The recent Bush Administration appointments of Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank, and John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN demonstrate the contempt that the 'leaders of the free world' show for those inhabiting it, not to mention those who don't belong to the club. For anyone who knows anything about Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton, there is no doubt that their appointment is an insult to the organisations they will be working with, or at the very least an insult to the stated principles of those organisations.

However, The Administration knows full well that the vast majority of the American population (and the world's for that matter), will barely notice their appointment, let alone show any outrage at it. Expressions of outrage will be limited to a handful of left'wing commentators, students, and radicals, who won't be surprised by the appointments, and whose opinions don't hold enough clout to warrant any attention from mainstream society. For those who will be outraged, I believe these appointments are a deliberate message from The Administration. Basically that "We can do whatever we like now. We know you know what we're really about, but what are you gonna' do about it?"
Anticipating some raised'eyebrows, Bush defended his choice of Paul Wolfowitz as new President of the World Bank recently, saying, ...He is a skilled diplomat... Paul is committed to development. He is a compassionate, decent man, who will do a fine job at the World Bank.... I guess it depends on one's definitions of the terms Dubya used. The leading architect behind Gulf War 2, Wolfowitz was head of a group of hawks who did their utmost to make sure diplomacy didn't get in the way of war. One could well argue that his war of liberation did do a lot for development: the country is ripe for development, with (primarily) US mega'firms lining up to take a share of its development booty.

Wolfowitz will probably do a fine job of accelerating World Bank development programs that have done wonders for countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina, because as he showed with his work in Iraq, if economic pressures work too slowly when it comes to opening up a country for development...well, we've got the bomb. One would be naive to expect the use of terms found in political discourse to have any correlation to their actual meanings.

For those who don't know, Wolfowitz has been working for Republican administrations since Reagan's time. He is seen as one of, if not the chief policy maker behind the War on Terror (Wolfowitz himself uses capitalization on the 'W... and 'T'). Towards the end of the first Bush Administration (I mean George Sr's), Wolfowitz sat down with Dick Cheney and wrote a paper entitled 'Defence Planning Guidance'. The goal of this was to 'set the nation's direction for the next century'. It encouraged the Pentagon to 'establish and protect a new order' in the aftermath of the Cold War in which US authority would be unchallenged, and spoke of the need to use pre'emptive strikes. During Clinton's time Wolfowitz became part of a group known as the Project for the New American Century. In 2000 the group produced a paper which crazed conspiracy theorists have suggested was a blueprint for 9/11 and the foreign policy that followed. This paper was titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources', and stated the need for a huge increase in military spending that would enable the US to 'fight and win multiple, simultaneous, major theatre wars'. The paper correctly predicted that what would be needed to bring this about was 'some catastrophic and catalysing event' like a new Pearl Harbor'.

Wolfowitz even has one of those names that fits his personality and job perfectly; a name one would expect to find in a Robert Ludlum novel or Hollywood action film. It lends itself perfectly to the use of satirists, cartoonists and bloggers.

John Bolton's appointment as US ambassador to the UN is in some ways very fitting, especially considering the Bush Administration's view of that organisation. Bolton's achievements include annoying the North Koreans to the extent that they've said they will not participate in any talks in which he's a part. During the last round of talks he repeatedly insulted the regime during visits to Russia and Seoul. Whatever truth his remarks may have held, they certainly couldn't be called diplomatic. Bolton has repeatedly made remarks along the lines of, 'Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance US interests'. To the Global Structures Convention in February 1994, Bolton said, 'There is no such thing as the United Nations... There is an international community that occasionally can be led by... the US when it suits our interest and when we can get others to go along'. So in fact, Bolton's ideas adhere perfectly to the attitude shown towards the UN when the war'drums were being banged. In an interview on Australian television in July 2003, Bolton said 'we're going to go beyond words and treaties and agreements... to defend ourselves against the spread of weapons of mass destruction'. In other words, Mr Bolton is saying that any agreement signed with us isn't worth the paper it's printed on. A great choice for the job of Ambassador to the UN, that is if the aim of the position is to oversee the relegation of the organisation to complete irrelevance if not its complete dismantling.

Some have speculated that these two mega'hawks have been given their appointments as a way to oust them from the Pentagon after criticism of the Iraq war. It's possible, but maybe it is more of an attempt to bring their way of thinking to two organisations that have been misbehaving recently.