George Soros speaking in Malaysia
by Heather Coffin
December 9, 2003
This is not a case of narcissistic personality disorder; this is how George Soros exercises the authority of United States hegemony in the world today. Soros foundations and financial machinations are partly responsible for the destruction of socialism in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. He has set his sights on China. He was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia. Calling himself a philanthropist, billionaire George Soros’ role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. Soros’ commercial and “philanthropic” operations are clandestine, contradictory and coactive. And as far as his economic activities are concerned, by his own admission, he is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.
Master-builder of the new bribe sector systematically bilking the world He thrusts himself upon world statesmen and they respond. He has been close to Henry Kissinger, Vaclav Havel and Poland’s General Wojciech Jaruzelski. 4 He supports the Dalai Lama, whose institute is housed in the Presidio in San Francisco, also home to the foundation run by Soros’ friend, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. 5 Soros is a leading figure on the Council of Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum, and Human Rights Watch (HRW). In 1994, after a meeting with his philosophical guru, Sir Karl Popper, Soros ordered his companies to start investing in Central and Eastern European communications.
The Federal Radio Television Administration of the Czech Republic accepted his offer to take over and fund the archives of Radio Free Europe. Soros moved the archives to Prague and spent over $15 million on their maintenance. 2 A Soros foundation now runs CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty jointly with the U.S. and RFE/RL, which has expanded into the Caucasus and Asia. 3 Soros is the founder and funder of the Open Society Institute. He created and maintains the International Crisis Group (ICG) which, among other things, has been active in the Balkans since the destruction of Yugoslavia. Soros works openly with the United States Institute of Peace-an overt arm of the CIA…
He thrusts himself upon world statesmen and they respond. He has been close to Henry Kissinger, Vaclav Havel and Poland’s General Wojciech Jaruzelski. 4 He supports the Dalai Lama, whose institute is housed in the Presidio in San Francisco, also home to the foundation run by Soros’ friend, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. 5
When anti-globalization forces were freezing in the streets outside New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel in February 2002, George Soros was inside addressing the World Economic Forum. As the police forced protesters into metal cages on Park Avenue, Soros was extolling the virtues of the “Open Society” and joined Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama and others.
WHO IS THIS GUY?
George Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 to Jewish parents so removed from their roots that they once vacationed in Nazi Germany. 6 Soros lived under the Nazis, but with the triumph of the Communists moved to England in 1947. There, Soros came under the sway of the philosopher Karl Popper, at the London School of Economics. Popper was a lionized anti-communist ideologue and his teachings formed the basis for Soros’ political tendencies. There is hardly a speech, book or article that Soros writes that does not pay obeisance to Popper’s influence.
Knighted in 1965, Popper coined the slogan “Open Society,” which eventually manifested in Soros’ Open Society Fund and Institute. Followers of Popper repeat his words like true believers. Popperian philosophy epitomizes Western individual ism. Soros left England in 1956, and found work on Wall Street where, in the 1960s, he invented the “hedge fund.”
“…hedge funds catered to very wealthy individuals… The largely secretive funds, usually trading in offshore locations. . produced astronomically superior results. The size of the “bets” often became self fulfilling prophecies: ‘rumors of a position taken by the big hedge funds prompted other investors to follow suit,’ which would in turn force up the price the hedgers were betting on to begin with.” 7
Soros organized the Quantum Fund in 1969 and began to dabble in currency manipulation. In the 1970s, his financial activities turned to:
“Alternating long and short positions… Soros won big both on the rise of real estate investment trusts and on their subsequent collapse. Under his 20-year stewardship, Quantum returned an amazing 34.5% a year. Soros is best known (and feared) for currency speculation.. . In 1997 he earned the rare distinction of being singled out as a villain by a head of state, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, for taking part in a highly profitable attack on that nation’s currency.” 8
Through such clandestine financial scheming, Soros became a multibillionaire. His companies control real estate in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico; banking in Venezuela; and are some of the most profitable currency traders in the world, giving rise to the general belief that his highly placed friends assisted him in his financial endeavors, for political as well as financial gain. 9
George Soros has been blamed for the destruction of the Thai economy in 1997.10 One Thai activist said, “We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people.” 11 The Chinese call him “the crocodile,” because his economic and ideological efforts in China were so insatiate, and because his financial speculation created millions of dollars in profits as it ravished the Thai and Malaysian economies. 12
Soros once made a billion dollars in one day by speculating (a word he abhors) on the British pound. Accused of taking “money from every British taxpayer when he speculated against sterling,” he said, “When you speculate in the financial markets you are free of most of the moral concerns that confront an ordinary businessman.. .I did not have to concern myself with moral issues in the financial markets.” 13
Soros has a schizophrenic craving for unlimited personal wealth and a desire to be thought well of by others:
“Currency traders sitting at their desks buy and sell currencies of Third World countries in large quantities. The effect of the currency fluctuations on the people who live in those countries is a matter that does not enter their minds. Nor should it; they have a job to do. Yet if we pause to think, we must ask ourselves whether currency traders.. .should regulate the lives of millions.” 14
It was Soros who saved George W. Bush’s bacon when his management of an oil exploration company was ending in failure. Soros was the owner of Harken Energy Corporation, and it was he who bought the rapidly depreciating stocks just prior to the company’s collapse. The future president cashed out at almost one million dollars. Soros said he did it to buy “political influence.” 15 Soros is also a partner in the infamous Carlyle Group. Organized in 1987, “the world’s largest private equity firm” with over twelve billion dollars under management, is run by “a veritable who’s who of former Republican leaders,” from CIA man Frank Carlucci to CIA head George Bush, Sr. The Carlyle Group makes most of its money from weapons expenditures.
