Soros as Kiev’s Central Banker and Ridiculous US Laws

If it comes to pass, and it cannot unfortunately be ruled out, recent media rumors say that naturalized US billionaire hedge fund speculator and philosopher, George Soros, a very weary-looking 84-year-old who continues to try to weaken the Russian economy as he did back in 1998, might become the head of the Ukrainian National Bank in Kiev. Soros as head of any central bank in my view is putting the old fox to guard the hen-house. That would complete a quartet of foreign technocrats that clearly would do no good to the shattered real economy of Ukraine nor to peace in the world.

So far it is a report carried only by APA, the Azeri press agency in Baku. They cite a report carried Ukraine’s Channel 112. That report cited sources in the Ukraine parliament, the Verkhovna Rada and people around Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

Billionaire speculator Soros is no stranger to Ukraine. In a personal interview with US TV propaganda channel CNN. Soros declared, “I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now.” That interview was made after the US State Department February 21, 2014 coup d’Etat.

Soros, via his network of “tax free charitable” foundations has worked with US Government-funded NGOs such as USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (now doing work formerly assigned to the CIA), the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Freedom House, and the Albert Einstein Institute for training in “nonviolence as a weapon of warfare.”

Whether the good Mr. Soros will bring his financial alchemy to Kiev and try to earn the new Finance Minister billions of euros for their strained budget is not at all clear. There is reportedly a list of five candidates including Soros. It reportedly includes former IMF head Dominique Straus-Kahn and at least one person from the US Federal Reserve.

Ukraine: Washington’s New Colony

The naming of Soros or another foreign banker to head the central bank of Ukraine at this point would fit nicely into what emerges as Washington’s strategy to simply run the country–into the ground at that—by proxies. Earlier this month, US State Department favorite Ukraine President Petr Poroschenko engaged in constitutionally dubious manipulations, holding a secret ceremony hours before a Ukraine Parliament vote, to make three now Kiev government ministers from foreign countries into Ukrainian citizens.

The three were Finance Minister Natalia A. Jaresko, a then-US citizen who worked for the US State Department in Ukraine and recently as investment banker for funds of USAID. As Economics Minister sits a Lithuanian investment banker who managed a Swedish investment fund for Ukraine, Aivras Abromavicius. And the new Health Minister is US-tied national of neighboring Georgia, Alexander Kvitashvili whose wife reportedly worked with the CIA.

And New US Sanctions…

The US President Obama just signed into law a new round of economic sanctions against Russia. The US President on December 18 signed into law HR 5859, euphemistically titled, Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 113th Congress. A more honest title would be, An Act of 2014 to Provoke War with Russia.

The new law calls for “economic sanctions, diplomacy, assistance for the people of Ukraine, and the provision of military capabilities to the Government of Ukraine that will enhance the ability of that Government to defend itself and to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of unlawful actions by the Government of the Russian Federation.”

The new US law gives the US President a dangerous new weapon. If he deems Gazprom, the Russian state gas giant that supplies much of the EU as well as Ukraine, is “withholding” significant natural gas from NATO countries, or from Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova, he can order draconian new sanctions on Gazprom, something carefully avoided by Washington until now. That means all the CIA or neo-cons running US State Department Ukraine policy need do is convince Kiev to claim Russia is withholding gas or refuse to pay Gazprom, a sword of Damocles over the Russian gas supplier.

Then the new US law, HR 5859, SEC. 9. SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS, specifies that the Secretary of State shall, “directly or through non-governmental or international organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the National Endowment for Democracy, and related organizations–(1) improve democratic governance, transparency, accountability, rule of law, and anti-corruption efforts in the Russian Federation; strengthen democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in the Russian Federation; (3) expand uncensored Internet access in the Russian Federation…”

This remarkable part of the new law gives open support to a new attempt at a CIA-State Department Color Revolution to topple Putin, using the US Congress and Soros Foundation-financed National Endowment for Democracy, the same cast of suspects who ran the Euro-Maidan Color Revolution a year ago in Kiev. If it reads like a brazen attempt to trample Russian sovereignty and impose a Washington version of “democracy” in another country, one might ask, what bloody right do Washington Congressmen and Presidents have to impose anything on anyone, let alone its own citizens?

To underscore the absurdity of Washington neo-cons and their moral arrogance in deciding where and how they can impose “democracy,” some in the Russian Duma, with characteristic Russian droll humor, apparently made a tit-for-tat mirror image of HR5859. Imagine, as a normal American citizen, how you would feel if the following were to become operational:

United States of America Freedom Support Act of 2014

Sixth Duma of the Russian Federation

AT THE TWENTY-FIRST SESSION

An Act:

To provide assistance for the democratic development of the United States of America and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Representatives of the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation assembled in the Federation Assembly…

Sec. 9. SUPPORT FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) In General.–The Minister of Foreign Affairs, directly or through nongovernmental or international organizations, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the EURASIA HERITAGE FOUNDATION, and related organizations—

(1) improve democratic governance, transparency, accountability, rule of law, and anti-corruption efforts in the United States;

(2) strengthen democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in the United States;

(3) expand free and unmonitored Internet access in the United States; and

(4) expand free and unfettered access to independent media of all kinds in the United States, including through increasing Russian Government-supported broadcasting activities.

The Russian spoof merely underscores how ridiculous US foreign policy has become. Little wonder that the USA today enjoys so little respect around the world. Its elected politicians are simply ridiculous.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook