Posted on 11/24/2006 5:34:19 PM PST by A. Pole
IMAGINE you were a foreign power that wanted to get rid of a dissident who had set up home in London. Would you (a) push the troublemaker under a bus, (b) have him mown down by a hit-run driver, or (c) arrange for him to be poisoned while eating in a crowded restaurant?
If you wanted to make the death look natural, or just to keep things simple, you would presumably avoid the restaurant scenario. And yet, if many Russia-watchers are to be believed, the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) has carried out just such an assassination.
On November 1, Alexander Litvinenko, a 43-year-old Russian who used to work for the FSB the post-Soviet version of the KGB had breakfast with two Russian men, one a former KGB officer, at the Millennium hotel in Mayfair, then lunch at Itsu, a cheap and cheerful Japanese eatery in London, with an Italian defence consultant, Mario Scaramella. Litvinenko later claimed that Scaramella had shown him
a hit list featuring Litvinenko's name as well as that of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
By that evening, he was so ill he was taken to hospital. Doctors wasted 10 days trying to treat him for food poisoning. His condition deteriorated hair falling out, difficulty speaking, white blood cells disappearing, unable to eat, even nourishment from a drip causing him to vomit.
It wasn't until earlier this week, after listening to their patient's pleas, that doctors said they were investigating the possibility of poisoning. Initially they suspected thallium, a tasteless, odourless killer used in rat poison until it was banned in the 1970s. By Thursday, however, with Litvinenko's condition deteriorating rapidly, a hospital spokesman said the medical team had ruled out thallium but was still unclear about the cause of his condition. A friend said the former spy had suffered a cardiac arrest and was on an artificial heart support machine. Litvinenko died yesterday, at 8.21am Melbourne time.
Litvinenko's friends in London have been quick to accuse the Kremlin of being behind this poisoning. They say Russia wanted to stop Litvinenko investigating the assassination last month of another high-profile critic of the Russian Government his friend, the campaigning journalist Politkovskaya. They believe the Kremlin was also to blame for Politkovskaya being shot outside her Moscow apartment door.
[...]
LOL! You are too funny. "When an evil empire returns"
Maybe. It's definitely a thought. One I admit to not minding actually.
Many would argue that it never left in the first place.
=If he wanted to play such game he would start with Zakayev.
==Maybe. It's definitely a thought. One I admit to not minding actually.
Why is that exactly?
The many would be right.
Of couse, it has never left. See # 31 on this very thread.
One cannot embarrass putin even if one wanted to, just like one cannot make sh*t even more sh*tty. It is a logical impossibility. And as for "making sense" - it has to make sense in the "Russity" reference framework. MadIvan summed it up for you [I believe] excellently, either on this or on another thread. "The message to defectors - we can get you anywhere, and we do not give a damn about it - was delivered, and delivered effectively" [quoting in paraphrase]. So, barbari sunt, barbarice egit. And returning to the start - how could one embarrass a barbarian, especially the chief one? His own barbarity makes him immune to any further embarrassment.
Yes, very interesting. But doesn't Berezovsky remember the fate of Georgi Markov in London? He best stay clear of all umbrellas...
Sheesh, not to mention the latest UK casualty, Litvinenko, also.
There is a rich report in the Independent UK today about a theory that Litvinenko poisoned himself to discredit Putin! How fantastic is that? The sources used by the Independent must be the FSB...
I cannot post the article here or even an excerpt though.
I heard that they are now trying to spin this as a smuggling ring of ex-KGB folks dealing with this type of material...Somehow it kind of makes sense...
But why if you are doing your own money making deal would you accuse Putin of poisoning you, if you screw up and get exposed???
None of the other folks in this deal got sick...
Nobody's really making a big deal out of this issue...
Yeah, that may be true...
That reverse psychology only works on mear mortals! hehehe
Maybe they wanted us to think that he was anti-Putin, while he was really pro-Putin, but thinking that we knew he was pro-Putin, but anti-Putin just to throw us off...
You know...Come to think of it...There's just too much Putin going around, don't you think???
I need some air...
That's the crap you have to deal with when you enter the "wilderness of mirrors." \
Polonium-210 [the most recent diagnosis as per poison used] is available in the corner mom and pop stores, one presumes. ==
Accually you may buy it on Internet. Link: http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm .. The price isn't big: $69. What you say now?:)
Even Yushchenko's people now deny the Russians had anything to do with the poisoning.
You read way too far into my point. My point is simply that the UK is obviously NOT 100% safe for Russian dissidents and the like, as Boris appears to claim.
And thanks for your helpful e-mails.
Good! You sound like you might have what it takes to be an intelligence analyst. The alphabets here in the U.S. are always looking for people like you.
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