THE PHILANTHROPIST SPOOK
In 1980, Soros began to use his millions to attack socialism in Eastern Europe. He financed individuals who would cooperate with him. His first success was in Hungary. He took over the Hungarian educational and cultural establishment, incapacitating socialist institutions throughout the country. He made his way right inside the Hungarian government. Soros next moved on to Poland, aiding the CIA-funded Solidarity operation and in that same year, he became active in China. The USSR came next.
It is not coincidental that the Central Intelligence Agency had operations in all of those countries. The goal of the Agency was exactly the same as that of the Open Society Fund: to dismantle socialism. In South Africa, the CIA sought out dissidents who were anticommunist. In Hungary, Poland and the USSR, the CIA, with overt intervention from the National Endowment for Democracy, the AFL-CIO, USAID and other institutions, supported and organized anticommunists, the very type of individuals recruited by Soros’ Open Society Fund. The CIA would have called them “assets.” As Soros said, “In each country I identified a group of people – some leading personalities, others less well known – who share my belief…”16 Soros’ Open Society organized conferences with anticommunist Czechs, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, Croatians, Bosnians, Kosovars. 17 His ever-expanding influence gave rise to suspicions that he was operating as part of the U.S. intelligence complex. In 1989, the Washington Post reported charges first made in 1987 by the Chinese government officials that Soros’ Fund for the Reform and Opening of China had CIA connections. 18
TAKING ON MOSCOW
After 1990, Soros funds targeted the Russian educational system, providing the entire nation with textbooks. 19 In effect, Soros ensured the indoctrination of an entire generation of Russian youth with OSI propaganda. Soros foundations were accused of engineering a strategy to take control of the Russian financial system, privatization schemes, and the process of foreign investment in that country. Russians reacted angrily to Soros’ legislative meddlings. Critics of Soros and other U.S. foundations said the goal of these maneuvers was to “thwart Russia as a state, which has the potential to compete with the world’s only superpower.” 20 Russians began to suspect Soros and the CIA were interconnected. Business tycoon Boris Berezovsky said, “I nearly fainted when I heard a couple of years ago that George Soros was a CIA agent.” 21 Berezovsky’s opinion was that Soros, and the West, were “afraid of Russian capital becoming strong.”
If the economic and political establishment in the United States fear an economic rivalry from Russia, what better way to control it than to dominate Russian media, education, research centers and science? After spending $250 million for the “transformation of education of humanities and economics at the high school and university levels,” Soros created the International Science Foundation for another $100 million. 22 The Russian Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) accused Soros foundations in Russia of “espionage.” They noted that Soros was not operating alone; he was part of a full court press that included financing from the Ford and Heritage Foundations; Harvard, Duke, and Columbia universities, and assistance from the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services. 23 The FSK criticized Soros’ payouts to 50,000 Russian scientists, saying that Soros advanced his own interests by gaining control of thousands of Russian scientific discoveries and new technologies to collect state and commercial secrets. 24
In 1995, Russians were infuriated by the insinuation of State Department operative Fred Cuny into the conflict in Chechnya. Cuny’s cover was disaster relief, but his history of involvement in international conflict zones of interest to the U.S., plus FBI and CIA search parties, made clear his government connections. At the time of his disappearance, Cuny was working under contract to a Soros foundation. 25 It is not widely known in the U.S. that the violence in Chechnya, a province in the heart of Russia, is generally perceived as the result of a political destabilization campaign on which Washington looks favorably, and may actually be directing. This assessment of the situation is clear enough to writer Tom Clancy that he felt free to include it as an assertion of fact in his best-seller, The Sum of All Fears. The Russians accused Cuny of being a CIA operative, and part of an intelligence operation to support the Chechen uprising. 26 Soros’ Open Society Institute is still active in Chechnya, as are other Soros-sponsored organizations.
