(1) Wolfowitz's appointment is not a smart move; (2) Wolfowitz and McNamara: What's the difference - Re: [LISI] Re: Democracy ... (Joseph E. Stiglitz)

Bung Moritis, Bung Wisnu, Bung Ikra, Bung Asnawi, dan rekan Netters Yth. 
lainnya,

Pandangan saya pribadi tidak mempersoalkan siapa (orang) yang bakal menjadi 
"penguasa tertinggi" di World Bank. Tetapi lebih kepada proses yang "fair" 
menurut ukuran DEMOKRASI (yang selalu diusung Amerika dan negara maju lainnya 
kepada negara2 berkembang). 

Meskipun Paul Wolfowitz sudah "kenal" lama dengan Indonesia, namun bukan 
jaminan bahwa beliau akan berpihak kepada Indonesia. Sepengetahuan saya yang 
dangkal ini apa yang menjadi kebijakan Amerika selalu mendasarkan kepada 
"national interest" mereka tanpa memperdulikan apakah hal tersebut melanggar 
HAM atau DEMOKRASI.

Untuk meramaikan diskusi ini, di bawah ini ada 2 (dua) artikel menarik tentang 
topik yang sama dari harian The Jakarta Post, 22 Maret 2005. Selamat membaca.

Salam,

Sidqy LP. Suyitno

=====================================================================

Wolfowitz's appointment is not a smart move[1] 

Ari A. Perdana[2], Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as the World Bank president has been the 
hottest issue on the international stage for the past few weeks. The story 
about Wolfowitz's nomination has outshone the discussions on the Millennium 
Development Goals or appeals to relieve third world debt.

After President George W. Bush confirmed that the U.S government officially 
wants Wolfowitz to lead the Bank last week, he is only one step away from the 
post. As the biggest shareholder of the Bank, the U.S. government virtually has 
a prerogative to appoint their man to lead the organization. The U.S. and 
Europe traditionally share the leadership of the Bank and the IMF -- the U.S. 
gets the Bank's presidency while Europe gets the Fund's executive director 
post. 

The problem, however, is that Wolfowitz's nomination has been widely rejected 
by the other stakeholders. He does not have any experience in the international 
development field, nor does he have a background in economics or banking. But 
the more serious concern is that he is perceived as Bush's man. 

Many fear that if he becomes the World Bank president, the Bank's policies will 
be directed by the U.S. government's interests. Developing countries worry that 
whatever lending or development assistance they receive will be tied to 
non-development issues such as international security. 

Unfortunately, the decision-making process in the Bank means that the U.S. 
government's position is very strong. European countries may try to negotiate 
for a rejection or approval option. The probability is quite small, though. 

As a person, Wolfowitz is a great and well-respected man. He is a professional 
bureaucrat, an excellent diplomat and a reputable academic. He is known as an 
idealist -- he has a clear vision about democratization and how to spread this 
vision. Whether or not people agree with his vision and his way of spreading it 
is another story. But even his political opponents respect him because of it. 

When he was U.S. ambassador to Indonesia for three years under the Reagan 
administration, both governments were very satisfied with him. During his term, 
the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta was considered as one of the most effective 
diplomatic missions in the country. The relationship between the two nations 
was also of the highest quality. 

As an academic, he has served as the dean of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced 
International Studies (SAIS), a school of Johns Hopkins University in 
Washington, D.C., which is also a well-respected institution. 

However, there are several reasons why his nomination for the World Bank 
leadership may not be a good thing for the U.S. government, for the institution 
and for its other stakeholders. 

First, the World Bank is an international organization whose core business is 
development. As an expert in defense and international security, the 
development community knows little about Wolfowitz's vision for international 
development. He may be a professional bureaucrat, but running an organization 
like the Bank is different with running the Pentagon. 

It is debatable whether being an economist or a banker should be a strict 
requirement for a World Bank president. Senior U.S. politician Alan Metzer 
argued that the Bank does not need its leader to be a development expert. It 
already has a lot of such experts. What they need is someone that can be 
trusted to manage the huge sums of money handled by the Bank. 

