Power causes corruption ?

[Aenlic]

Speaking of power and corruption...

Here's the statement of principles of a group formed in 1997, called the Project for a New American Century. Their stated goal is to formulate U.S. policy since it is the only superpower left in the world.

PNAC Statement of Principles

This document forms the basis for our entire foreign policy. Why, you ask? What does a document on the internet from 1997 have to do with current U.S. foreign policy? Just scroll down and read the list of signatories to the statement. Then read the rest of the web site. Among other things, the organization sent a letter in 1998 to President Clinton (signed by the same people), recommending the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Among the people signing the PNAC statementof principles, those below are now actually in the government - officially:

Dick Cheney - current U.S. VP

Donald Rumsfeld - current U.S. Secretary of Defense

I. Lewis Libby - Cheney's chief advisor (and one of the players in the Plame leak)

Paul Wolfowitz - formerly U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and now president of the World Bank

Elliott Abrams - Deputy National Security Advisor, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North Africa on the National Security Council. He is also believed to have had, at least, prior knowledge of the 2002 failed Venezuelan military coup against Hugo Chavez. Along with Otto Reich, there is some evidence that he knew in exact detail the entire plan for the coup, approved it and documents show he claimed it would succeed. He also pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges for his role in the Iran-Contra affair.

Paula Dobriansky - U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs.

Peter W. Rodman - U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

and finally (my personal favorite)

Zalmay Khalilzad - Special Envoy to Afghanistan after the invasion in 2001 and now U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. He was also, during the mid-1990's, an advisor to Unocal during it's negotiations with the Taliban to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan.

The others are all professors or politicians, most of them members of other conservative groups such as the Aspen Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Heritage Foundation.