Russia was the site of at least one joint endeavor to enhance Soros’ balance sheet, arranged with diplomatic assistance from the Clinton administration. In 1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright blocked a $500 million loan guarantee by the U.S. Export-Import Bank to the Russian company, Tyumen Oil, on the grounds that it was contrary to U.S. national interests. Tyumen wanted to buy American-made oil equipment and services from Dick Cheney’s Halliburton Company and ABB Lummus Global of Bloomfield, New Jersey. 27 George Soros was an investor in a company that Tyumen had been trying to acquire. Both Soros and BP Amoco lobbied to prevent this transaction, and Albright obliged. 28
NURTURING LEFT ANTI-SOCIALISM
Soros’ Open Society Institute has a finger in every pot. Its board of directors reads like a “Who’s Who” of Cold War and New World Order pundits. Paul Goble is Communications Director; ‘he was the major political commentator at Radio Free Europe. Herbert Okun served in the Nixon State Department as an intelligence adviser to Henry Kissinger. Kati Marton is the wife of former Clinton administration UN ambassador and envoy to Yugoslavia, Richard Holbrooke. Marton lobbied for the Soros-funded radio station B-92, also a project of’ the National Endowment for Democracy (another overt arm of the CIA), which was instrumental in bringing down the Yugoslav government.
When Soros founded the Open Society Fund he picked liberal pundit Aryeh Neier to lead it. Neier was the head of Helsinki Watch, a putative human rights organization with an anticommunist bent. In 1993, the Open Society Fund became the Open Society Institute.
Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch in 1975. Soros is currently on its Advisory Board, both for the Americas and the Eastern Europe-Central Asia Committees, and his Open Society Fund/Soros/OSI is listed as a funder. 29 Soros is intimately connected to HRW, and Neier wrote columns for The Nation magazine without mentioning that he was on Soros’ payroll. 30
Soros is intimately involved in HRW, although he does his best to hide it. 31 He says he just funds and sets up these programs and lets them run. But they do not stray from the philosophy of the funder. HRW and OSI are close. Their views do not diverge. Of course, other foundations fund these institutions as well, but Soros’ influence dominates their ideology.
George Soros’ activities fall into the construct developed in 1983 and enunciated by Allen Weinstein, founder of the National Endowment for Democracy. Weinstein said, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”32 Soros is operating exactly within the confines of the intelligence complex. He is little different from CIA drug runners in Laos in the 1960s, or the mujahedin who profited from the opium trade while carrying out CIA operations against socialist Afghanistan in the 1980s. He simply funnels (and takes home) a whole lot more money than those pawns, and he does much of his business in the light of day. His candor insofar as he expresses it is a sort of spook damage control that serves to legitimize the strategies of U.S. foreign policy.
The majority of people in the U.S. today who consider themselves politically left-of-center are undoubtedly pessimistic about the chances for a socialist transformation of society. Thus the Soros ‘Decentralization” model, or the “piecemeal” approach to “negative utilitarianism, the attempt to minimize the amount of misery,” which was Popper’s philosophy, appeals to them. 33 Soros funded an HRW study that was used to back California and Arizona legislation relaxing drug laws. 34 Soros favors the legalization of drugs – one way of temporarily reducing awareness of one’s misery. Soros is an equal-opportunity bribester. At a loftier rung of the socioeconomic ladder, one finds Social Democrats who accept Soros funding and believe in civil liberties within the context of capitalism. 35 For these folks, the evil consequences of Soros’ business activities (impoverishing people all over the world) are mitigated by his philanthropic activities. Similarly, liberal/left intellectuals, both in the U.S. and abroad, have been drawn in by the “Open Society” philosophy, not to mention the occasional funding plum.
The New Left in the United States was a social democratic movement. It was resolutely anti-Soviet, and when Eastern Europe and the USSR fell, few in the New Left opposed the destruction of the socialist systems. The New Left did not mourn or protest when the hundreds of millions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia lost their right to jobs, housing at reasonable and legally protected rents, free education through graduate school, health care and cultural enhancement. Most belittled any suggestion that the CIA and certain NGOs such as the National Endowment for Democracy or the Open Society Fund had actively participated in the annihilation of socialism. These people felt that the Western determination to destroy the USSR since 1917 was barely connected to the fall of the USSR. For them, socialism failed of its own accord, because it was flawed.