But economist Jeffrey Sachs has a different view. He says that Wolfowitz has 
never shown an interest, let alone a commitment, to the Millennium Development 
Goals or global poverty eradication. That is the reason, according to Mr. 
Sachs, why Wolfowitz is not qualified for the position. 

A second reason is that his nomination by the Bush administration will send a 
signal that the U.S. has an obvious agenda with the organization. The 
perception that the World Bank is merely a vehicle for furthering U.S. 
interests will become stronger. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, was 
the intellectual architect of the Iraq war. The Iraq war represents heavy 
baggage for U.S. relations with the international community, and is also an 
issue that has created internal divisions. A move by the Bush administration to 
appoint their man to the biggest donor organization could further tarnish its 
image. 

The Bush administration may not care too much about its image. But I believe 
the professionals who work in the Bank care about their image. The Bank has 
been trying hard to maintain its image, which has been deteriorating since the 
rise of the anti-globalization movement in the late '90s. Many World Bankers 
have published various self-criticisms. The Bank has also issued revisions to 
its development approaches in the past half-century. But if Wolfowitz becomes 
the Bank's president, it would be hard to avoid the perception that the World 
Bank will become, in Paul Krugman's words, "an ugly American Bank". 

For Indonesia, perhaps, Wolfowitz' appointment may not be too bad after all. 
Indonesia gain some benefit from his close ties with the country. However, I 
don't see that his position in the Bank would produce significant added value 
for Indonesia. With or without him, Indonesia is still an important stakeholder 
for the Bank. From the Indonesian perspective, we may be better off having 
Wolfowitz in the inner circle of the Bush administration as our relationship 
with the U.S government is more uncertain than that with the World Bank. 

Lastly, my Harvard professor, who is also a World Banker, once told of an 
experience when he had to defend his institution in front of an audience of 
some eight hundred people hostile to the Bank. He said that he could do so if 
deep in his heart he had confidence that he was doing his job professionally, 
not as a servant of a big country's interests. Such confidence may not be there 
anymore should Wolfowitz become his boss. 

===========================================================================

Wolfowitz and McNamara: What's the difference?[3] 

W. Scott Thompson[4], Sukawati, Bali

 

President Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World 
Bank, coming hard on his nomination of an ardent opponent of the United Nations 
to be America's UN ambassador, was bound to stir up a storm. "Will the World 
Bank now start invading countries?" the wags ask in Washington. It is 
inevitable that comparisons are drawn with Lyndon Johnson's dispatch of Robert 
S. McNamara, then secretary of defense, to the World Bank in 1967 and much 
reviled for his role in the war in Vietnam. But there is a world of difference 
and the comparison demeans McNamara.

McNamara was famous as a "whiz kid" president of the Ford Motor Company before 
Kennedy brought him to Washington in 1961 to run the Pentagon. Forty years 
later and well into his eighties he was still a formidable intellect in 
Washington; at a dinner discussion on environmental issues two years ago I 
watched him checking the figures of the presenter on his own calculator and 
presenting contrary conclusions. 

In the Kennedy and Johnson years he dealt routinely with heads of state and 
government and had a standing throughout the world, tarnished as it may have 
been by Vietnam, of which Wolfowitz could only dream. He went on to become a 
great force at the World Bank for new approaches to development, including 
using loan leverage to induce countries to reduce military expenditures. 

True, he had let his whiz-kid capabilities delude him about the ease with which 
America might fight a war in Southeast Asia, which is where the comparison with 
Wolfowitz begins and ends. But by the time Johnson had sent him to the Bank, he 
had realized his horrible mistake -- and wanted to undertake constructive 
development work. It was almost contrition. 

