In Memoriam, Liviu Librescu

A link to Liviu Librescu's Virginia Tech website.

Wall Street Journal: Wolfowitz Scandal Payback for Anti-Corruption Drive at World Bank

Robert B. Holland, III, the US representative to the World Bank, writes that there's more to the Wolfowitz scandal than an appearance of nepotism, self-dealing, and cover-up by a former defense department official--it's about entrenched corruption among World Bank permanent staff:

Those interested in the success of the World Bank should be under no illusion as to what is really motivating the staff revolt now playing out and what the consequences are likely to be. Many are opposed to Mr. Wolfowitz's anti-corruption emphasis, some on the good faith basis that he is placing disproportionate emphasis on the issue at the expense of other development priorities. Others, however, are opposed on the selfish basis that elevating anticorruption and governance considerations will result in lower lending levels and more difficult negotiations with borrowing governments. Still others may fear exposure of corruption among staff itself and possible adverse donor reaction if widespread corruption appears to plague Bank operations.

Regardless of the fates of Mr. Wolfowitz and the anticorruption initiative, the Bank faces an existential financial problem because of the combined effect of its declining relevance and attractiveness as a funding source for many middle-income countries like China, India, Mexico and Russia, and an annual administrative budget exceeding $1 billion. It's a positive development that many countries no longer are dependent on Bank lending, but the income consequences to the Bank need to be addressed because the administrative budget is a serious burden on the world's poor and donor taxpayers.

The most important cost drivers are staff salaries and headcount, and it is here where some of the most pernicious effects of the staff association's union characteristics are felt. Over the years, the Bank's legal department has constructed a complex set of rules and procedures governing employment practices, particularly terminations, designed to avoid a court of law somewhere imposing something more onerous in the name of "due process."

The unfortunate result is a system of such Dickensian complexity that virtually all bank managers have concluded that no one can be fired. This, and the tendency of many Board members to intervene in individual cases to protect or promote their nationals, has resulted in far too many employees, many of whom are widely viewed as incompetent, and costly salaries and severance packages (compared to which Ms. Riza's package is a pittance).

Other unfortunate results are an unreasonably low mandatory retirement age of 60 and the retention of an army of consultants nearly as large as the Bank's regular workforce. Many consultants are former Bank staff. The permanent nature of Bank employment also complicates needed reform of its whistleblower policies, which are frequently abused as another tool of entrenchment.

All of these and other factors have added up to a bloated budget in which an unusually honest and candid senior budget official , who met with Mr. Wolfowitz in my home pending board approval of his nomination to avoid detection by more senior Bank staff, identified specific examples of wasteful spending adding up to about $300 million annually. Mr. Wolfowitz's first steps to rein in the Bank's unsustainable cost structure are another important reason many staff and their board allies want him gone. Unless he and his successors and the board address the cost structure, the Bank will be in danger of collapse.

After reading this, it seems that the US Congress might need to conduct an in-depth investigation of what's really going on at the World Bank. Obviously Wolfowitz didn't have the management skills needed for his job. And, after all, those huge tax-free salaries at the World Bank are paid by US taxpayer dollars...

Perhaps it may be time for Congress to shut down the World Bank gravy train altogether?

Nancy Pelosi's Father Helped Peter Bergson Rescue Jews During WWII

My father sent me this link, to Rafael Medoff's Jerusalem Post article about Nancy Pelosi's father--who supported Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook)--protagonist of Bernard Weinraub's new play, "The Accomplices," as well as my documentary (just out on DVD from Kino), "Who Shall LIve and Who Shall Die?"--in Congress:

Speaker Pelosi's father, the late US congressman Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., of Maryland, was known as a Roosevelt Democrat. What is not widely known is that D'Alesandro broke ranks with president Franklin D. Roosevelt on the issues of rescuing Jews from Hitler and creating a Jewish State.

D'Alesandro was one of the congressional supporters of the Bergson Group, a maverick Jewish political action committee that challenged the Roosevelt administration's policies on the Jewish refugee issue during the Holocaust, and later lobbied against British control of Palestine.