As revolutions, such as the ones in Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua or El Salvador were destroyed by proxy forces or were stalled by demonstration “elections,” New Left pragmatists shrugged their shoulders and turned away. The New Left sometimes seemed to deliberately ignore the post-Soviet machinations of U.S. foreign policy.
Bogdan Denitch, who had political aspirations in Croatia, was active within the Open Society Institute, and received OSI funding. 36 Denitch favored the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia, NATO bombing of Bosnia and then Yugoslavia, and even a ground invasion of Yugoslavia. 37 Denitch was a founder and chair for many years of the Democratic Socialists of America, a leading liberal-left group in the U.S. He has also long chaired the prestigious Socialist Scholars Conference, through which he was key to manipulating the sympathies of many toward support for NATO expansion. 38 Other Soros targets for support include Refuse and Resist the ACLU, and a host of other liberal causes. 39 Soros added another unlikely trophy when he became involved in the New School for Social Research in New York, long an academy of choice for left intellectuals. He now funds the East and Central Europe Program there. 40
Many leftists who were inspired by the revolution in Nicaragua sadly accepted the election of Violetta Chamorro and the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990. Most of the Nicaragua support network faded thereafter. Perhaps the New Left could have learned from the rising star of Michael Kozak. He was a veteran of Washington’s campaigns to install sympathetic leaders in Nicaragua, Panama and Haiti, and to undermine Cuba – he headed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
After organizing the Chamorro victory in Nicaragua, Kozak moved on to become U.S. Ambassador to Belarus. Kozak worked with the Soros-sponsored “Internet Access and Training Program” (IATP), which was busy “creating future leaders” in Belarus. 41 This program was simultaneously imposed upon Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. IATP operates openly with the support of the U.S. Department of State. To its credit, Belarus expelled Kozak and the Soros-Open Society/U.S. State Department crowd. The government of Aleksandr Lukashenko found that for four years before moving to Minsk, Kozak was instrumental in engineering the flow of tens of millions of dollars to the Belarus opposition. Kozak was creating a united opposition coalition, funding web-sites, newspapers and opinion polls, and tutoring a student resistance movement similar to Yugoslavia’s Otpor. Kozak brought in Otpor leaders to instruct dissidents in Belarus. 42 Just before September 11, 2001, the U.S. was revving up a demonization campaign against President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Demonizing Lukashenko has temporarily taken a back burner to the “war on terrorism.”
Through OSI and HRW, Soros was a major supporter of the B-92 radio station in Belgrade. Soros funded Otpor, the organization that received those “suitcases of money” in support of the October 5, 2000 coup that toppled the Yugoslav government. 43 Human Rights Watch helped legitimize the subsequent kidnapping and show trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague by saying nothing about his rights.” 44 Louise Arbour, who served as judge at that illegal tribunal, is presently on the Board of Soros’ International Crisis Group. 45 The Open Society/Human Rights Watch gang has been working on Macedonia, calling it part of their “civilizing mission.” 46 Expect that republic to be “saved” to finish the total disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
DEPUTIES OF POWER
Soros has actually stated that he considers his philanthropy moral and his money management business amoral. 47 Yet those in charge of Soros-funded NGOs have a clear and consistent agenda. One of Soros’ most influential institutions is the International Crisis Group, founded in 1986. ICG is headed by individuals from the very center of political and corporate power. Its board includes Zbigniew Brzezinski, Morton Abramowitz, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State; Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe; and Richard Allen, former U.S. National Security Adviser, Allen is noteworthy for quitting Nixon’s National Security Council out of disgust with the liberal tendencies of Henry Kissinger; recruiting Oliver North to Reagan’s National Security Council, and negotiating missiles for hostages in the Iran-Contra scandal. For these individuals, “containing conflict” boils down to U.S. control over the people and resources of the world.
In the 1980s and 1990s, under the aegis of the Reagan Doctrine, U.S. covert and overt operations in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia were in the works. Soros was openly active in most of these places, working to buy off would-be revolutionaries, or subsidize politicians, intellectuals and anyone else who might come to power when the revolutionary moment had passed. According to James Petras:
“By the early 1980s the more perceptive sectors of the neoliberal ruling classes realized that their policies were polarizing the society and provoking large-scale social discontent. Neoliberal politicians began to finance and promote a parallel strategy ‘from below,’ the promotion of ‘grassroots’ organizations with an ‘anti-statist’ ideology to intervene among potentially conflictory classes, to create a “social cushion.” These organizations were financially dependent on neoliberal sources and were directly involved in competing with sociopolitical movements for the allegiance of local leaders and activist communities. By the 1 990s these organizations, described as “nongovernmental,” numbered in the thousands and were receiving close to four billion dollars world-wide.” 48
In Underwriting Democracy, Soros boasts about the “Americanization of Eastern Europe.” According to his account, through his education programs he began to establish a young cadre of Sorosian leaders. These Soros Foundation-educated young men and women are prepared to fulfill the functions of so-called “influence agents.” Thanks to their fluent knowledge of languages and their insertion into the emerging bureaucracies in target countries, these recruits would philosophically smooth the inroads for Western multinational corporations.
