the ADF in Afghanistan, said the special forces were highly trained in the rules of war.

“These guys were given training throughout their work,” he said.

“[There’s] no excuse in terms of the training as provided and the understanding, absolutely.”

Mr Kolomeitz said he believed there was potential for charges to be laid under the war crime murder provisions of the Commonwealth criminal code.

“We have obligations at international law, domestic law, and indeed moral obligations, to not ignore these sorts of allegations,” he said.

3 Squadron SAS successfully captured many targets during its deployment in 2012.

Chapman said the unlawful killings he witnessed may constitute war crimes, and he believes the soldiers responsible deserve to go to jail.

“I just want the truth to come out, and people who did commit crimes to be held accountable,” he said.

He said he also believed officers who ran the special forces should wear some of the blame.

“It is a culture issue as well, and these incidents that are happening would filter through to them. They know what’s going on over there,” he said.

Chapman said a strict code of silence was observed by members of the regiment.

He said he learned this early on in his deployment when talking with one of the more experienced operators.

“He said to me, ‘I hope you’re ready and prepared for this deployment because you need to make sure that you’re OK with me putting a gun to someone’s head and pulling the trigger. Because I don’t want to read about it in 10 or so years.'”

Chapman said that soldier was the one who later dragged the wounded Haji Sardar away before he was found allegedly beaten to death.

For Chapman, speaking out is his chance to atone for staying silent about what he witnessed in Afghanistan.

He believes even if he had made a complaint at the time, it would have gone “nowhere”.

“I didn’t break any rules of engagement,” he said.

“But I feel now that even if it had ruined my career back then, I probably should have made that complaint.

“It’s definitely affected me. You try to look back at your career, try and be proud of it, but then you’ve got all these incidents. You see yourself as part of the bad guys.”

Defence did not answer Four Corners’ questions about particular incidents involving the killing of Afghans.

In a statement, it said the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force was investigating “whether there is any substance to rumour and allegations” about possible war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.

It said the inquiry was ongoing. 

Veteran Petition to Albanese and Morrison Not to Go to War

This petition came into my inbox.  I don’t usually open it but I felt a definite intuition to open it. 

It is good to see an Australian ex soldier encouraging Australians to use democracy and add their name to the petition to the Australian Government to not enter yet another war of aggression in the case of Iran.

I like that he has emphasised the fact that as great friends we have to point out when something is wrong.  That is true friendship.  That is why I say that in my own videos.  The US illegal wars of aggression are not right and the evidence is stacking up that there are other forces at work here.

The war in reality is not about Trump it is a corporate driven conflict about oil and control.  The political process in the United States is influenced not by leaders and elected representatives but those in power behind the scenes.  So it is not disloyal to the United States people.  The problem to tackle here is vested interests using governments to invade countries and kill civilians. This is why the word ‘fabricated’ was used.

I thank the Australian soldier Brett Hopkinson for bravely claiming is democracy and speaking up, he is serving us ‘the Australian’ people when he does that.  My hope is that those in Australian Defence give this alliance deeper contemplation from a war crimes perspective.  Is our alliance unconditional or does Australian sovereignty and the will of the Australian people have any weight?  Who is being served in reality?  

I will post my latest video below in support of Australian soldiers.

Australian troops are helping fight bush fires, so the last place they should be is Iran. But if the US starts a war, Australia tends to join it. Brett is an Army veteran who believes we have no place in Trump’s Iran war. susan, sign if you agree.

 
Say “No” to Australian involvement in an America/Iran War

Brett Hopkinson started this petition to Anthony Albanese and it now has 5,570 signatures

Sign now with a click

As a former veteran I understand our accords to assist our greatest ally, the United States of America. However we must not fall into another cold blooded fabricated war in the Middle East.

I call upon our leaders to appreciate that sometimes to be a great ally is to point out when a friend has gone in the wrong direction.

Let us at least TRY to avert the deaths and injury of millions of civilians who never asked or want war. Also to protect our heroic defence force from their pointless deaths and utilise them for DEFENCE not illegal and immoral aggression.

I am not a political activist and I don’t have any particular political affiliation and I have never done anything like this before. But I know how quickly these situations will escalate and decisions will be being made as to how Australia reacts.

Please join with me to send a categorical message to our leaders that we DO NOT want to be part of yet another horrific and avoidable war. War which inevitably destabilises the whole region and inevitability leads to even worse terrorism and lawlessness to take root.

Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese, please do what you know is the right thing and not support any further military aggression with Iran.

Paul Wolfowitz Named The Architect of the War in Iraq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz

Paul Wolfowitz was a primary architect, of course there were others, but he was named as one of the architects of the war in Iraq.

Below is footage of the war, defining images.

Refer https://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-of-war-where-are-they-now-52ff022f9bfe/

You may note the stilt walker clown and the joy this brings. I did find out about her and wrote to her many years ago, she was British.  I think her name was Jo.

The truth sets us free and for those who advance wars and call it peace, are not in service to their country or the world. For those identifying as a Christian I would say that Jesus message was ‘love’. At no point did he ever advocate for violence.  

I have posted a overview about the two men driving Bush into War courtesy of the Guardian.  This article provides information about the architects of war then a profile on Paul Wolfowitz.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/23/usa.iraq1

Two men driving Bush into war

Ed Vulliamy in New York profiles the religious figures behind a ‘Texanised presidency’ who believe war will mean America is respected in the Islamic world
Behind President George W. Bush’s charge to war against Iraq, there is a carefully devised mission, drawn up by people who work over the shoulders of those whom America calls ‘The Principals’.

Lurking in the background behind Bush, his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are the people propelling US policy. And behind them, the masterminds of the Bush presidency as it arrived at the White House from Texas, are 

It is too simple to explain the upcoming war as ‘blood for oil’, as did millions of placards last weekend, for Rove and Wolfowitz are ideologists beyond the imperatives of profit. They represent an unlikely and formidable alliance forged between the gritty Texan Republicans who took over America, fuelled by fierce conservative Christianity, and a faction of the East Coast intelligentsia with roots in Ronald Reagan’s time, devoted to achieving raw, unilateral power.

 

Rove and Wolfowitz have worked for decades to reach their moment, and that moment has come as war draws near. Bush calls Rove, depending on his mood, ‘Boy Genius’ or ‘Turd Blossom’. Rove is one of a new political breed – the master craftsmen – nurturing a 24-year political campaign of his own design, but careful not to expose who he really is.

His Christian faith is a weapon of devastating cogency, but he never discusses it; no one knows if his politics are religious or politics are his religion. A Christmas Day child born in Denver, as a boy he had a poster above his bed reading ‘Wake Up, America!’ As a student, he was a fervent young Republican who pitched himself against the peace movement.

His first bonding with Bush was not over politics, but the two men’s ideological and moral distaste for the Sixties – after Bush’s born-again conversion from alcoholism to Christianity. Rove was courted by George Bush Snr during his unsuccessful bid to be the Republican presidential candidate for 1980.

But Rove’s genius would show later, on Bush senior’s election to the White House in 1988, when he co-opted the right-wing Christian Coalition – wary of Bush’s lack of theocratic stridency – into the family camp.

Conservative Southern Protestantism was a constituency Bush Jr befriended and kept all the way to Washington, defining both his own political personality and the new-look Republican Party.