The Bergson activists used unconventional tactics to draw attention to the plight of Europe's Jews, including staging theatrical pageants, organizing a march by 400 rabbis to the White House, and placing more than 200 full-page advertisements in newspapers around the country. Some of those ads featured lists of celebrities, prominent intellectuals, and members of Congress who supported the group - including D'Alesandro.

D'Alesandro's involvement with the Bergson Group was remarkable because he was a Democrat who was choosing to support a group that was publicly challenging a Democratic president. And D'Alesandro was not one of the conservative Southern "Dixiecrat" Democrats who sometimes tangled with FDR over various issues; he was a staunch supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal. He even named his first son Franklin Roosevelt D'Alesandro.

UNTIL LATE in the Holocaust, the Roosevelt administration's position was that nothing could be done to rescue Jews from the Nazis except to win the war. The Bergson Group was convinced that there were many steps the US could take to rescue refugees, without impeding the war effort.

Bergson's strategy for changing US policy was anchored in the hope that humanitarian-minded Democrats like D'Alesandro would break ranks with the White House over the plight of the Jews. Rallying Congress was a way to put pressure on the president.

The Bergson Group's Holocaust campaign culminated in the introduction of a Congressional resolution, in late 1943, urging creation of a government agency to rescue refugees. Senator Tom Connally of Texas, a loyal FDR supporter and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blocked the committee's consideration of the resolution. But when Connally was out sick one day, his replacement, Senator Elbert Thomas (D-Utah) quickly ushered the resolution through. In the House of Representatives, too, there was growing support for the rescue resolution.

This Congressional pressure helped influence President Roosevelt to do what the resolution urged - in early 1944, he established the War Refugee Board. Despite its small staff and meager funding, the Board played a key role in the rescue of more than 200,000 Jews from the Holocaust. Its many accomplishments included sponsoring the heroic life-saving activities of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in Nazi-occupied Budapest.

AFTER THE war, D'Alesandro continued supporting the Bergson Group as it campaigned for the establishment of a Jewish State in Mandatory Palestine. That sometimes meant clashing with the Truman administration, which wavered back and forth on the issue of Jewish statehood...

Virginia Tech Killer Had History of Mental Illness

From The Telegraph (UK):

The South Korean student who shot 32 people at Virginia Tech university was held in a mental health unit after two women students complained about his behaviour in autumn 2005, according to the university police chief.

Virginia Tech university officials were also warned repeatedly about Cho Seung-hui more than a year ago, a university teacher said.

Cho Seung-hui railed against ‘rich kids’and ‘debauchery’

Lucinda Roy, a former chairwoman of Virginia Tech’s English Department, told CNN she warned officials about Cho Seung-hui, 23, in 2005 after seeing how disturbing his creative writing essays were.

But she said the warnings were not taken seriously enough. The university has not yet responded to her comments.

Ms Roy said that she was so disturbed by what she found that she decided to take him out of the classroom for one-to-one tutoring.

“I was so uncomfortable that I didn’t feel that I could leave him in the classroom,” she said.

Queens College Conference on World Jewry

It's called: Is It 1938 Again?. Speakers include: Professor Irving Louis Horowitz,Hannah Arendt University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science, Rutgers University;Professor Michael Walzer,Center for Advanced Study, Princeton, Editor, Dissent;Professor Alan Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; and Norman Podhoretz, Editor-at-Large, Commentary Magazine . From the program:

In 1938, German Nazi totalitarianism, under the charismatic and mad leadership of Adolf Hitler, began its march toward world conquest and the destruction of the Jews. In an act of willful blindness, Western democratic leaders chose to negotiate and appease Nazism. Many Jewish leaders also downplayed the danger by convincing themselves that Nazi ideology was merely for domestic political consumption. Seven years later, over 50 million people, including six million European Jews, were dead: victims of World War II.