No one would accuse Wolfowitz of stupidity, but the comparison with McNamara is 
a step-level confusion. Wolfowitz, until Bush, was a mid-level policy 
intellectual, perhaps in history mostly famous (in Bush the father's pentagon) 
for helping to lay the foundations for new American doctrine designed, as it 
turned out, mostly to permit Washington to redesign the Middle East in a way 
favorable to Israel. He was a student of a great strategist at the University 
of Chicago, Albert Wohlstetter, but there is no academic opus associated with 
his career in and out of think-tanks. 

What he has shown is survival skills, which no one downplays in Washington. He 
skillfully jumped from job to job in the Reagan-Bush years, and then landed a 
deanship of a small graduate school in Washington affiliated with Johns Hopkins 
University. There his survival skills were most notable in the alleged covering 
up of what could have been a career-ending scandal. 

But leave Wolfowitz's personal life aside; he had at that time endured a 
divorce and saw the great opportunity for the neo-conservative cause with which 
by then he was intimately associated. No wonder he must have moved mountains to 
maneuver himself into high position. But this is where the problem begins. 

Wolfowitz entered the Pentagon not only with an agenda but with allies intent 
on carrying it out. The papers they had written in the Clinton interval derived 
from the strategies they had devised in the first Bush presidency for an 
aggressive American military capability particularly in the Middle East. 

Doug Feith, who has now "retired" from the job Wolfowitz held in Bush I, to 
return to his lucrative -- and military-related -- legal practice; and Richard 
Perle, long a public supporter and sometime consultant to Israel; with 
Wolfowitz took every opportunity to maneuver American policy into the invasion 
of Iraq that has led -- whatever else it has done -- to an almost cataclysmic 
fall in American standing and prestige throughout the world. Wolfowitz even 
went so far as to admit that the "weapons of mass destruction" excuse for the 
war was chosen merely as the most convenient handle. 

Wolfowitz's boss, Don Rumsfeld, arrived without agenda. He was a mechanic of 
strategy who thought he could fight wars more efficiently with fewer troops. He 
just hadn't any idea of what wars and for whom and what. The now notorious 
threesome, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith gave him an agenda that he was only too 
happy to endorse. Vice president Cheney was on board too, and together with 
their frequent guest Ariel Sharon, to whom was virtually delegated control over 
American middle east policy in the first George W. Bush term, they pulled the 
president on board for a long and thankless war. 

The failures in Iraq are far more those of Wolfowitz than of Rumsfeld. 
Normally, it is in the deputy secretary's office that oversight of plans for 
implementation of programs takes place. The appalling failure to foresee the 
grim war in Iraq once Saddam was toppled, not even having plans to protect the 
infrastructure much less five millennia of priceless museum treasures, is 
Wolfowitz's failure. The garlands of flowers with which American forces were to 
be met, according to the nominee, shows just how little he understands reality 
in the third world. 

So to associate Wolfowitz, who remains unrepentant over the disasters over 
which he presided in Iraq, with McNamara, who arrived at the Bank charged up 
with innovative ideas for development, is to do a great disservice to truth. 
Perhaps Wolfowitz can follow McNamara, if he wins acceptance at the bank, in 
converting great energies to constructive causes. But to consider the two 
Pentagon officials in the same league is to know little of the game and its 
levels. 

McNamara was a failed world-class intellectual and statesman who retrieved his 
reputation with great works. Wolfowitz, from a much lower level of import, 
still thinks his invasion of Iraq was the right thing. It's rather an 
imposition on the World Bank to force it to digest as president a man 
world-class only in his chutzpah. 

 



---------------------------------

[1] All contents copyright © of The Jakarta Post. March 22, 2005 
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20050322.E02&irec=1 


[2] The writer is a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International 
Studies, Jakarta, and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 
Cambridge, USA. Ari_Perdana-T1VZawzmScbaZwrp7/ava4dd74u8MsAO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


[3] Copyright © of The Jakarta Post. March 22, 2005. 
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20050322.F04&irec=3 


[4] W. Scott Thompson, D. Phil. is Adjunct Professor of International Politics, 
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, MA. The views 
expressed are personal.



