George Soros Funds Plan to Block Bush

[Ivo Skoric]

Open Society closes shop in Russia and opens up in the U.S. Soros 
signals that democracy is now more in danger in America than in 
Russia. Unforrtunately, Soros was rich enough to counter Eastern-
European thuggish leaders, but his wealth is no match for Bushes. 
Yet, he is a hedge-master...

ivo
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              ''The Soros initiative should gain support as the
               situation in Iraq worsens, and as the public becomes
               more aware that President Bush took us to war based on
               false information about Iraq's weaponry and about its
               connection to terrorist groups."

'Open Society' Advocate George Soros Funds Plan to Block Bush
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Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service (IPS)

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 12 (IPS) -- George Soros, most often described as
a billionaire philanthropist, once shared some of the political 
values
of U.S. President George W. Bush . For example, they both wanted
''regime change'' in Iraq  . Now Soros has made a full political
circle: he wants to see a ''regime change'' in the United States.

Soros has also been gunning for Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Libya's
Muammar el-Qaddafi, Burma's Gen Than Shwe and Turkmenistan's
president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov.

A long-time pro-democracy advocate and a sometimes currency
speculator, Soros is openly backing a non-governmental initiative
called 'Americans Coming Together' (ACT) aimed at stopping Bush in 
his
bid for a second term as president of the United States.

ACT is planning to spend about $75 million to mobilize U.S. voters to
defeat Bush in the next presidential elections in November 2004.

Described as a counter-cultural investor whose net worth is more than
$five billion, Soros has already contributed about $10 million to the
anti-Bush campaign.

Six other philanthropists have chipped in a total of about $12
million, while $8 million has been contributed by trade unions.

Soros, who is chairman of the Open Society Institute (OSI) which
promotes multi-party democracy worldwide, thinks that Bush and his
aggressive unilateral foreign policy is doing more harm than good to
the United States.

He also believes the president has neither the intellectual capacity
nor the political prowess to guide the United States on a sound
foreign policy course.

Bush's policies are bound to be wrong ''because they are based on a
false ideology'', he told students last month in a commencement
address at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
in Washington.

He sees striking similarities between the U.S. president and Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites), both of whom believe
in military power to achieve their political objectives.

The idea that might is right, advocated by both leaders, cannot be
reconciled with the idea of an open society, Soros told the students.

A strong advocate of the concept of an ''open society,'' he argues
that neo-conservatives in the Bush administration have made a mockery
of the values of freedom and democracy--all in the name of fighting
terrorism.

The battle against terrorism, he says, cannot be accepted as the
guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy, and Soros wants Washington
to play a more constructive role in the progress of humanity.

''What will happen to the world if the most powerful country on
earth--the one that sets the agenda--is solely preoccupied with
self-preservation?'' he asked.

''Acting as the leader of a global open society will not protect the
United States from terrorist attacks,'' he warned, ''but by playing a
constructive role, we can regain the respect and support of the 
world,
and this will make the task of fighting terrorism easier.''

While he favored the removal of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (news -

web sites), Soros thinks that one of Bush's biggest foreign policy
debacles is the war on Iraq.

He has pooh-poohed the idea that the Bush administration is fostering
democracy by invading and occupying the Middle East nation.

''Democracy cannot be imposed from the outside,'' he argues. ''I have
been actively involved in building open societies in a number of
countries through my network of foundations. Speaking from 
experience,
I would never choose Iraq for nation building,'' he added.

Soros says his primary aim in getting involved with ACT is to 
mobilize
civil society and convince people to go to the polls next year ''and
vote for candidates who will reassert the values of the greatest open
society in the world.''

The anti-Bush campaign is gathering support from anti-war groups,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academics.

''The Soros initiative should gain support as the situation in Iraq
worsens, and as the public becomes more aware that President Bush 
took
us to war based on false information about Iraq's weaponry and about
its connection to terrorist groups,'' John Quigley, professor of law
at Ohio State University, told IPS.

''A president who initiates war on such (false) premises should not 
be
re-elected,'' Quigley added.

''There is no question that if you really look at the deeper 
situation
(about the Bush administration), George Soros is right,'' says Rob
Wheeler, organizer of the United for Peace Coalition and U.N.
Representative of the Association of World Citizens.

''The president and his administration is surely leading the country
in a 'false and dangerous situation' and they must be stopped,'' he
told IPS.

''The question is, really, what issues ACT will focus on and how 
tough
they will be on the president,'' he added.

The Hungarian-born Soros says he is not backing any candidate for the
U.S. presidency.

Besides Bush, Soros also targets U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
(news - web sites), author of the Patriot Act, a highly controversial
law that has restricted civil liberties in the guise of fighting
terrorism.

Anyone who opposes the Patriot Act, says Ashcroft, is giving aid and
comfort to the enemy. Ashcroft's remarks have prompted a rejoinder
from Soros: ''These are views of extremists, not adherents to an open
society.''

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Soros says one of his
political pursuits was to defeat communism and transform former 
closed
societies in the Soviet Union into open societies.

Last week, he closed down his operations in Russia, where he spent
over $1 billion promoting democracy in a country that was the cradle
of communism. Russia, he said, had weathered all its crises, and 
needs
no outside support to survive.

Still, the OSI is known to spend over $450 million annually to create
open societies in several developing nations and Eastern European
countries.

Ironically, although his anti-Bush campaign has strong supporters in
the current U.S. anti-war movement, Soros is still vilified by
anti-globalization groups, who criticize him for his strong advocacy
of free market economies and the global capitalist system.

As a currency trader, he is accused of making his fortune by
manipulating markets, mostly in developing countries. He is said to
have made one billion dollars on a single day by speculating on the
British pound.

In an article in Covert Action Quarterly last year, Heather Cotton
said that Soros' foundations and financial machinations are partly
responsible for the destruction of socialism in Eastern Europe and 
the
former Soviet Union.

''He has set his sights on China. He was part of the full court press
that dismantled Yugoslavia,'' she writes.

Soros' role, she said, is to tighten the stranglehold of 
globalization
and the ''New World Order'' while promoting his own financial gain.

Cotton writes that while anti-globalization forces were freezing in
the streets outside New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel in February 
2002,
Soros was inside addressing the World Economic Forum (news - web
sites), the traditional platform for the world's economic elites.

''As the police forced protesters into metal cages on Park Avenue,
Soros was extolling the virtues of the 'open society.'"

As chairman of Soros Fund Management, Soros built a huge fortune
doubling as a speculator in international currency and financial
markets.

He has been accused of profiting unfairly in foreign markets,
including developing country markets such as Thailand, and was
lambasted by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for currency
speculation that contributed to the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

At a meeting at the University of Pennsylvania, Soros was asked how 
he
reconciles his two roles in life: philanthropist and ruthless
speculator.

Pleading innocence, he said the cash crises he has been blamed for
were really caused by government policies, not his speculative
actions. ''I was used as a scapegoat for government actions,'' he
added, pointing out that he is known in China as ''the crocodile.''




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______________________________________________________________________
_______________ There are no unconquerable fortresses. There are only
bad conquerors.


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