In 2007, extreme Islamist forces have spawned global Jihad, a state-sponsored terrorist war against the West as well as moderate Islamic states and their leaders, a war in which they openly proclaim their intention to destroy the Jewish State of Israel and its seven million inhabitants. This time, the chief peril emanates from radical Islamist Iran, whose President Ahmadinejad openly pursues nuclear weapons capability while brazenly declaring, “The accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”

“IS IT 1938 AGAIN? A Major Conference on the State of World Jewry” presents an international array of scholars, writers, intellectuals and activists who will assess, debate and discuss today’s threat against the West and the Jewish people and identify options for meeting dangers to Jewish survival. Ample time will be allocated for Q&A.

Scotland Remembers Dunblane Massacre

From Scotland's Daily Record:

THE shootings brought back horrific memories to two fathers whose daughters were killed in the Dunblane massacre 11 years ago.

Five-year-olds Sophie North and Victoria Clydesdale were among the 16 children and a teacher murdered by gunman Thomas Hamilton at a primary school in the Perthshire town on March 13, 1996. Sophie's dad Dr Mick North said: "I am still shaken after hearing the news of more young lives lost.

"And the number of those killed is horrifying." Dr North, who campaigns for tighter gun control in Britain, revealed he had previously visited Virginia Tech on an academic trip.

He said: "To know the place brings it more in to focus for me. Thoughts of my Sophie are always with me. It would be impossible to lose a daughter in any circumstances and for that not to be the case.

"But in those horrific circumstances, to see something like this happen again, it jolts you back to where you were 11 years ago."

Victoria Clydesdale's dad, Charlie, said: "I feel angry that, after the pain we went through, these things still happen. And I feel so sad for those families who have lost sons and daughters.

E. Fuller Torrey: Not Treating Mental Illness is Dangerous & Deadly

E. Fuller Torrey's article from the October 27, 2000 Orlando Sentinel seems relevant to the Virginia Tech massacre:

...» About 16 percent of state jail and prison inmates, roughly 16,000 people, are severely mentally ill.

» People with untreated severe mental illness are nearly three times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.

» Ten to 15 times more suicides occur among those people with untreated, severe mental illness.

» More than 1,000 homicides in the United States are committed each year by people who have untreated mental illness.

These statistics can be attributed to the insidious nature of these illnesses.

Half of those suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder don't realize that they are sick and in need of treatment because of a biologically based symptom, anosognosia. These individuals don't realize that the hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and withdrawal they're experiencing are symptoms. Because they don't know that they are sick, they refuse treatment....

In other words, an individual must have a finger on the trigger of a gun before medical intervention will be permitted.

And this:

VIOLENT BEHAVIOR: ONE OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING TO TREAT SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESSES

SUMMARY: It is well known that the two major demographic predictors of violent behavior are male sex and younger age. It is also known that the two major clinical predictors of violent behavior are past history of violence and substance abuse (alcohol and/or drug). Recent studies have established that being severely mentally ill and not taking medication is a third major clinical predictor of violent behavior.

* * *
1. Severely mentally ill individuals who ARE taking their medication are NOT more dangerous than the general population.
The three-site MacArthur Foundation Study of violence and mental illness reported that discharged psychiatric patients without substance abuse had approximately the same incidence of violent behavior as other individuals living in the same neighborhoods. These patients were being followed closely for a year and most were taking their medications. The reported results were weakened by the fact that the patients with the most violent past histories were excluded from the study and the fact that the Pittsburgh neighborhoods used as controls were "disproportionately impoverished and had higher violent crime rates through the city as a whole."
Steadman HJ, Mulvey EP, Monahan J, et. al. Violence by people discharged from acute psychiatric impatient facilities and by others in the same neighborhoods. Archives of General Psychiatry 55:393-401, 1998.

2. Severely mentally ill individuals who are NOT taking their medication ARE more dangerous than the general population.
Several early studies in the 1970s suggested this fact but were not well controlled. For example, a 6-year follow-up of 301 patients discharged between 1972 and 1975 from a California state hospital reported that their arrest rate for "violent crimes" was 10 times the rate for the general population.