Career diplomat Herbert Okun, on the Europe Committee of Human Rights Watch, along with George Soros, is connected to a host of State Department-linked institutions, from USAID to the Rockefeller-funded Trilateral Commission. From 1990 to 1997, Okun was executive director of something called the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, part of USAID, “to help establish free market financial systems in former communist countries.” 49 George Soros is in complete accord with the capitalists who are in the process of taking control of the global economy.
Soros claims not to do philanthropy in the countries in which he is involved as a currency trader. 50 But Soros has often taken advantage of his connections to make key investments. Armed with a study by ICC, and with the support of Bernard Kouchner, chief of the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), Soros attempted to acquire the most profitable mining complex in the Balkans.
In September 2000, in a hurry to take the Trepca mines before the Yugoslavian election, Kouchner stated that pollution from the mining complex was raising lead levels in the environment. 51 This is incredible considering that he cheered when the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia rained depleted uranium on the country and released more than 100,000 tons of carcinogens into the air, water and soil. 52 But Kouchner had his way, and the mines were closed for “health reasons.” Soros invested $150 million in an effort to gain control of Trepca’s gold, silver, lead, zinc and cadmium, which make the property worth $5 billion. 53
As Bulgaria was imploding into “free-market” chaos, Soros was busy scavenging through the wreckage, as Reuters reported in early 2001:
“The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invested $3.0 million in [Bulgarian high-tech company] Rila, the first firm to benefit from a new $30 million facility set up by the EBRD to support IT firms in central and eastern Europe…. Another $3. 0 million came from U.S private investment fund Argus Capital Partners, sponsored by Prudential Insurance Company of America and opera ting in central and eastern Europe… Soros, who had invested around $3.0 million in Rila and in 2001 invested another $1.0 million…remained its majority owner. ” 54
FRAMING THE ISSUES
His pose as a philanthropist gives Soros the power to shape international public opinion when social conflict raises the question of who are the victims and who are the malefactors. Like other NGOs, Human Rights Watch, Soros’ mouthpiece on human rights, avoids or ignores most organized and independent working class struggles.
In Colombia, labor leaders are routinely killed by paramilitaries working in concert with the U.S.-sponsored government. Because those unions oppose neoliberal economics, HRW is relatively silent. In April of this year, HRW’s Jose Vivanco testified before the U.S. Senate in favor of Plan Colombia: 55
“Colombians remain committed to human rights and democracy They need help. Human Rights Watch has no fundamental problem with the United States providing that help.” 56
HRW equates the actions of the Colombian guerrilla fighters struggling to free themselves from the oppression of state terror, poverty and exploitation with the repression of the U.S-sponsored armed forces and paramilitary death squads, the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). HRW validated the Pastrana government and its military, whose role was to protect property rights and maintain the economic and political status quo. According to HRW, 50% of civilian deaths are the work of the government-tolerated death squads. 57 The correct number is 80%. 58
HRW essentially certified the election and ascendancy of the Uribe government in 2002 as well. Uribe is a throwback to the Latin American dictators the U.S. supported in the past, although he was “elected.” HRW had no comment about the fact that the majority boycotted the election. 59
In the Caribbean Basin, Cuba is another opponent of neoliberalism that has been demonized by Human Rights Watch. In nearby Haiti, Soros-funded activities have worked to defeat popular aspirations following the end of the Duvalier dictatorship by undermining Haiti’s first democratically elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. HRW’s Ken Roth helpfully chimed in with U.S. denunciations of Aristide as “undemocratic.” To demonstrate his idea of “democracy,” Soros foundations were commencing operations in Haiti complimentary to such unseemly U.S. activities as USAID’s promotion of persons associated with FRAPH, the notorious CIA-sponsored death squads which have terrorized the country since the fall of ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier. 60
On HRW’s web site, Director Roth criticized the U.S. for not opposing China more vigorously. Roth’s activities include the creation of the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a traveling propaganda project that toured the U.S. with major rock musicians, urging young people to support Tibet against China. 61 Tibet has been a pet project of the CIA for many years. 62
Roth has recently pressed for opposition to Chinese control over its oil-rich western province of Xinjiang. With the colonialist “divide and conquer” approach, Roth has tried to convince some of the Uighur religious minority in Xinjiang that the U.S/NATO intervention in Kosovo holds promise as a model for them. As late as August 2002, the U.S. government has given some support in this endeavor as well.
