By NWV Senior Political News Writer, Jim Kouri
Recently, according to a number of conservative commentators and bloggers, several dozen Roman Catholic theologians, priests and academics formally accused Pope Francis of spreading heresy and are suspicious of his relationship with American left-wing political figures such as multi-billionaire radical globalist George Soros.
While most of the news outlets in the United States have ignored the relationship between the head of the Catholic Church, perhaps the latest Soros news story will receive more coverage from the likes of CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and other leftist news purveyors.
The latest scuttlebutt in the U.S. capital is the allegation that at least one of the Koch Brothers, Charles — while differing politically with far-left Soros — is finding common ground with his fellow multi-billionaire..
While the libertarian-oriented Kochs — who believe in small and limited government — and the radical socialist George Soros have found a point of agreement: America’s end to its wars.
Soros has been a key source of funds through his Open Society Foundations for a number of left-wing protest groups, including the Center for Popular Democracy, a group that helped pay for demonstrations against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
He is also suspected of funding more violent groups such as Antifa, who claim to be opposed to fascism but are involved in violence against President Trump’s supporters and against law enforcement.
“Most any left-wing group of any consequence at all is getting Soros money,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, told the Washington Times’ Valerie Richardson. “In my decades of studying left-wing groups, I almost never find a group that lacks funding from Soros.”
According to American Action News, “In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. This is a radical notion in Washington, where every major think tank promotes some variant of neocon militarism or liberal interventionism. Soros and Koch are uniting to revive the fading vision of a peaceable United States. The street cred they bring from both ends of the political spectrum — along with the money they are providing — will make this new think tank an off-pitch voice for statesmanship amid a Washington chorus that promotes brinksmanship.
According to the Boston news media, one of the biggest supporters of this Soros-Koch project is an Iranian named Trita Parsi who once served as president of the National Iranian American Council and now she’s the founder of the Soros-Koch funded think tank.
“This is big,” said Trita Parsi, former president of the National Iranian American Council and a co-founder of the new think tank. “It shows how important ending endless war is if they’re willing to put aside their differences and get together on this project. We are going to challenge the basis of American foreign policy in a way that has not been done in at least the last quarter-century.”
By next year the Institute — which is dubbed Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft –hopes to have a $3.5 million budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates.
According to Boston talk show host, Howie Carr, the Quincy Institute will likely advocate a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and Syria; a return to the nuclear deal with Iran; less confrontational approaches to Russia and China; an end to regime-change campaigns against Venezuela and Cuba; and sharp reductions in the defense budget.
It aims to issue four reports before the end of 2019: Two offering alternative approaches to the Middle East and East Asia, one on “ending endless war,” and one called “democratizing foreign policy.” Its statement of principles asserts that the United States “should engage with the world, and the essence of engagement is peaceful cooperation among peoples. For this reason, the United States must cherish peace and pursue it through the vigorous practice of diplomacy . . . The use of armed force does not represent American engagement in the world. Force ends human life, destroying engagement irreparably. Any resort to force should occur only as a last resort and should remain infrequent. The military exists to defend the people and territory of the United States, not to act as a global police force.”
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Contact Jim Kouri – E-Mail: COPmagazine@aol.com