Michel Chossudovsky: Was Dominique Strauss-Kahn Framed?

The arrest of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has all the appearances of a frame-up, ordered by powerful members of the financial establishment, in liaison with France's Nicolas Sarkozy, whose presidency has served the interests of the US at the expense of France and the European Union. While there is for the moment no proof of a plot, the unusual circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment require careful examination. Immediately following Strauss Kahn's arrest, pressures were exerted by Washington to speed up his replacement as Managing Director of the IMF, preferably by a non-European, an American or a hand-picked candidate from an "emerging market economy", or a developing country. Since the founding of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1945, the World Bank has been headed by an American whereas the IMF has been of a Western European. Strauss-Kahn is a member of elite groups who meet behind closed doors. He belongs to the Bilderberger. Categorized as one of the world's most influential persons, he is an academic and politician rather than a banker. In contrast to his predecessors at the IMF, which challenged America's overriding role within that organization.