Let the spinnin' wheel spin The two stories were related somehow, the nomination of Paul D. Wolfowitz for presidency of the World Bank ...
Let the spinnin' wheel spin
The two stories were related somehow, the nomination
of Paul D. Wolfowitz for presidency of the World Bank and news that after 20
years of investigation the Canadian investigation into the bombing of an Air
India flight had come
up dry. The question was how. Wolfowitz's nomination only makes sense if the
primary cause of world underdevelopment is perceived as political failure rather
than the mere lack of investment. Its narrative relationship to the Canadian
acquittal of the Air India bombing suspects is one of contrast: the failure of
the Crown prosecution to prove its case being cast in opposite terms; a lack of
technique rather than political failure.
The really shocking thing about the Canadian decision was illustrating how
two decades, $100 million in expenses and the best good will in the world could
get no further than establishing there was a bomb aboard the plane the night it
blew up. If the one air incident took that, what if, God forbid, some
really serious terrorist action happened in Canada that required a rapid
resolution? David Beatty's famous expression of disappointment at the
underperformance of his squadron at Jutland
captures the frustration perfectly. "There seems to be something wrong with
our bloody ships today."
The same thought has probably occurred to anyhow who has watched the World
Bank and other international development agencies flail their arms against the
tide of poverty. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the best ways
academia could conceive, five decades of development aid hasn't even established
whether the effort was useful. 'Never in the face of human effort has so little
been been accomplished by so much'.
But if insanity is expecting different results from the same actions then the
asylum is larger than it seems. The development bureaucrats are outraged that
Wolfowitz might try to do things differently.
Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs reacted to Wolfowitz's appointment saying "we need
someone with professional experience in helping people to escape from poverty.
Mr Wolfowitz does not have that track record". Neither, he might have
added, did anyone else. But that is nothing to the point.
The most damning charge against him was that he actually made something
happen. "Wolfowitz's nomination aroused particular concerns in Europe
because of his key role as an architect of the war in Iraq". Hence the
danger is that he might do it again. Far more reassuring in these latter days if
he had spent twenty years doing nothing at all. It has been long since Europe
remembered what once it knew so well.
Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
-- Locksley
Hall
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