When Rove answered the call to come to Texas in 1978, every state office was held by a Democrat. Now, almost all of them are Republican. Every Republican campaign was run by Rove and in 1994 his client – challenging for the state governorship – was a man he knew well: George W. Bush.

‘Rove and Bush came to an important strategic conclusion,’ writes Lou Dubose, Rove’s biographer. ‘To govern on behalf of the corporate Right, they would have to appease the Christian Right.’

Bush’s six years as Texas governor were a dry run for national domestic policy – steered by Rove – as President: lavish favours to the energy industry, tax breaks for the upper income brackets and social policy driven by evangelical zeal.

Bush had been governor for only a year when, as Rove says, it ‘dawned on me’ he should run for President; two years later, in 1997, he began secretly planning the campaign. In March 1999, Bush ordered Rove to sell his consulting firm – ‘he wanted 120 per cent of his attention,’ says a former employee, ‘full-time, day and night’.

Rove hatched and ran the presidential campaign, deploying the Bush family Rolodex and the might of the oil industry and unleashing the most vigorous direct-mailing blizzard of all time. ‘If the devil is in the details,’ writes Dubose, ‘he had found Rove waiting to greet him when he got there.’

By the time George W. became President, Rove was the hub of a Texan wheel connecting the family, the party, the Christian Right and the energy industry. A single episode serves as metaphor: during the Enron scandal last year, a shadow was cast over Rove when it was revealed that he had sold $100,000 of Enron stock just before the firm went bankrupt.

More intriguing, however, was the fact that Rove had personally arranged for the former leader of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, to take up a consultancy at Enron – Bush’s biggest single financial backer – worth between $10,000 and $20,000 a month.

This was the machine of perpetual motion that Rove built. His accomplishment was the ‘Texanisation’ of the national Republican Party under the leadership of the Bush family and to take that party back to presidential office after eight years. Rove is unquestionably the most powerful policy adviser in the White House.

Militant Islam was another world from Rove’s. However, on 11 September, 2001, it became a new piece of political raw material needing urgent attention. Rove and Bush had been isolationists, wanting as little to do with the Middle East – or any other corner of the planet – as possible. But suddenly there was a new arena in which to work for political results: and, as Rove entered it, he met and was greeted by a group of people who had for years been as busy as he in crafting their political model; this time, the export of unchallenged American power across the world.

Rove in theory has no role in foreign policy, but Washington insiders agree he is now as preoccupied with global affairs as he is with those at home. In a recent book, conservative staff speech writer David Frum recalls the approach of the presidency towards Islam after the attacks and criticises Bush as being ‘soft on Islam’ for his emphasis on a ‘religion of peace’.

Rove, writes Frum, was ‘drawn to a very different answer’. Islam, Rove argued, ‘was one of the world’s great empires‘ which had ‘never reconciled… to the loss of power and dominion’. In response, he said, ‘the United States should recognise that, although it cannot expect to be loved, it can enforce respect’.

Rove’s position dovetailed with the beliefs of Paul Wolfowitz, and the axis between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly intellectual, East Coast Zionism was forged – each as zealous about their religion as the other.

There is a shorthand view of Wolfowitz as a firebrand hawk, but he is more like Rove than that – patient, calculating, logical, soft-spoken and deliberate. Wolfowitz was a Jewish son of academe, a brilliant scholar of mathematics and a diplomat. When he joined the Pentagon after the Yom Kippur war, he set about laying out what is now US policy in the Middle East.

In 1992, just before Bush’s father was defeated by Bill Clinton, Wolfowitz wrote a blueprint to ‘set the nation’s direction for the next century’, which is now the foreign policy of George W. Bush. Entitled ‘Defence Planning Guidance’, it put an onus on the Pentagon to ‘establish and protect a new order‘ under unchallenged American authority.

The US, it said, must be sure of ‘deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’ – including Germany and Japan. It contemplated the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry pre-emptively, ‘even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests’.

Wolfowitz’s group formalised itself into a group called Project for the New American Century, which included Cheney and another old friend, former Pentagon Under-Secretary for Policy under Reagan, Richard Perle.

In a document two years ago, the Project pondered that what was needed to assure US global power was ‘some catastrophic and catalysing event, like a new Pearl Harbor’. The document had noted that ‘while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides immediate justification’ for intervention, ‘the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein’.

At a graduation speech to the Military Academy at West Point, Bush last June affirmed the Wolfowitz doctrine as official policy. ‘America has, and intends to keep,’ he said, ‘military strengths beyond challenge.’

At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and his boss Rumsfeld set up an intelligence group under Abram Schulsky and the Under-Secretary for Defence, Douglas Feith, both old friends of Wolfowitz. The group’s public face is the semi-official Defence Policy Board, headed by Perle. Perle and Feith wrote a paper in 1996 called ‘A Clean Break’ for the then leader of Israel’s Likud bloc, Binyamin Netanyahu; the clean break was from the Oslo peace process. Israel’s ‘claim to the land (including the West Bank) is legitimate and noble,’ said the paper. ‘Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights is a solid basis for the future.’ At the State Department, the ‘Arabist’ faction of regional experts favouring the diplomacy of alliances in the area was drowned out by the hawks, markedly by another new unit with favoured access to the White House.

And in Rove’s White House, with his backing, the circle was closed and the last piece of the jigsaw was put in place, with the appointment of Elliot Abrams to handle policy for the Middle East, for the National Security Council.

Abrams is another veteran of Reagan days and the ‘dirty wars’ in Central America, convicted by Congress for lying alongside Colonel Oliver North over the Iran-Contra scandal, but pardoned by President Bush’s father.

He has since written a book warning that American Jewry faces extinction through intermarriage and has counselled against the peace process and for the righteousness of Ariel Sharon’s Israel. He is Wolfowitz’s man, talking every day to his office neighbour, Rove.

Paul Wolfowitz

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Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz.jpg
 
10th President of the World Bank Group
In office
June 1, 2005 – July 1, 2007
Preceded by James Wolfensohn
Succeeded by Robert Zoellick
United States Deputy Secretary of Defense
In office
March 2, 2001 – June 1, 2005
President George W. Bush
Preceded by Rudy de Leon
Succeeded by Gordon England
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
In office
May 15, 1989 – January 19, 1993
President George H. W. Bush
Preceded by Fred Iklé
Succeeded by Frank Wisner
United States Ambassador to Indonesia
In office
April 11, 1986 – May 12, 1989
President Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Preceded by John Holdridge
Succeeded by John C. Monjo
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
In office
December 22, 1982 – March 12, 1986
President Ronald Reagan
Preceded by John Holdridge
Succeeded by Gaston Sigur
Director of Policy Planning
In office
February 13, 1981 – December 22, 1982
President Ronald Reagan
Preceded by Anthony Lake
Succeeded by Stephen Bosworth
Personal details
Born
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz

December 22, 1943 (age 75)
New York CityNew YorkU.S.