=====================================================================
Asnawi Manaf <asnawi2407-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Agenda WB salah satunya memang melemahkan fungsi
negara kalau kita setuju kenapa sekarang kita latah
kritik neo liberal ya? Aneh?...1ß1ß??!"?

Kita ini memang serba salah.... 

Tabik

ASNAWI

--- Ikranagara wrote:

> 
> Maaf, ada salah ketik yang fatal, yaitu dalam bagian
> kalimat ini: 
> 
> "... banyaknya imigran dari benua raksasa itu yang
> menyerbu Eropah 
> disebabkan oleh hancurnya ekonomi di banyak negara
> Eropah." 
> 
> bagian itu mestinya berbunyi:
> 
> "... banyaknya imigran dari benua raksasa itu yang
> menyerbu Eropah 
> disebabkan oleh hancurnya ekonomi di banyak negara
> Afrika."
> 
> 
> 
> Ikra
> 
> 
> --- In LISI-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Ikranagara"
> wrote:
> > 
> > World Bank memang punya program membantu
> pemberantasan kemiskinan 
> di 
> > banyak negara miskin, terutama yang di Afrika.
> Yang dikhawatirkan 
> > para pengeritik kalau nanti Wolfowitz jadi boss
> WB, dana khusus 
> dan 
> > besar itu akan dialihkan kepada tujuan membangun
> demokrasi dai 
> Timur 
> > Tengah (diawali dengan Iraq) karena memang inilah
> program 
> terpenting 
> > AS, dan AS memang membutuhkan dana besar untuk
> disalurkan ke Timur 
> > Tengah dengan tujuan politik "anti teroris dan pro
> demokrasi" yang 
> > menjadi pertaruhan besarnya. Arsitek politik Timur
> Tengah AS ini 
> > adalah Wolfowitz.
> > 
> > Eropah sangatlah berkepentingan untuk membangun
> ekonomi Afrika, 
> > karena banyaknya imigran dari benua raksasa itu
> yang menyerbu 
> Eropah 
> > disebabkan oleh hancurnya ekonomi di banyak negara
> Eropah. 
> > Kesimpulan yang banyak dipegang belakangan ini
> tentang kenapa 
> > terhadi kehancuran itu adalah bahwa bantuan yang
> dilakukan leat 
> > jalur G to G itu menyebabkan bantuan itu salah
> alamat, bukannya 
> > kepada rakyat melainkan kepada birokrat
> pemerintahan di Afrika 
> yang 
> > terkenal KKN-nya itu. Maka sekarang ada gerakan
> untuk menyalurkan 
> > dana bantuan ke Afrika itu langsung ke rakyat
> tanpa melewati jalur 
> G 
> > to G lagi. Bagaimana caranya, inilah yang sedang
> dirumuskan. 
> Antara 
> > lain melalui LSM dan yang semacamnya. Kontrolnya
> tentulah juga 
> tidak 
> > lagi oleh pemerintah setempat, melainkan
> monitoring internasional. 
> > Dengan kata lain, peranan pemerintah dalam urusan
> yang menyangkut 
> > bantuan ini, termasuk yang dari WB, tidak lagi
> bersifat G to G.
> > 
> > Apakah terhadap negeri kita pandangan seperti di
> Afrika itu bisa 
> > dipakai sebagai formula juga? Artinya, bantuan
> dari luar itu 
> > hendaknya tidak lagi melalui jalur G to G. Hal ini
> perlu 
> difikirkan 
> > bersama.
> > 
> > 
> > Ikra.-
> > 
> > 
> > --- In LISI-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Wisnu Nugroho
> wrote:
> > > Saya tidak yakin bahwa apapun yang dikatakan
> Pemerintah 
> Indonesia 
> > akan mengubah keputusan presiden
> > > Bush untuk mencalonkan Wolfowitz. Saya membaca
> artikel tentang 
> > pencalonan ini. Artikel itu