U.S. designs on this region were signaled clearly when a New York Times article on Xinjiang Province in western China described the Uighurs as a “Muslim majority, [which] lives restively under Chinese rule.” They “are well versed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year which some celebrate for liberating the Muslims in Kosovo; they fantasize about a similar rescue’ here.” 63 The New York Times Magazine noted “Recent discoveries of oil have made Xinjiang extremely attractive to international trade,” while comparing the conditions for its indigenous population to those in Tibet. 64
When Sorosian organizations count, they seem to lose track of the truth. Human Rights Watch asserted that 500 people, not over 2,000, were killed by NATO bombers in the 1999 war in Yugoslavia. 65 They said only 350, not over 4,000, died as a result of U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. 66 When the U.S. bombed Panama in 1989, HRW prefaced its report by saying that the “ouster of Manuel Noriega.. and installation of the democratically-elected government of President Guillermo Endara brought high hopes in Panama…” The report neglected to mention the number of casualties.
Human Rights Watch prepared the groundwork for the NATO attack on Bosnia in 1993 by the false rape-of-thousands and “genocide” stories. 67 This tactic of creating political hysteria was necessary for the United States to carry out its Balkan policy. It was repeated in 1999 when HRW functioned as the shock troops of indoctrination for the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. All of Soros’ blather about the rule of law was forgotten. The U.S. and NATO made their own law, and the institutions of George Soros stood behind it.
Massaging of numbers to provoke a response was a major part of a Council on Foreign Relations campaign after September 11,2001. This time it was the 2,801 killed in the World Trade Center. The CFR met on November 6, 2001, to plan a “major public diplomacy campaign.” CFR created an “Independent Task Force on America’s Response to Terrorism.” Soros joined Richard C. Holbrooke, Newton L. Gingrich, John M. Shalikashvili (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and other powerful individuals on a campaign to make the Trade Center dead into tools for U.S. foreign policy. The CFR report set out to make the case for a war on terrorism. George Soros’ fingerprints were all over the campaign:
“Have senior-level U.S. officials press friendly Arab and other Muslim governments not only to publicly condemn the 9/11 attacks, but also to back the rationale and goals of the U.S. anti-terror campaign. We are never going to convince the publics in the Middle East and South Asia of the nghteousness of our cause if their governments remain silent. We need to help them to deflect any blow-hack from such statements, but we must have them vocally on board…. Encourage Bosnian, Albanian, and Turkish Muslims to educate foreign audiences regarding the U.S. role in saving the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo in 1995-99, and our long-standing, close ties to Muslims around the world. Engage regional intellectuals and journalists across the board, regardless of their views. Routinely monitor the regional press in real time to enable prompt responses… Stress references to the victims (and ideally named victims to personalize them) whenever we discuss our cause and goals.” 68
Sorosian innumeracy: counting to bolster and defend U.S. foreign policy.
Soros is very worried about the decline in the world capitalist system and he wants to do something about it, now. He recently said: “I can already discern the makings of the final crisis…. Indigenous political movements are likely to arise that will seek to expropriate the multinational corporations and recapture the ‘national’ wealth.” 69
Soros is seriously suggesting a plan to circumvent the United Nations. He proposes that the “democracies of the world ought to take the lead and forge a global network of alliances that could work with or without the United Nations.” If he were psychotic, one might think he was having an episode. But the fact is, Soros’ assertion that “The United Nations is constitutionally incapable of fulfilling the promises contained in the preamble of its charter,” reflects the thinking of such reactionary institutions as the American Enterprise Institute. 70 Though many conservatives refer to the Soros network as left-wing, on the question of U.S. affiliation with the United Nations Soros is on the same page as the likes of John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, who, with “[M]any Republicans in Congress-believe that nothing more should be paid to the UN system.” 71 There has been a decades-long rightwing campaign against the UN. Now Soros is leading it. On various Soros web sites one may read criticism of the United Nations as too rich, unwilling to share information, or flawed in ways that make it unfit for the way the world should run according to George Soros.