Political party Democratic (Before 1981)
Republican (1981–present)
Spouse(s) Clare Selgin (1968–2001)
Children 3
Education Cornell University (AB)
University of Chicago (MAPhD)
Website American Enterprise Institute

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (/ˈwʊlfəvɪts/; born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World BankU.S. Deputy Secretary of DefenseU.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and former dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic developmentAfrica and public-private partnerships,[1] and chairman of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council.[2]

He is considered to be a leading neoconservative.[3][4] Wolfowitz rejects the term and prefers to call himself a “Scoop Jackson Republican”, after U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson, a Democrat, who was known as a liberal hawk.[5]

He was an early advocate of the Iraq War and has widely been described as an architect of the war.[6][7][8][9] In the aftermath of the insurgency and civil war that followed the invasion, Wolfowitz denied influencing policy on Iraq and disclaimed responsibility.[10][11]

After serving two years, he resigned as president of the World Bank due to scandals described by a Reuters report as “a protracted battle over his stewardship, prompted by his involvement in a high-paying promotion for his companion”.[12][13]

Early life[edit]

The second child of Jacob Wolfowitz (b. Warsaw; 1910–1981) and Lillian Dundes, Paul Wolfowitz was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Polish Jewish immigrant family, and grew up mainly in Ithaca, New York, where his father was a professor of statistical theory at Cornell University.[14][15] Strongly influenced by his father, Paul Wolfowitz became “a soft-spoken former aspiring-mathematician-turned-policymaker … [whose] world views … were forged by family history and in the halls of academia rather than in the jungles of Vietnam or the corridors of Congress … [His father] … left new country Poland after World War I and after 123 years of partitions. The rest of his father’s family perished in the Holocaust.”[16]

In the mid-1960s, while they were both undergraduate students at Cornell residing at the Cornell Branch of the Telluride Association, he met Clare Selgin, who later became an anthropologist. They married in 1968, had three children and lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. They separated in 1999, and, according to some sources, became legally separated in 2001 and divorced in 2002.[14][17]

In late 1999, Wolfowitz began dating Shaha Riza. Their relationship led to controversy later, during his presidency of the World Bank Group.[17][18]

Wolfowitz speaks five languages in addition to English: ArabicFrenchGermanHebrew, and Indonesian.[17] He was reportedly the model for a minor character named Philip Gorman in Saul Bellow‘s 2001 book Ravelstein.[19]

University education[edit]

Cornell University[edit]

Wolfowitz entered Cornell University in 1961. He lived in the Telluride House in 1962 and 1963, while philosophy professor Allan Bloom served as a faculty mentor living in the house.[15] In August 1963, he and his mother participated in the civil-rights march on Washington organized by A. Philip Randolph[15][17] Wolfowitz was a member of the Quill and Dagger society. Wolfowitz graduated in 1965 with a B.A. in mathematics. Against his father’s wishes, Wolfowitz decided to go to graduate school to study political science.[15] Wolfowitz would later say that “one of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war.”[16]

University of Chicago[edit]

In 1972, Wolfowitz received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, writing his doctoral dissertation on Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East: The Politics and Economics of Proposals for Nuclear Desalting. At the University of Chicago, Wolfowitz took two courses with Leo Strauss. He completed his dissertation under Albert Wohlstetter.[20] Wohlstetter became Wolfowitz’s “mentor”.[21] In the words of Wolfowitz’s future colleague Richard Perle: “Paul thinks the way Albert thinks.”[21] In the summer of 1969, Wohlstetter arranged for Wolfowitz, Perle and Peter Wilson to join the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy which was set up by Cold War architects Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson.

While finishing his dissertation, Wolfowitz taught in the department of political science at Yale University from 1970 to 1972; one of his students was future colleague Scooter Libby.[22]

Career[edit]

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency[edit]

In the 1970s, Wolfowitz and Perle served as aides to proto-neoconservative Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson. A Cold War liberal, Jackson supported higher military spending and a hard line against the Soviet Union alongside more traditional Democratic causes, such as social welfare programs, civil rights, and labor unions.[23]

In 1972, US President Richard Nixon, under pressure from Senator Jackson, dismissed the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency(ACDA) and replaced him with Fred Ikle. Ikle brought in a new team that included Wolfowitz. While at ACDA, Wolfowitz wrote research papers and drafted testimony, as he had previously done at the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy. He traveled with Ikle to strategic arms limitations talks in Paris and other European cities. He also helped dissuade South Korea from reprocessing plutonium that could be diverted into a clandestine weapons program.

Under President Gerald Ford, the American intelligence agencies came under attack over their annually published National Intelligence Estimate. According to Mann, “The underlying issue was whether the C.I.A. and other agencies were underestimating the threat from the Soviet Union, either by intentionally tailoring intelligence to support Kissinger‘s policy of détente or by simply failing to give enough weight to darker interpretations of Soviet intentions.” Attempting to counter these claims, Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush formed a committee of anti-Communistexperts, headed by Richard Pipes, to reassess the raw data. Based on the recommendation of Perle, Pipes picked Wolfowitz for this committee, which was later called Team B.[24]

The team’s 1976 report, which was leaked to the press, stated that “all the evidence points to an undeviating Soviet commitment to what is euphemistically called the ‘worldwide triumph of socialism,’ but in fact connotes global Soviet hegemony”, highlighting a number of key areas where they believed the government’s intelligence analysts had failed. According to Jack Davis, Wolfowitz observed later:

The B-Team demonstrated that it was possible to construct a sharply different view of Soviet motivation from the consensus view of the [intelligence] analysts and one that provided a much closer fit to the Soviets’ observed behavior (and also provided a much better forecast of subsequent behavior up to and through the invasion of Afghanistan). The formal presentation of the competing views in a session out at [CIA headquarters in] Langley also made clear that the enormous experience and expertise of the B-Team as a group were formidable.[25]

Team B’s conclusions have faced criticism. They have been called “worst-case analysis”, ignoring the “political, demographic, and economic rot” already eating away at the Soviet system. Wolfowitz reportedly did not have a central role in Team B, mostly focused on analyzing the role that medium-range missiles played in Soviet military strategy.[19]

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs[edit]

In 1977, during the Carter administration, Wolfowitz moved to the Pentagon. He was US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs for the US Defense Department, under US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown.

In 1980, Wolfowitz resigned from the Pentagon and became a visiting professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Republican Party. According to The Washington Post: “He said it was not he who changed his political philosophy so much as the Democratic Party, which abandoned the hard-headed internationalism of Harry Truman, Kennedy and Jackson.”[26]

State Department Director of Policy Planning[edit]

Following the 1980 election of President Ronald Reagan, the new National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen formed the administration’s foreign policy advisory team. Allen initially rejected Wolfowitz’s appointment but following discussions, instigated by former colleague John Lehman, Allen offered Wolfowitz the position of Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State.

President Reagan’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, as outlined in a 1979 article in Commentary by Jeane Kirkpatrick entitled “Dictatorships and Double Standards”.

Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea holds greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances … (But) decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits.

Wolfowitz broke from this official line by denouncing Saddam Hussein of Iraq at a time when Donald Rumsfeld was offering the dictator support in his conflict with Iran. James Mann points out: “quite a few neo-conservatives, like Wolfowitz, believed strongly in democratic ideals; they had taken from the philosopher Leo Strauss the notion that there is a moral duty to oppose a leader who is a ‘tyrant.'”[27] Other areas where Wolfowitz disagreed with the administration was in his opposition to attempts to open up dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and to the sale of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Saudi Arabia. “In both instances,” according to Mann, “Wolfowitz demonstrated himself to be one of the strongest supporters of Israel in the Reagan administration.”

