Wolfowitz

Today, I'm Wolfowitz.

Unlike the character of Edouard in Andre Gide’s “The Counterfeiters,” I’m a man of my own destiny.

Edouard is a not-so-successful writer who feels:

“I am never anything but what I think myself. I live only through others – by borrowing and acquiring their identities; and I never feel myself living so intensely as when I escape from myself to become no matter who.”

I’m no Edouard. I don’t have to assume another persona to find myself. Why, I’m so powerful that to be someone else would be an insult to my very existence. This is in spite of all the bad press I’ve been having because of my leadership at the World Bank. I’ll tell you what has really happened and how much I was, and still am, in control of my life.

First, when I promoted my girlfriend, of course I bulldozed it through with the knowledge that the board at the Bank could not have shot it down without its own proposal to resolve the issue. I took advantage of their incompetence and impotence, and covered the ground that they thought they could remove from under me. It is littered as much with their mud as with my so-accused practice of favoritism. They wouldn’t have dared fire me, for if they did, the beans I’ll spill would have been more damning of them than it could have hurt me.

Second, I know the World Bank is supposed to be out there helping poor nations get their act together so that they can benefit from our loans. Well, if they are so naïve as to believe that that was the Bank’s true mission, then they are suckers for our manipulation, just as a beggar is easily convinced of the alms-giver’s generosity. The rich nations of the world, through the Bank, continue to dominate the poor countries. If you want to lend, here’s the money, and here are the conditions. The board nations of the Bank know darn well the ultimate aim of the Bank, so I’m shouting “hypocrite” even louder at them as they make noisy proclamations of their charity and magnanimity.

Third, the World Bank, like all so-called help institutions, exists primarily to provide, and then protect, careers for its officers. Me being the number one beneficiary here. Have you read any reports about how much this top dog has been paid at the Bank? If you knew, you wouldn’t have any sympathy for me, less so for the board members, who had set out the terms of my contract in the first place. In addition, as severance pay is very much part of the deal, what I’m negotiating for in exchange for my “resignation” would probably equal the amount of a small-size loan that we make to an island republic somewhere in the Pacific.

Finally, cry foul or cry a tear. I cannot lose. The winner that I’ve been all these glorious years! And even getting reward for making unpopular and “wrong” decisions! Remember my advocacy of and support for the invasion of Iraq, that God-forsaken country, where massacres are occurring in greater numbers and frequency than the invasion was meant to curtail? Cost to them, benefit to me. The suffering in Iraq goes on; I retain Bush’s endorsement. In fact, I became the World Bank president because of my “good” work in Iraq.

So you see, me Wolfowitz will never have to be someone’s fool. I am me, the invincible Wolfowitz, and may the world envy my character. I know Edouard, for one, would be borrowing and acquiring my identity if “The Counterfeiters” was written today. Gide knew way back that to be someone else is the only effective way to get out of the grind of all minor players on the world stage. I am the main character and I write my own script. And I don’t counterfeit.