Even writers at The Nation, writers who clearly ought to know better, have been influenced by Soros’ ideas. William Greider, for instance, recently found some validity in Soros’ criticism that the United Nations should not be a venue for “tin-pot dictators and totalitarians. . treated as equal partners.” 72 This kind of Eurocentric racism is at the heart of Soros’ hubris. His assumption that the United States can and should run the world is a prescription for fascism on a global scale. For much too long, Western “progressives” have been giving Soros a pass. Probably Greider and others will find the reference to fascism excessive, unjustified, even outrageous.
But just listen closely to what Soros himself has to say: “In old Rome, the Romans only voted. In the modern global capitalism, the Americans only vote. The Brazilians do not vote.” 73
1. Dan Seligman, “Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire,” commentary, April 2002.
2. “Sir Karl Popper in Prague, Summary of Relevant Facts Without Comment,” http://www.lf3.cuni.cz/aff/p1_e.html.
3. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Transcaucasia/Central Asia, http://www.rferl.org.
5. Lee Penn, “1999, A Year of Growth for the United Religions Initiative.” http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N1684.TMP3/B103O723.3;sz=720×300;ord=6249?.
6. George Soros, Soros on Soros, Staying Ahead of the Curve (New York: John Wiley, 1995), p. 26.
7. “Hedge Funds Get Trimmed,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2000.
8. Theodore Spencer, “Investors of the Century,” Fortune, December 1999.
9. Jim Freer, “Most International Trader George Soros,” Latin Tradecom, October 1998, http://www.latintrade.com/newsite/content/archives.cfm?StoryID=473.
10. Busaba Sivasomboon, “Soros Speech in Thailand Canceled,” AP wire, January 28, 2001.
12. George Soros, The Asia Society Hong Kong Center Speech, http://www.asiasociety.org/speeches/soros.
13. Soros on Soros, pill.
14. George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2000).
15. David Corn, “Bush and the Billionaire, How Insider Capitalism Benefited W,” The Nation, July 17, 2002.
16. Soros on Soros, pp. 122-25.
17. Agence France-Presse, October 8, 1993.
18. Marianne Yen, “Fund’s Representatives Arrested in China,” Washington Post, August 8, 1989, p. A4.
19. Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1994, p. ASS.
20. Chrystia Freeland, “Moscow Suspicion Grows: Kremlin Factions Are at Odds Over Policy,” Financial Times (London), January 19, 1995.
21. Interfax Russian News, November 6, 1999.
22. Irma Dezhina, “U.S. Non-profit Foundations in Russia, Impact on Research and Education” http://www.jhu.edu/~istr/conferences/dublin/workingpapers/dezhina.pdf.
23. “FSK Suspects Financing of Espionage on Russia’s Territory,” AP wire, January 18, 1995.
24. David Hoffman, “Proliferation of Parties Gives Russia a Fractured Democratic System,” Washington Post, October 1, 1995, p. A27; Margaret Shapiro, “Russian Agency Said to Accuse Americans of Spying,” Washington Post, January 14, 1995, p. A17.
25. Allan Turner, “Looking For Trouble,” Houston chronicle, May 28, 1995, p. E1; Kim Masters, “Where Is Fred Cuny,” Washington Post, June 19, 1995, p. D1; Patrick Anderson, “The Disaster Expert Who Met His Match,” Washington Post, September 6, 1999, p. C9; Scott Anderson, “What Happened to Fred Cuny?” New York Times Magazine, February 25, 1996, p. 44.
26. Scott Anderson, “The Man Who Tried to Save the World: the Dangerous Life and Disappearance of Fred Cuny,” Philanthropy Roundtable, March/April 2002, http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2000-01/hedges.
27. “U.S. Blocks $500M Aid Deal for Russians” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1999.
28. Bob Djurdjevic, “Letters to the Editor,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1999.
29. “Open Society Institute,” http://www.soros.org/osi/newyork.
30. Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros,” New Yorker, January 23, 1995.
31. Olga M. Lazin, “The Rise of the U.S. Decentralized Model for Philanthropy, George Soros’ Open Society and National Foundations in Europe,” http://www.isop.ucla.edu/profmex/volume6/1winter01/01lazin1.htm.
32. David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,” Washington Post, September 22, 1991, p. C1.
33. Patrick McCartney, “Study Suggests Drug Laws Resemble Notorious Passbook Laws,” http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n861/a06.
35. See Sean Gervasi, “Western Intervention in the USSR,” CovertAction Information Bulletin, no. 39, Winter 1991-92.
36. “The Cenasia Discussion List,” http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/cenasia/hypermail/200102/0052.html.
37. Bogdan Denitch, “The Case Against Inaction,” The Nation, April 26, 1999.
38. “Biographies, 2002 Socialist Scholars Conference,” http://www.socialistscholar.org/biographies.
39. “Grants,” http://www.soros.org/repro/grants.