Mann stresses: “It was on China that Wolfowitz launched his boldest challenge to the established order.” After Nixon and Kissinger had gone to China in the early 1970s, US policy was to make concessions to China as an essential Cold War ally. The Chinese were now pushing for the US to end arms sales to Taiwan, and Wolfowitz used the Chinese incentive as an opportunity to undermine Kissinger’s foreign policy toward China. Instead, Wolfowitz advocated a unilateralist policy, claiming that the US did not need China’s assistance but that the Chinese needed the US to protect them against the far-more-likely prospect of a Soviet invasion of the Chinese mainland. Wolfowitz soon came into conflict with Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had been Kissinger’s assistant at the time of the visits to China. On March 30, 1982, The New York Times predicted that “Paul D. Wolfowitz, the director of policy planning … will be replaced”, because “Mr. Haig found Mr. Wolfowitz too theoretical.” Instead, on June 25, 1982, George P. Shultz replaced Haig as US Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz was promoted.

State Department Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs[edit]

In 1982, Secretary of State Shultz appointed Wolfowitz as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Jeane Kirkpatrick, on a visit to the Philippines, was welcomed by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos who quoted heavily from her 1979 Commentaryarticle Dictatorships and Double Standards and although Kirkpatrick had been forced to speak-out in favor of democracy the article continued to influence Reagan’s policy toward Marcos. Following the assassination of Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983 many within the Reagan administration including the President himself began to fear that the Philippines could fall to the communists and the US military would lose its strongholds at Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Station. Wolfowitz tried to change the administration’s policy, stating in an April 15, 1985 article in The Wall Street Journal that “The best antidote to Communism is democracy.” Wolfowitz and his assistant Lewis Libby made trips to Manilawhere they called for democratic reforms and met with non-communist opposition leaders.

Mann points out that “the Reagan administration’s decision to support democratic government in the Philippines had been hesitant, messy, crisis-driven and skewed by the desire to do what was necessary to protect the American military installations.” Following massive street protests, Marcos fled the country on a US Air Force plane and the US recognized the government of Corazón Aquino.

Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia[edit]

From 1986 to 1989, during the military-backed government of President Suharto, Wolfowitz was the US Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia.[28]

According to Peter J. Boyer,

Wolfowitz’s appointment to Indonesia was not an immediately obvious match. He was a Jew representing America in the largest Muslim republic in the world, an advocate of democracy in Suharto’s dictatorship. But Wolfowitz’s tenure as Ambassador was a notable success, largely owing to the fact that, in essence, he went native. With tutoring help from his driver, he learned the language, and hurled himself into the culture. He attended academic seminars, climbed volcanoes, and toured the neighborhoods of Jakarta.[29]

Sipress and Nakashima report that “Wolfowitz’s colleagues and friends, both Indonesian and American” pointed to the “U.S. envoy’s quiet pursuit of political and economic reforms in Indonesia.”[30] Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a foreign policy adviser to B. J. Habibie, Suharto’s successor as head of state (1998–99), stated “that Wolfowitz was a competent and popular envoy.” But “he never intervened to push human rights or stand up to corruption.”[28]

Officials involved in the AID program during Wolfowitz’s tenure told The Washington Post that he “took a keen personal interest in development, including health care, agriculture and private sector expansion” and that “Wolfowitz canceled food assistance to the Indonesian government out of concern that Suharto’s family, which had an ownership interest in the country’s only flour mill, was indirectly benefiting.”[30]

In “The Tragedy of Suharto”, published in May 1998, in The Wall Street Journal, Wolfowitz states:

Although it is fashionable to blame all of Asia’s present problems on corruption and the failure of Asian values, it is at bottom a case of a bubble bursting, of too many imprudent lenders chasing too many incautious borrowers. But the greed of Mr. Suharto’s children ensured that their father would take the lion’s share of the blame for Indonesia’s financial collapse. The Suharto children’s favored position became a major obstacle to the measures needed to restore economic confidence. Worst of all, they ensured that the economic crisis would be a political crisis as well. That he allowed this, and that he amassed such wealth himself, is all the more mysterious since he lived a relatively modest life.[31]

After the 2002 Bali bombing, on October 18, 2002, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz observed that “the reason the terrorists are successful in Indonesia is because the Suharto regime fell and the methods that were used to suppress them are gone.”[32]

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy[edit]

 

Gen. Colin Powell, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and Under Sec. Wolfowitz listen as Defense Sec. Dick Cheney briefs reporters during the Gulf War in February 1991.

From 1989 to 1993, Wolfowitz served in the administration of George H. W. Bush as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, under then US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Wolfowitz’s team co-ordinated and reviewed military strategy, raising $50 billion in allied financial support for the operation. Wolfowitz was present with Cheney, Colin Powell and others, on February 27, 1991, at the meeting with the President where it was decided that the troops should be demobilised.

On February 25, 1998, Wolfowitz testified before a congressional committee that he thought that “the best opportunity to overthrow Saddam was, unfortunately, lost in the month right after the war.”[33] Wolfowitz added that he was horrified in March as “Saddam Hussein flew helicopters that slaughtered the people in the south and in the north who were rising up against him, while American fighter pilots flew overhead, desperately eager to shoot down those helicopters, and not allowed to do so.” During that hearing, he also stated: “Some people might say—and I think I would sympathise with this view—that perhaps if we had delayed the ceasefire by a few more days, we might have got rid of Saddam Hussein.”

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Wolfowitz and his then-assistant Scooter Libby wrote the “Defense Planning Guidance of 1992”, which came to be known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine, to “set the nation’s direction for the next century.”[21] As military strategist Andrew Bacevich described the doctrine:

Before this classified document was fully vetted by the White House, it was leaked to The New York Times, which made it front-page news. The draft DPG announced that it had become the “first objective” of U.S. policy “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” With an eye toward “deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role,” the United States would maintain unquestioned military superiority and, if necessary, employ force unilaterally. As window dressing, allies might be nice, but the United States no longer considered them necessary.[21]

At that time the official administration line was “containment”, and the contents of Wolfowitz’s plan calling for “preemption” and “unilateralism” which was opposed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and President Bush.[21] Defense Secretary Cheney produced a revised plan released in 1992. Many of the ideas in the Wolfowitz Doctrine later became part of the Bush Doctrine.[21] He left the government after the 1992 election.

