Heather Coffin: George Soros, Imperial Wizard.

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.

 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,
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=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.
11. Sivasomboon.
12. George Soros, The Asia Society Hong Kong Center Speech,
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” 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, 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,” 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,” 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,”
www.socialistscholar.org/biographies.
39. “Grants,” www.soros.org/repro/grants.
40. “East and Central Europe Program,” www.newschool.edu/centers/ecep.
41. Oxana Popovitch, “IREX Belarus Opens a New IATP Site in Molodechno.”
www.iatp.net/archive/belarus.
42. lan Traynor, “Belarussian Foils Dictator-buster…For Now,”
Guardian, September 14, 2001, 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,” 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, 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, 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,”
www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/civiDeaths.html
67. “Rape as a crime against humanity,” 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), Brail, 2002, 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.