Israeli Professor Saved His Students

From the NY Daily News story on Virginia Tech University Prof. Liviu Librescu:

The students in the class dropped to the floor and started overturning desks to hide behind as about a dozen shots rang out, he said.

Then the gunfire started coming closer. Librescu, 77, fearlessly braced himself against the door, holding it shut against the gunman in the hall, while students darted to the windows of the second-floor classroom to escape the slaughter, survivors said.
Mallalieu and most of his classmates hung out of the windows and dropped about 10 feet to bushes and grass below - but Librescu stayed behind to hold off the crazed gunman.

Alec Calhoun, 20, said the last thing he saw before he jumped from the window was Librescu, blocking the door against the madman in the hallway.

He died trying to protect the students.

More here.

Where's the Outrage?

From a comment on the Chicago Sun-Times website in response to President Bush's speech at Virginia Tech:

As a Virginia Tech Alumni I am disgusted that politicians are showing their faces and speaking at this event.

I'm disgusted at the event, period. President Bush should have visited at the hospital with the wounded survivors, then fired the FBI agents responsible for the federal role in this massacre--not one policeman, sheriff, or FBI agent was wounded or attempted to stop the killing. A beserk gunman is not a hostage situation, Mr. President...

Virginia Tech Timeline

From Channel Four (UK):

Monday April 16

7.15am - Virginia Tech Police Department receives an emergency call to go to a dormitory room at West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall at the Virginia Tech University.

Officers and members of the Virginia Tech rescue squad arrive to find two people, a man and a woman, have been shot dead in a dormitory.

The hall is closed off, students are asked to remain in their rooms and police begin collecting evidence and identifying witnesses.

The university authorities believe the deaths are "an isolated incident, domestic in nature."

7.30am - Officers begin following leads about a "person of interest" regarding the double murder.

8.25am - The Virginia Tech Leadership Team, including the University president, meet to assess the situation and to decide how to notify students of what has happened.

9am - The Leadership Team is briefed by Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum on the ongoing investigation.

9.26am - All university staff and students are sent an email informing them of the murders and asking them to report any suspicious activity. An emergency recording and a telephone message are also transmitted.

9.45am - The police receive a second emergency call to go to Norris Hall, an engineering building containing faculty offices, classrooms and laboratories.

Officers arrive to find the front doors chained shut from the inside. They break down the barricades and hear gunshots as they enter the building.

They follow the sounds to the second floor. As they reach it, the gunshots stop. Officers then discover the gunman, who has taken his own life.

9.55am - Staff and students are notified by email again about the second shootings.

Virginia Tech President Was Major Bush Campaign Donor

The crime scene at Virginia Tech was so incompetently handled, the response by Steger such an outrageous CYA bureaucratic bungle, I suspected the Virginia Tech president may have been a Bushie...

So I checked it out on the FEC database and learned that indeed, in 2004, Virginia Tech president Charles Steger gave $2000 (the maximum) to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign. In 2006, he gave $1000 to George Allen's Senate campaign.

Heck of a job, Steger...

Presented by the Federal Election Commission

Individual Contributions Arranged By Type, Giver, Then Recipient

Contributions to Political Committees

STEGER, CHARLES W DR.
BLACKSBURG, VA 24061
VIRGINIA TECH/PRESIDENT

BUSH, GEORGE W
VIA BUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC
09/05/2003 2000.00 23992060756

Total Contributions: 2000.00

Joint Fundraising Contributions

These are contributions to committees who are raising funds to be distributed to other committees. The breakdown of these contributions to their final recipients may appear below

STEGER, CHARLES
BLACKSBURG, VA 24060
VIRGINIA TECH UNIVERSITY/PRESIDEN

ALLEN VICTORY COMMITTEE
10/18/2006 1000.00 26940557549

Total Joint Fundraising: 1000.00

Recipient of Joint Fundraiser Contributions

These are the Final Recipients of Joint Fundraising Contributions

STEGER, CHARLES
BLACKSBURG, VA 24060
VIRGINIA TECH

ALLEN, GEORGE
VIA FRIENDS OF GEORGE ALLEN
10/18/2006 1000.00 26020940597

Recipient Total: 1000.00

Dennis Prager: You're Dead, I'm Healing

Someone I know sent me Rabbi Dennis Prager's column on the Virginia Tech massacre:

Within hours of the massacre of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University, the president of the university issued his first statement on the evil that had just engulfed the college campus and concluded with this:

"We're making plans for a convocation tomorrow at noon in Cassell Coliseum for the university to come together to begin the healing process from this terrible tragedy."