Johns Hopkins University[edit]

From 1994 to 2001, Wolfowitz served as Professor of International Relations and Dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.[21] He was instrumental in adding more than $75 million to the university’s endowment, developing an international finance concentration as part of the curriculum, and combining the various Asian studies programs into one department. He also advised Bob Dole on foreign policy during his 1996 US Presidential election campaign, which was managed by Donald Rumsfeld.[34]

According to Kampfner, “Wolfowitz used his perch at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies as a test-bed for a new conservative world vision.” Wolfowitz was associated with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC); he signed both the PNAC’s June 3, 1997 “Statement of Principles“,[35] and its January 26, 1998, open letter to President Bill Clinton.[36]

In February 1998, Wolfowitz testified before a Congressional hearing, stating that the current administration lacked the sense of purpose to “liberate ourselves, our friends and allies in the region, and the Iraqi people themselves from the menace of Saddam Hussein.”[37]

In September 2000, the PNAC produced a 90-page report entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, advocating the redeployment of US troops in permanent bases in strategic locations throughout the world where they can be ready to act to protect US interests abroad.[38] During the 2000 US Presidential election campaign, Wolfowitz served as a foreign policy advisor to George W. Bushas part of the group led by Condoleezza Rice calling itself The Vulcans.[39]

Deputy Secretary of Defense[edit]

 

Wolfowitz and Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartsen, 2001

 

Wolfowitz meets with Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, October 5, 2001

 

President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz in March 2003

 

Dep. Sec. Wolfowitz is escorted by Army General David Petraeus he tours Mosul, Iraq, July 21, 2003

 

Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and General Richard Myers testifying before the 9/11 Commission in March 2004

 

Wolfowitz and Rear Admiral Robert T. Moeller aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in July 2004

 

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz departs the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in January 2005

From 2001 to 2005, during the George W. Bush administration, Wolfowitz served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense reporting to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The September 11 attacks in 2001 was a turning point in administration policy, as Wolfowitz later explained: “9/11 really was a wake up call and that if we take proper advantage of this opportunity to prevent the future terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction that it will have been an extremely valuable wake up call,” adding: “if we say our only problem was to respond to 9/11, and we wait until somebody hits us with nuclear weapons before we take that kind of threat seriously, we will have made a very big mistake.”[40]

In the first emergency meeting of the National Security Council on the day of the attacks, Rumsfeld asked, “Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaeda?” with Wolfowitz adding that Iraq was a “brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily—it was doable,” and, according to John Kampfner, “from that moment on, he and Wolfowitz used every available opportunity to press the case.”[41] The idea was initially rejected, at the behest of Secretary of State Colin Powell, but, according to Kampfner, “Undeterred Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz held secret meetings about opening up a second front—against Saddam. Powell was excluded.” In such meetings they created a policy that would later be dubbed the Bush Doctrine, centering on “pre-emption” and the war on Iraq, which the PNAC had advocated in their earlier letters.[42]

After the September 11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaeda, which had orchestrated the attack.[42] The invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. On October 10, 2001, George Robertson, then Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, went to the Pentagon to offer NATO troops, planes and ships to assist. Wolfowitz rebuffed the offer, saying: “We can do everything we need to.” Wolfowitz later announced publicly, according to Kampfner, “that ‘allies, coalitions and diplomacy’ were of little immediate concern.”

Ten months later, on January 15, 2003, with hostilities still continuing, Wolfowitz made a fifteen-hour visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul, and met with the new president Hamid Karzai. Wolfowitz stated, “We’re clearly moving into a different phase, where our priority in Afghanistan is increasingly going to be stability and reconstruction. There’s no way to go too fast. Faster is better.” Despite the promises, according to Hersh, “little effort to provide the military and economic resources” necessary for reconstruction was made.[42] This criticism would also re-occur after the 2003 invasion of Iraq later that year.[42]

On April 16, 2002 the National Solidarity Rally for Israel was called in Washington to promote US support and collaboration with Israel. Wolfowitz was the sole representative of the Bush administration to attend, speaking alongside Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. As reported by the BBC, Wolfowitz told the crowd that US President George W. Bush “wants you to know that he stands in solidarity with you”.[43] Sharon Samber and Matthew E. Berger reported for Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) that Wolfowitz continued by saying that “Innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying as well. It is critical that we recognize and acknowledge that fact,” before being booed and drowned out by chants of “No more Arafat.”[44]

Following the invasion of Afghanistan the Bush administration had started to plan for the next stage of the War on Terror. According to John Kampfner, “Emboldened by their experience in Afghanistan, they saw the opportunity to root out hostile regimes in the Middle East and to implant very American interpretations of democracy and free markets, from Iraq to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Wolfowitz epitomised this view.” Wolfowitz “saw a liberated Iraq as both paradigm and linchpin for future interventions.” The 2003 invasion of Iraq began on March 19.[42]

Prior to the invasion, Wolfowitz actively championed it, as he later stated: “For reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason”[45][46]

The job of finding WMD and providing justification for the attack would fall to the intelligence services, but, according to Kampfner, “Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believed that, while the established security services had a role, they were too bureaucratic and too traditional in their thinking.” As a result, “they set up what came to be known as the ‘cabal’, a cell of eight or nine analysts in a new Office of Special Plans (OSP) based in the U.S. Defense Department.” According to an unnamed Pentagon source quoted by Hersh, the OSP “was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true—that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States.”[42]

Within months of being set up, the OSP “rivaled both the CIA and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA, as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda.” Hersh explains that the OSP “relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi.” According to Kampfner, the CIA had ended its funding of the INC “in the mid-1990s when doubts were cast about Chalabi’s reliability.” Nevertheless, “as the administration geared up for conflict with Saddam, Chalabi was welcomed in the inner sanctum of the Pentagon” under the auspices of the OSP, and “Wolfowitz did not see fit to challenge any of Chalabi’s information.” The actions of the OSP have led to accusation of the Bush administration “fixing intelligence to support policy” with the aim of influencing Congress in its use of the War Powers Act.[42]

Kampfner outlined Wolfowitz’s strategy for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which “envisaged the use of air support and the occupation of southern Iraq with ground troops, to install a new government run by Ahmed Chalabi‘s Iraqi National Congress.” Wolfowitz believed that the operation would require minimal troop deployment, Hersh explains, because “any show of force would immediately trigger a revolt against Saddam within Iraq, and that it would quickly expand.”[42] The financial expenditure would be kept low, Kampfner observes, if “under the plan American troops would seize the oil fields around Basra, in the South, and sell the oil to finance the opposition.”

On March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz told the House Appropriations Committee[47] that oil revenue earned by Iraq alone would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction after the Iraq war; he testified his “rough recollection” was:[47] “The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but … We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.”[48] By October of that year, “Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said ‘prewar estimates that may be borne out in fact are likelier to be more lucky than smart.’ [He] added that earlier estimates and statements by Mr. Wolfowitz and others ‘oozed with uncertainty.'” Di Rita’s comments came as a much less optimistic secret Pentagon study—which had been complete at the time of Wolfowitz’s testimony—was coming to public light, and when actual production results in Iraq were coinciding with those projected in the less optimistic Pentagon study.[47]

During Wolfowitz’s pre-war testimony before Congress, he dismissed General Eric K. Shinseki‘s estimates of the size of the post war occupation force which would be needed. General Shinseki testified to the US Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003 that “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for postwar Iraq. By contrast, Wolfowitz estimated that fewer than 100,000 troops would be necessary in Iraq.[49] Two days after Shinseki testified, Wolfowitz said to the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2003:

There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army—hard to imagine.[42]

On October 26, 2003, while in Baghdad staying at the Al-Rashid Hotel Wolfowitz narrowly escaped an attack when six rockets hit the floors below his room.[50] Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring was killed and seventeen other soldiers were wounded.[51] Wolfowitz and his DOD staffers escaped unharmed and returned to the United States on October 28, 2003.

