George Soros: Imperial Wizard/Double Agent



Covert Action Quarterly

e-mail: info@covertactionquarterly.org



by Heather Cottin



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. 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. 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. 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. Soros is the founder and funder of the Open Society Insti

tute. 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...



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. 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 individualism. 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."



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."



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.



George Soros has been blamed for the destruction of the Thai economy in

1997. One Thai activist said, "We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula.

He sucks the blood from the people." 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.



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."



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."



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." 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..."



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.



NON-PROFIT PROFITEERING



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



INNUMERACY



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



NOTES



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. 4. Seligman. 5.

Lee Penn, "1999, A Year of Growth for the United Religions Initiative."

http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N1684.TMP3/B103O723.3;sz=720x300;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. 11. Sivasomboon. 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. 34. McCartney. 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." http://www.iatp.net/archive/belarus.

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. 50. Leonard. 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 71. Ibid.

72. Greider. 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 Freeport, NY and was for many years married to the late scholar

and activist Sean Gervasi.

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