> > > menceritakan bahwa Amerika selalu dengan sengaja
> membocorkan 
> > pencalonan kandidatnya untuk World
> > > Bank jauh hari sebelum pengumuman pencalonan
> resmi. Tujuannya 
> > adalah untuk melihat reaksi dunia,
> > > terutama uni-eropa, atas pencalonan tersebut.
> Seperti yang kita 
> > duga, Uni Eropa "shock" mendengar
> > > pencalonan Wolfowitz dan (juga secara jalur
> informal) menolak. 
> > Tapi, seperti biasanya Bush, dia
> > > tidak perduli dan tetap saja secara resmi
> mencalonkan Wolfowitz. 
> > Kalau negara negara eropa yang
> > > sekutu amerika, yang ketempatan pangkalan
> militer amerika, yang 
> > meminjamkan milyaran $ ke amerika
> > > bisa diabaikan begitu saja, tidak mungkin mereka
> mau mendengar 
> > Indonesia yang nasibnya tergantung
> > > dengan uang Amerika.
> > > 
> > > Saat ini kita justru harus berlaku taktis dan
> diam. Paul 
> Wolfowitz 
> > pernah jadi duta besar di
> > > Indonesia, dan dia jelas mengerti kondisi dan
> situasi Indonesia. 
> > Kalau kita punya hubungan baik
> > > dengan dia, akan besar nilainya bagi kepentingan
> Indonesia di 
> > World Bank. Siapa tahu, Wolfowitz
> > > yang sangat kenal dengan seluk beluk Indonesia
> ini malah bisa 
> > merumuskan solusi solusi yang baik
> > > untuk masalah masalah ekonomi kita, dan punya
> cukup power untuk 
> > membuat solusi solusi tersebut
> > > berjalan. Memang dari credentialnya dia mungkin
> bukan yang 
> > terbaik, tapi yang penting dia kenal
> > > (dan semoga perduli) Indonesia. Ada puluhan
> negara miskin yang 
> > butuh perhatian World Bank, dan
> > > Indonesia dasarnya berkompetisi dengan negara
> negara miskin lain 
> > itu untuk mendapatkan "jatah"
> > > perhatian dari World Bank. Fakta bahwa Wolfowitz
> kenal Indonesia 
> > bisa membuat Indonesia
> > > mendapatkan fokus lebih.
> > > 
> > > Mungkin negara negara lain punya kepentingan
> untuk menentang 
> > Wolfowitz, tapi Indonesia sebenarnya
> > > punya kepentingan untuk mendukung dia. Anda mau
> bilang saya 
> > hipokrit? silahkan. Sebagai warga
> > > Indonesia saya tidak perduli siapa yang jadi
> presiden di Amerika 
> > dan siapa yang jadi wakilnya di
> > > World Bank. Yang saya perdulikan cuma apa
> dampaknya bagi 
> > Indonesia, dan terutama bagi rakyat
> > > miskin di Indonesia.
> > > 
> > > Wisnu
> > > 
> > > --- Moritis wrote:
> > > > Bapak Syitno dan rekan2 di LISI,
> > > > Bagaimana kalau pemerintah Indonesia dg. resmi
> menulis surat 
> ke 
> > World Bank,
> > > > dan menyatakan keberatannya atas Mr. Paul
> Wolfowitz dicalonkan 
> > menjadi
> > > > Presiden World Bank? Dulu dia Dubes AS di
> Jakarta, jadi 
> > pemerintah
> > > > Indonesia sudah kenal dia kan? Juga
> pemerintah RI bisa 
> sekalian 
> > usul siapa
> > > > sebaiknya jadi Pres. World Bank, seseorang yg.
> dianggap akan 
> > sungguh2 bisa
> > > > memperbaiki nasib rakyat miskin di Indonesia.
> > > > Salam damai selalu,
> > > > Is Moritis
> 
> 
> 
> 


ASNAWI
FB 13 Stadt- und Landschaftplanung
Postadresse: Henschelstraße 2, Raum 226 
Universität Kassel, fb13, 34109 Kassel


                
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