President of the World Bank[edit]

 

Press conference at G8 Summit (Paul Wolfowitz standing at rear on right)

In March 2005, Wolfowitz was nominated to be president of the World Bank by US President George W. Bush.[52] Criticism of his nomination appeared in the media.[53] Nobel Laureate in Economics and former chief economist for the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz said: “‘The World Bank will once again become a hate figure. This could bring street protests and violence across the developing world.'”[54] In a speech at the U.N. Economic and Social Council, economist Jeffrey Sachs also opposed Wolfowitz: “It’s time for other candidates to come forward that have experience in development. This is a position on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their lives … Let’s have a proper leadership of professionalism.”[55]

In the US, there was some praise for the nomination. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal stated:

Mr. Wolfowitz is willing to speak the truth to power … he saw earlier than most, and spoke publicly about, the need for dictators to plan democratic transitions. It is the world’s dictators who are the chief causes of world poverty. If anyone can stand up to the Robert Mugabes of the world, it must be the man who stood up to Saddam Hussein.[56]

He was confirmed and became president on June 1, 2005. He soon attended the 31st G8 summit to discuss issues of global climate change and the economic development in Africa. When this meeting was interrupted by the July 7, 2005 London bombings, Wolfowitz was present with other world leaders at the press conference given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Several of Wolfowitz’s initial appointments at the Bank proved controversial, including two US nationals (Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems) formerly with the Bush administration, whom he appointed as close advisors with $250,000 tax-free contracts.[57] Another appointee, Juan José Daboub, faced criticism, including from his colleagues, for attempting to bring policies on climate change and family planning towards a more conservative position.[58][59]

Wolfowitz gave special emphasis to two particular issues. Identifying Sub-Saharan Africa as the region most challenged to improve living standards, he traveled widely in the region. He also made clear his focus on fighting corruption. Several aspects of the latter program raised controversy. Overturning the names produced by a formal search process, he appointed a figure linked to the US Republican party to head the Bank’s internal watchdog. Member countries worried that Wolfowitz’s willingness to suspend lending to countries on grounds of corruption was vulnerable to selective application in line with US foreign policy interests. In a debate on the proposed Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy at the Bank’s 2006 Annual Meetings, shareholders directed Wolfowitz to undertake extensive consultations and revise the strategy to show how objective measures of corruption would be incorporated into decisions and how the shareholders’ representatives on the Bank’s Board would play a key role. Following the consultations and revisions, the Board approved a revised strategy in spring 2007.[17]

Controversies[edit]

Wolfowitz’s relationship with Shaha Riza[edit]

After President George W. Bush nominated Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, journalists reported that Wolfowitz was involved in a relationship with World Bank Senior Communications Officer (and Acting Manager of External Affairs) for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office Shaha Ali Riza.[60] According to Richard Leiby, of The Washington Post, Riza is “an Oxford-educated British citizen, was born in Tunisia and grew up in Saudi Arabia. She’s known for her expertise on women’s rights and has been listed on the bank’s Web site as a media contact for Iraq reconstruction issues.”[61] According to Leiby and Linton Weeks, in their essay “In the Shadow of a Scandal”, Riza’s employment at the World Bank predated Wolfowitz’s nomination as Bank president: “Riza started at the World Bank as a consultant in July 1997 and became a full-time employee in 1999”; and the relationship between Riza and Wolfowitz pre-dated it as well:

In the early 1990s, Riza joined the National Endowment for Democracy and is credited there with development of the organization’s Middle East program. Wolfowitz was on the endowment’s board—which is how Riza first met him, according to Turkish journalist Cengiz Candar, a friend of the couple. “Shaha was married at the time and Paul was married,” Candar recalled, and it wasn’t until late 1999—after Riza divorced and Wolfowitz had separated from his wife of 30 years, Clare Selgin Wolfowitz—that the couple began dating.”[18][61]

When Wolfowitz was considered for head of the CIA after the 2000 election, Clare Wolfowitz wrote President-elect George Bush a letter telling him that her husband’s relationship with a foreign national—Riza—posed a national security risk.[62][63] It has been reported that Scooter Libbyintercepted the letter.[64] Sidney Blumenthal also reported on the letter Clare Wolfowitz wrote:

This embittered letter remained a closely guarded secret, although a former high official of the CIA told me about it. Chris Nelson also reported it on April 16 in his widely respected, nonpartisan foreign policy newsletter: “A certain Ms. Riza was even then Wolfowitz’s true love. The problem for the CIA wasn’t just that she was a foreign national, although that was and is today an issue for anyone interested in CIA employment. The problem was that Wolfowitz was married to someone else, and that someone was really angry about it, and she found a way to bring her complaint directly to the President. So when we, with our characteristic innocence, put Wolfowitz on our short-list for CIA, we were instantly told, by a very, very, very senior Republican foreign policy operative, ‘I don’t think so.’ ” The Daily Mail of London also reported on his wife’s letter when Wolfowitz was appointed president of the World Bank in 2005.[65]

According to the London Sunday Times on March 20, 2005, despite their cultural differences:

Riza, an Arab feminist who confounds portrayals of Wolfowitz as a leader of a “Zionist conspiracy” of Jewish neoconservatives in Washington … [and who] works as the bank’s senior gender co-ordinator for the Middle East and north Africa … not only shares Wolfowitz’s passion for spreading democracy in the Arab world, but is said to have reinforced his determination to remove Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime.[66]

The relationship created further controversy over Wolfowitz’s nomination to head the World Bank, because the bank’s ethics rules preclude sexual relationships between a manager and a staff member serving under that manager, even if one reports to the other only indirectly through a chain of supervision. Sharon Churcher and Annette Witheridge, in The Daily Mail, quote one World Bank employee’s statement that “Unless Riza gives up her job, this will be an impossible conflict of interest”; the observation of “a Washington insider”: “His womanizing has come home to roost … Paul was a foreign policy hawk long before he met Shaha, but it doesn’t look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress”; and Wolfowitz’s response: “If a personal relationship presents a potential conflict of interest, I will comply with Bank policies to resolve the issue.”[67]

Wolfowitz initially proposed to the World Bank’s Ethics Committee that he recuse himself from personnel matters regarding Riza, but the committee rejected that proposal.[68] Riza was “seconded to the State Department”, or placed on “external assignment”, assigned “a job at the state department under Liz Cheney, the daughter of the vice-president, promoting democracy in the Middle East”.[69] She “was also moved up to a managerial pay grade in compensation for the disruption to her career”, resulting in a raise of over $60,000, as well as guarantees of future increases; “The staff association claims that the pay rise was more than double the amount allowed under employee guidelines.”[69][70] A promotion and raise had been among the options suggested by a World Bank ethics committee that was set up to advise on the situation.[71] According to Steven R. Weisman, however, in a report published in The New York Times, the then-current chair of the committee emphasized that he was not informed at the time of the details or extent of the present and future raises built into the agreement with Riza.[72] Wolfowitz referred to the controversy concerning his relationship with Riza in a statement posted on the website of the World Bank at the time (April 12, 2007).[73]

The affair resurfaced in headlines in 2011.[74][75][76]

Wolfowitz’s leadership of the World Bank Group[edit]