40. “East and Central Europe Program,” http://www.newschool.edu/centers/ecep.
41. Oxana Popovitch, “IREX Belarus Opens a New IATP Site in Molodechno.”
42. lan Traynor, “Belarussian Foils Dictator-buster…For Now,” Guardian, September 14, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,551533,00.html
43. Steven Erlanger, “Kostunica Says Some Backers ‘Unconsciously Work for American Imperial Goals,”‘ New York Times, September 20, 2000; and “Bringing Down a Dictator, Serbia Calling.” PBS, http://www.pbs.org/weta/dictator/rock/serbiacalling.html
44. Milosevic in the Hague, Focus on Human Rights, “In-Depth Report Documents Milosevic Crimes,” April 2001, http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/milocroat1029.htm.
45. “About ICG,” May 2002, http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/annual/2002/ICG2002.pdf.
46. Macedonia Crimes Against Civilians: Abuses by Macedonian Forces in Lluboten, August 10-12, 2001
47. Andrew Leonard. “The Man Who Bought the World,” February 28, 2002, Salon.com. http://archive.salon.com/tech/books/2002/02/28/soros/
48. James Petras, “Imperialism and NGOs in Latin America,” Monthly Review, vol.
49, no. 7, December 1997. 49. International Security Studies, “Herbert Okun,” http://www.yale.edu/iss/peopleadvisoryboard1.
51. Edward W. Miller, “Brigandage,” Coastal Post Monthly, Mann County, CA, September 2000.
52. Mirjan Nadrljanski, “Eco-Disaster in Pancevo: Consequences on the Health of the Population,” July 19, 1999, http://www.gci.ch/GreenCrossPrograms/legacy/yugoslavia/Nadrljanski.html
53. “Soros Fund Launches $150 MIn U.S.Backed Balkans Investment,” Bloomberg Business News, July 26, 2000; Chris Hedges, “Below It All in Kosovo,” New York limes, July 8,1998, p. A4.
54. Galina Sabeva, “Soros’ Sofia IT Firm Gets $9 Million Equity Investment,” Reuters, January 23, 2001.
55. On Plan Colombia see: Manuel Salgado Tamayo, “The Geostrategy of Plan Colombia CovertAction Quarterly no. 71, Winter 2001.
56. “Colombia: Human Rights Watch Testifies Before the Senate,” Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, April 24, 2002, http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/colombia-testimony0424.htm.
57. “Colombia: Bush/Pastrana Meeting, HRW World Report 2001, Human Rights News” (New York, November 6, 2001).
58. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Action Alert,” New York limes Covering for Colombian Death Squads,” February 9, 2001.
59. Doug Stokes “Colombia Primer Q&A on the Conflict and U.S. Role,” April 16, 2002. Znet, http://www.zmag.org/content/Colombia/stokes_col-primer.cfm.
60. Interpress Service, January 18, 1995. For additional background see Jane Regan, “AIDing U.S. Interests In Haiti,” CovertAction Quarterly no. 51, Winter 1994-95; and Noam Chomsky, “Haiti, The Uncivil Society,” CovertAction Quarterly no. 57, Summer 1996.
61. Sam Tucker, Human Rights Watch, http://www.webactive.com/webactive/sotw/hrw.
62. John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War (New York, BBS Public Affairs 1999), p. 236.
63. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Defiant Chinese Muslims Keep Their Own Time,” New York limes, November 19, 2000, p. 3.
64. Jonathan Reynolds (pseudonym), “The Clandestine Chef,” New York Times Magazine, December 3, 2000.
65. “Lessons of War,” Le Monde Diplomatique, March 2000; Peter Phillips, “Untold Stories of U.S./NATO’s War and Media Complacency,” http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/suntold.htm
66. Marc W. Herold, “A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting,” http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/civiDeaths.html
67. “Rape as a crime against humanity,” http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/rape.html 68. “Improving the Public Diplomacy Campaign in the War Against Terrorism,” Independent Task Force on America’s Response to Terrorism, Council on Foreign Relations, November 6, 2001.
69. William Greider, “Curious George Talks the Market, The Nation, February 15, 1999.
70. “Oppose John Bolton’s Nomination as State Department’s Arms Control Leader,” Council for a Livable World , April 11, 2001, http://www.clw.org/bush/opposebolton.html
73. “The Dictatorship of Financial Capital,” Federation of Social and Educational Assistance (FASE), Brazil, 2002, http://www.fase.org.br
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather Cottin is a writer, lifelong political activist, and recently retired high school history teacher She lives in Free port, NY and was for many years married to the late scholar and activist Sean Gervasi.
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