Other university officials also spoke about beginning the healing process and about bringing in counselors to help students heal.

I believe that this early healing talk is both foolish and immoral.

It is foolish because one does not speak about healing the same day (or week or perhaps even month) that one is traumatized -- especially by evil. One must be allowed time for anger and grief. To speak of healing and "closure" before one goes through those other emotions is to speak not of healing but of suppression.

Not to allow people time to experience their natural, and noble, instincts to feel rage and grief actually deprives them of the ability to heal in the long run. After all, if there is no rage and grief, what is there to heal from?

The Jewish tradition, still observed even by non-Orthodox Jews, is to sit "shiva" (seven) days and do nothing but mourn and receive visitors after the death of an immediate relative. One does not have to be a religious Jew or even a Jew to appreciate this ancient wisdom.

It is not good for people to feign normalcy immediately after the loss of a loved one. People who have not been allowed, or not allowed themselves, time to grieve suffer later on. Any child who loses a parent and is "protected" from grieving by a well-intentioned parent who tries to act "normal" right after the other parent's death is likely to pay a steep psychological price.

Personally, I don't want to heal now. I want to feel rage at the monster who slaughtered all those young innocent people at Virginia Tech. And I want to grieve over those innocents' deaths.

This whole notion of instant healing (like its twin, instant forgiveness) is also morally wrong.

First, it is narcissistic. It focuses on me and my pain, not on the murderer and the murdered.

Second, it is almost obscene to talk of our healing when the bodies of the murdered are still lying in their blood on the very spot they were slaughtered. Our entire focus of attention must be on them and on the unspeakable suffering of their loved ones, not on the pain of the student body and the Virginia Tech "community."

Virginia Tech Parents: Fire University President

The tragedy at Virginia Tech is horrible, and as someone I know said to me last night, the question that needs to be asked is not "Why?" but "How?".

Virginia Tech parents have suggested a first step towards fixing things:

Parents of a Virginia Tech student expressed outrage Monday at what they call an inadequate response by college brass to the worst mass-murder shooting in American history.

John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said "screwed up" the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.

“My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.”

Video of Virginia Tech Press Conference

The unofficial version,in streaming video, here.

Virginia Tech Website

The university website has posted official accounts of today's tragic shootings.

Financial Times: Wolfowitz Must Go

What then do we see here? The answer is: an apparent violation of Bank rules; favouritism that borders on nepotism; and a possible cover-up. It is true Mr Wolfowitz and Ms Riza were put in a difficult position. Even so, what has come out would be bad in any institution. In an institution that spear-heads the cause of good governance in the developing world, it is lethal.

The World Bank has moved from being a self-proclaimed exemplar of best practice in corporate governance to an example of shoddiness. As long as Mr Wolfowitz stays, this can be neither repaired nor forgotten, be it outside the Bank or inside it. In the interests of the Bank itself, he should resign. If he does not, the board must ask him to go.

Investor's Business Daily: Wolfowitz Must Go

(ht worldbankpresident.org)

Wolfowitz was a visible symbol of U.S. control of the World Bank with this finger-pointing. Corrupt states have often reacted with routine anti-Americanism. Now with clear ethics violations at the top, they have a new excuse for their resentment — and their corruption.

As countries like Tajikistan, Iraq and Haiti see this spectacle unfold, they'll have new reasons to resist outside efforts to clean up.

Then there's those who fund the World Bank — mainly U.S. taxpayers who provide cash and billions in loan guarantees to fund the Bank's $23 billion annual lending.