In early 2007, Fox News published on a series of investigative stories on the World Bank, based in part on leaks of internal bank documents.[77] On April 11, 2007, Reuters and Al Kamen in The Washington Post, reported that Wolfowitz and the World Bank board had hired the Williams & Connollylaw firm to oversee an investigation into the leaking of internal bank documents to Fox News.[78][79] Those reports cite an internal memo to the bank staff later posted on the internet, dated April 9, 2007, in which the World Bank’s general counsel, Ana Palacio, states that the Bank’s legal staff was scrutinizing two articles by investigative reporter Richard Behar published on the website of Fox News on January 31 and March 27, 2007.[80] A day after the second report published by Behar, on March 28, 2007, Kamen had disclosed that “Bank records obtained by the Government Accountability Project” documented pay raises in excess of Bank policies given to Shaha Riza[81]

On April 12, 2007, the London Financial Times reported that, in a 2005 memorandum, Wolfowitz had personally directed the Bank’s human resources chief to offer Riza a large pay rise and promotion, according to two anonymous sources who told the Financial Times that they had seen the memo.[82] The memo was part of a package of 102 pages of documents released by the bank on April 14, 2007.[82]

On April 14, 2007, after reviewing these documents, the Financial Times concluded that it was “a potentially fatal blow” to Wolfowitz.[82] In contrast, Fox News concluded that the new documents might offer Wolfowitz a “new lifeline” in the scandal, because the Bank’s ethics committee had launched a review of the Riza compensation case in early 2006 and concluded that it did not warrant any further attention by the committee.[83]Wolfowitz failed, on April 19, 2007, to attend a high-profile meeting and the controversy led to disruption at the World Bank when some employees wore blue ribbons “in a display of defiance against his leadership.”[84][85]

World Bank Group’s board of executive directors and staffers complained also that Wolfowitz was imposing Bush Administration policies to eliminate family planning from World Bank programs. According to Nicole Gaouette, in her report published in the Los Angeles Times on April 19, 2007, Juan José Daboub—the managing director whom Wolfowitz had appointed who has also been criticized for overly-conservative policies concerning climate change[59] and “a Roman Catholic with ties to a conservative Salvadoran political party”—repeatedly deleted references to family planning from World Bank proposals.[58]

On May 14, 2007 the World Bank committee investigating the alleged ethics violations reported (in part):

  • “Mr. Wolfowitz’s contract requiring that he adhere to the Code of Conduct for board officials and that he avoid any conflict of interest, real or apparent, were violated”;
  • “The salary increase Ms. Riza received at Mr. Wolfowitz’s direction was in excess of the range established by Rule 6.01”;
  • “The ad hoc group concludes that in actuality, Mr Wolfowitz from the outset cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution”; and
  • “He did not accept the bank’s policy on conflict of interest, so he sought to negotiate for himself a resolution different from that which would have applied to the staff he was selected to head.”[86]

Wolfowitz appeared before the World Bank Group’s board of executive directors to respond on May 15. Adams speculated that “With Mr Wolfowitz so far refusing to step down, the board may need to take radical action to break the stalemate. Members have discussed a range of options, including sacking Mr Wolfowitz, issuing a vote of no confidence or reprimanding him. Some board members argue that a vote of no confidence would make it impossible for him to stay in the job.”[87] By Wednesday, May 16, 2007, The New York Times, reported that “after six weeks of fighting efforts to oust him as president … Wolfowitz began today to negotiate the terms of his possible resignation, in return for the bank dropping or softening the charge that he had engaged in misconduct …”[88] After expressions from the Bush administration that it “fully” supported Wolfowitz as World Bank president and its urging a “fair hearing” for him, President Bush expressed “regret” at Wolfowitz’s impending resignation.[89]

On May 17, 2007 the World Bank Group’s board of Executive Directors announced that Paul Wolfowitz would resign as World Bank Group president at the end of June 2007.[90]

Recent activities[edit]

As a Visiting Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Wolfowitz has blogged for the group[91] and appeared in group events.[92][93] In 2011, he wrote columns that appeared in publications such as The IndependentThe Sunday Times, and Newsweek.[94]

Wolfowitz is a former steering committee member of the Bilderberg group.[95]

In February 2013, Wolfowitz publicly supported legal recognition for same-sex marriage in an amicus brief submitted to the US Supreme Court.[96]

In February 2015, Wolfowitz advised presidential candidate Jeb Bush.[97]

In August 2016, Wolfowitz announced his intention to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election, despite having “serious reservations about her.”[98] However, in a December interview on Fox Business, Wolfowitz claimed that he did not in fact vote for Clinton.[99]

In January 2017, Wolfowitz wrote an op-ed in the New York Times commenting on a “dissent cable” that had been signed by 1,000 Foreign Service Officers criticizing President Trump’s executive action on immigration.[100]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Zachary A. Goldfarb, “Wolfowitz Joins Think Tank as Visiting Scholar”, online posting, The New Yorker, July 3, 2007, accessed July 3, 2007.
  2. ^ US-Taiwan Business Council (2008). Paul D. Wolfowitz. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
  3. ^ Paul, Reynolds (2005-03-17). “Wolfowitz to spread neo-con gospel”. BBC. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
  4. ^ Ostroy, Andy (2014-06-20). “Dick Cheney’s Big Neo-Con Con”. Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  5. ^ Boot, Max (2009-10-28). “Think Again: Neocons”. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  6. ^ keller, bill (2002-09-22). “The Sunshine Warrior”The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  7. ^ Topaz, Jonathan (2014-06-17). “Wolfowitz: Not Iraq War ‘architectPolitico. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  8. ^ Purdum, Todd (2003-02-01). “The Brains Behind Bush’s War Policy”The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  9. ^ “Wolfowitz Retreats on Al Qaeda Charge”The New York Times. 2003-09-13. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  10. ^ Topaz (2014-06-17). “Wolfowitz: Not Iraq War ‘architectPolitico. Retrieved 2019-05-06. Text “Jonathan ” ignored (help)
  11. ^ Harnden, Toby (2013-03-18). “10 Years On, Paul Wolfowitz Admits U.S. Bungled in Iraq”Politico. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  12. ^ “Statements of Executive Directors and President Wolfowitz”World Bank Group, May 17, 2007, accessed May 17, 2007.
  13. ^ Matthew Jones, “Wolfowitz Exit Seen Clearing Way for Progress”Reuters (UK), May 18, 2007, accessed May 18, 2007.
  14. Jump up to:a b Suzanne Goldenberg, “Guardian Profile: Paul Wolfowitz”The Guardian, April 1, 2005, accessed May 1, 2007.
  15. Jump up to:a b c d David Dudley, “Paul’s Choice”Cornell Alumni Magazine Online107.1 (July/August 2004), accessed May 17, 2007.
  16. Jump up to:a b Eric Schmitt, “The Busy Life of Being a Lightning Rod for Bush”The New York Times, April 22, 2002, accessed March 24, 2008.
  17. Jump up to:a b c d e John Cassidy“The Next Crusade: Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank”, online posting, The New Yorker, April 9, 2007, accessed May 7, 2007.
  18. Jump up to:a b Linton Weeks and Richard Leiby, “In the Shadow of a Scandal”The Washington Post, May 10, 2007, accessed May 10, 2007. (Page 2 of 3 pages.)
  19. Jump up to:a b Ivo H. Daalder; James H. Lindsay. America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Wiley. p. 26. ISBN 978-0471741503.
  20. ^ James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: the history of Bush’s war cabinet(2004) pp. 28–31
  21. Jump up to:a b c d e f g Bacevich, AndrewA Letter to Paul WolfowitzHarper’s(March 2013)
  22. ^ “Profile: Paul Wolfowitz Archived 2007-05-19 at the Wayback MachineRight Web (International Relations Center), updated April 19, 2007, accessed May 21, 2007.
  23. ^ Kit Oldham, “Cyberpedia Library: Jackson, Henry M. ‘Scoop’ (1912–1983): HistoryLink.org Essay 5516”historylink.org (The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History), August 19, 2003, accessed May 17, 2007.
  24. ^ Sam Tanenhaus, “The Hard Liner:
  25. ^ Qtd. by Jack Davis, “The Challenge of Managing Uncertainty: Paul Wolfowitz on Intelligence-Policy Relations”, Studies in Intelligence 39.5 (1996):35–42, accessed May 21, 2007. (“Jack Davis served in the Directorate of Intelligence.”) [Corrected title.]
  26. ^ Michael Dobbs, “For Wolfowitz, a Vision May Be Realized”The Washington Post, April 7, 2003, accessed April 16, 2007.
  27. ^ James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: the history of Bush’s war cabinet(2004) p 93
  28. Jump up to:a b AP“Indonesian Rights Groups Denounce Wolfowitz’ World Bank Nomination”, online posting, Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia, March 22, 2005, accessed June 20, 2007.
  29. ^ Peter J. Boyer, “The Believer: Paul Wolfowitz Defends His War”, online posting, The New Yorker, November 1, 2004, accessed November 26, 2014 (7 pages).
  30. Jump up to:a b Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, “Jakarta Tenure Offers Glimpse of Wolfowitz”The Washington Post, March 28, 2005, accessed April 16, 2007.
  31. ^ Paul Wolfowitz, “The Tragedy of Suharto” Archived 2005-02-08 at the Wayback MachineThe Wall Street Journal, May 27, 1998, accessed April 16, 2007.
  32. ^ As qtd. in Scott Burchill, “What the West Wants from Indonesia”Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback MachineZ Magazine, October 1, 2003, accessed June 7, 2007.
  33. ^ Transcript of hearing, Committee on International Relations, “U.S. Options in Confronting Iraq”, February 25, 1998, accessed April 17, 2007.
  34. ^ Paul Wolfowitz, velociraptorThe Economist (Feb. 7, 2002)
  35. ^ Elliott Abrams, et al., “Statement of Principles” Archived 2005-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, Project for the New American Century, June 3, 1997, accessed May 27, 2007.
  36. ^ Elliott Abrams, et al., “Open letter to President Bill Clinton,”Archived 2008-09-09 at the Wayback Machine Project for the New American Century, January 26, 1998, accessed May 24, 2007.
  37. ^ U.S. House Committee on International Relations, “U.S. Options in Confrtonting Iraq”, February 25, 1998, accessed April 18, 2007.
  38. ^ Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, Project for the New American Century, September 2000, accessed May 14, 2007.
  39. ^ Martin Sieff, “Mission Accomplished: Archived 2008-03-07 at the Wayback Machine Bush’s Brain Trust Had a Grand Plan for the Middle East. The Results Are Coming Home Every Day in Body Bags”, Slate, April 8, 2004, accessed May 19, 2007.
  40. ^ “U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Transcript” of “Wolfowitz interview with the San Francisco Chronicle”, conducted by Robert Collier, “Presenter: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz”, press release, United States Department of Defense, February 23, 2002, accessed May 26, 2007. [“Interview with Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle”.]
  41. ^ Kampfner, John (2003). Blair’s wars. Simon and Schuster. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-7432-4829-7.
  42. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Seymour M. Hersh“Annals of National Security Selective Intelligence: Donald Rumsfeld Has His Own Special Sources. Are they reliable?” The New Yorker, May 12, 2003, accessed May 8, 2007.
  43. ^ “Thousands in US rally for Israel”BBC News, April 15, 2002, accessed April 18, 2007.
  44. ^ Sharon Samber and Matthew E. Berger, “Speakers Stick to Consensus Theme at National Solidarity Rally for Israel“, United Jewish Communities (JTA), April 15, 2002, accessed May 3, 2007.
  45. ^ “U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Transcript” of telephone interview of Paul Wolfowitz, conducted by Sam Tanenhaus, “Presenter: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz”, press release, United States Department of Defense, May 9, 2003, accessed May 2, 2007. [“Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus [sic]”, Vanity Fair.]
  46. ^ Qtd. in Associated Press“Wolfowitz Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq’s WMD”USA Today, May 30, 2003, accessed May 8, 2007.
  47. Jump up to:a b c Gerth, Jeff“Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq OilThe New York Times, October 5, 2003. Retrieved 2010-09-05. Referenced in Frank Rich“Freedom’s just another word”The New York Times, September 4, 2010 (September 5, 2010, p. WK8, NY ed.).
  48. ^ Paul Blustein, “Wolfowitz Strives To Quell Criticism”The Washington Post, March 21, 2005, accessed April 18, 2007.
  49. ^ Schmitt, Eric (February 28, 2003). “Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size”. The New York Times. Retrieved April 4,2012.
  50. ^ Jane Arraf, “Bold, Well-executed Attack”CNN, October 26, 2003, accessed April 18, 2007.
  51. ^ “DoD Identifies Army Casualty”United States Department of Defense, October 27, 2003, accessed April 18, 2007.
  52. ^ Paul Blustein and Peter Baker, “Wolfowitz Picked for World Bank”The Washington Post, March 27, 2005, accessed January 3, 2009.
  53. ^ Alan Beattie and Edward Alden, “Shareholders’ dismay at lack of consultation”The Financial Times, March 16, 2005, accessed April 16, 2007.
  54. ^ Peston, Robert (2005-03-20). “Stiglitz warns of violence if Wolfowitz goes to World Bank”The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-05-08.
  55. ^ “Many Wary, Some Cheer Wolfowitz Pick” Archived 2007-10-01 at the Wayback MachineAl Jazeera, April 16, 2007, accessed April 16, 2007.
  56. ^ “Banking on Wolfowitz: And You Thought Iraq Was Difficult”The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2005, accessed April 16, 2007, Review & Outlook (Past Featured Article), accessed June 8, 2007.
  57. ^ Karen DeYoung, “Wolfowitz Clashed Repeatedly With World Bank Staff: Tenure as President Has Been Rocky”The Washington Post, April 15, 2007: A12, accessed May 1, 2007.
  58. Jump up to:a b Nicole Gaouette, “World Bank May Target Family Planning:Repeated Absence of References to Birth Control in Internal Reports Alarms Women’s Health Advocates”, The Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2007, accessed May 1, 2007.
  59. Jump up to:a b Krishna Guha, “Wolfowitz Deputy Under Fire for Climate Change”The Financial Times, April 24, 2007, updated April 25, 2007, accessed May 2, 2007.
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Further reading[edit]

  • Immerman, Richard H. Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz (2010) pp. 196–231 excerpt and text search

External links[edit]

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