They come from a world where bank officers, business executives, stock traders and even journalists must carefully follow complex ethics rules or be paraded off before TV cameras in handcuffs as criminals. They aren't fooled by claims of ignorance.
While the White House says it still has full confidence in Wolfowitz, staying on is unlikely to encourage taxpayers of dozens of countries to provide more capital for its $23 billion in annual lending.

Did Wolfowitz Deal Corrupt US State Department?

Soren Ambrose notes the strange arrangement whereby the US State Department agreed to hire a British subject paid by the World Bank to improve the US image in the Muslim world. He doesn't think it appears kosher for Shaha Riza to be paid by the World Bank to promote US political goals:

An Overlooked Angle in Wolfowitz Scandal?
Isn't it odd that there are no questions being asked about a "secondment" arrangement in which international public funds are used to pay the exorbitant salary of a U.S. State Department staffer (and most recently director of a U.S. State Dept. front group) whose mission is to improve the U.S.'s image in the Muslim world?

I've seen nothing about a balancing of the secondment -- e.g., the State Dept. sends four of its staff to the Bank to balance out Shaha Riza's salary. And a five-year secondment must be rather unusually long.

But the key issue should be: why should international taxpayers be supporting efforts to popularize U.S. policy in the Middle East? Are we all really so cynical about the Bank's supposed status as a U.S. puppet that we don't even blink at such an arrangement?

The idea of a "non-political" World Bank was always a fantasy, but this seems to be pushing it a bit far.

He has a running account of Wolfowitz's problems here.

Paul Wolfowitz's Statement to World Bank Annual Meeting

From the World Bank Website:

... Let me also ask for some understanding. Not only was this a painful personal dilemma, but I also had to deal with it when I was new to this institution and I was trying to navigate in uncharted waters. The situation was unprecedented and exceptional. This was an involuntary reassignment and I believed there was a legal risk if this was not resolved by mutual agreement. I take full responsibility for the details. I did not attempt to hide my actions nor make anyone else responsible.

I proposed to the Board that they establish some mechanism to judge whether the agreement reached was a reasonable outcome. I will accept any remedies they propose.

In the larger scheme of things, we have much more important work to focus on. For those people who disagree with the things that they associate me with in my previous job, I’m not in my previous job. I’m not working for the U.S. government, I’m working for this institution and its 185 shareholders. I believe deeply in the mission of the institution and have a passion for it. I think the challenge of reducing poverty is of enormous importance. I think the opportunities in Africa are potentially historic. We have really been able to call attention to the progress that’s possible in Africa, and not just the despair and misery in the poorest countries. I think together we’ve made some progress in enabling this institution to respond more effectively and rapidly both in poor countries and in middle income countries to carry on the fight against poverty. I also believe—even more strongly now than when I came to this job—that the world needs an effective multilateral institution like this one that can responsibly and credibly manage common funds for common purposes, whether it is fighting poverty or dealing with climate change or responding to avian flu. I ask that I be judged for what I’m doing now and what we can do together moving forward.

Britain Says Wolfowitz Has Damaged World Bank

According to Reuters, the Wolfowitz scandal has embarrassed the UK:

Britain said on Saturday the scandal over World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's promotion of his girlfriend has damaged his institution and the decision over his fate should now lie with its board.

"While this whole business has damaged the Bank and should not have happened, we should respect the board's process," British development minister Hilary Benn said in a statement released as he arrived in Washington for the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings.

"I am sure these views will be shared by other governors who will also be considering their responses."

Wolfowitz has been under growing pressure to resign after it became known that he approved a big pay rise and new job for his girlfriend -- a World Bank staffer.

The White House has offered its full backing for the former Bush administration stalwart but many other countries have so far remained cautious about prejudging any decision by the World Bank's board.

Here's a typical headline from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald: The banker, his lover and her pay rise of $80,000.

That Wolfowitz appears to be blind to the damage the World Bank scandal is doing to him and the institution he heads is another argument for his swift departure...