Posted on 11/26/2006 3:41:52 PM PST by RWR8189
THE COLD WAR was supposed to have ended 15 years ago, but the death in London of Alexander V. Litvinenko presents Scotland Yard with more than your average murder mystery. The former Russian spy and fierce critic of the Kremlin was poisoned. But how and by whom?
The tale began Nov. 1 at itsu, a busy London sushi restaurant near Piccadilly Circus that features a Madame Butterfly Zinger, Squirrels Dreams and something called Bang Bang Free Range Chicken. Poison is definitely not on the menu.
Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and a KGB successor agency, had lunch at itsu with an Italian contact. Within hours, Litvinenko felt sick. Last week, he was in a London hospital, guarded by Scotland Yard. He died Thursday night.
Doctors and toxicologists at first thought that the Russian exile was a victim of poisoning with thallium, the same stuff the CIA once plotted to use to make Fidel Castro's beard fall out. They subsequently suspected radioactive thallium or some other poison. A British health official said last week that Litvinenko had died of a large dose of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, and British Home Secretary John Reid said police were checking for radiation "at a number of locations." Scotland Yard reported that traces of polonium 210 were found at the sushi restaurant, a hotel where Litvenenko had met two Russians and in his home.
Suspicion immediately focused on the Russian Federal Security Service, the KGB successor agency for which Litvinenko had worked in Moscow. In 2000, he broke with the spy agency, accusing it of various crimes. He then fled to London, where he was granted political asylum. His 2003 book, "The FSB Blows up Russia," accused the security service of bombing apartment houses in Moscow so the Russians
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Russia's engaging in "Stealth Communism." By the time you actually see the "stealth" anything, it's too late to be asking what it is.
"Back to??"
Only the gullible think they ever stopped. This one is just more obvious.
Count slick willie among Yeltsin's cronies.
The plot keeps thickening...and the facts surrounding Litvinenko's demise (not to mention all his intel. connections) have definately entered "Wilderness of Mirrors" territory. I still can't figure why more attention isn't being focused on Litvenko's "friend" (and likely phony defector) Gordievsky.
The following link sums up Litvinenko's curious Italian connection (and his work on the Italian Guzzanti/Mitrokhin Commission formed to ferret out KGB agents in the Italian government...not to mention his "close friend and business partner of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov "):
http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/11/19/20439/209
It seems obvious enough to me. No one working for the FSB would dare to commit a crime like this with huge internation repercussions without approval from the very top. I don't doubt for a minute that Putin gave the orders.
Why would he do it so openly? As other Freepers have said, it sends a message. Don't cross me, or you're dead. And that goes for other countries as well as his own spies.
At the same time, although it is obvious enough to everyone who did it, it will never be proven in a court of law. So Putin has it both ways. Everyone knows it, but no one can prove it or hold Putin accountable for it.
I know. Here are his suspicious remarks concerning the murder of Anna Politkovskaya on Oct. 7th (Putin's birthday by the way)
"I think journalists should know - in any case, experts understand it perfectly well - that the degree of her influence over political life in Russia was extremely insignificant. She was well-known in journalistic circles, among human rights activists, in the West. I repeat, her influence over political life in Russian was minimal."
What's interesting to me is that Condi Rice is known as an expert in the Soviet Union, fluent in Russian, etc. This has been used against her, as shes been portrayed as a dinosaur of sorts what with the USSR collapsing. If Russia is moving back towards there old ways, will Condi Rice be recognized by the intelligencia for her unique knowledge of their culture and political heritage, making her a crucial person to have at SecState at this critical time?
How distressing...
Imagine a Russia - Iran - North Korea alliance.
Distressing? That's old news. They have been in an open alliance (you forgot to throw in Red China) for some time.
As if to neutralize Golitsyn’s warnings, the CIA has recently planted numerous stories in the media to discredit him. Articles in major national news magazines and a special documentary on PBS in 1990 have been followed by such books as Tom Mangold’s Cold Warrior and David Wise’s Molehunt, both books savagely attacking Angleton and Golitsyn as “paranoid cold warriors.” Both Mangold and Wise masquerade as independent journalists, but both acknowledge that the information for their books came directly from large numbers of helpful CIA officials. As author Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the CIA frequently plants its own books in the public domain under false cover. This is done by cultivating certain authors, providing them complete manuscripts (or at least sufficient material to write books), and using connections in the publishing industry to arrange for the books’ distribution and promotion by major companies. This method allows the CIA to publish viewpoints that appear to come from independent sources.16
Both the Mangold and Wise books present the Golitsyn/Nosenko debate in a severely lopsided way. Mangold’s book even goes so far as to ignore completely Golitsyn’s accurate predictions of “change” in Eastern Europe, declaring brazenly that “History has dealt harshly with Anatoliy Golitsyn the prophet.… As a crystal-ball gazer, Golitsyn has been unimpressive.” Mangold continues by carefully skipping over Golitsyn’s already-fulfilled predictions, quoting a few sentences out of context so as to change their meaning altogether.17
http://www.attacreport.com/ar_archives/art_iswr5_cia2.htm
You may have a point. But I daresay the only people in Russia who have ever suffered economic hardship are the citizens. The powerful have never wanted, ever, and Russia as a nation is rich and astute in trading.
Maybe Britain should use the United States or Canada for all their defector protection programs.
Suspicion immediately focused on the Russian Federal Security Service, the KGB successor agency for which Litvinenko had worked in Moscow. In 2000, he broke with the spy agency, accusing it of various crimes. ==
FSB (FSS) is the russian FBI. The agency which is forbidden to work abroad. It works only inside of country.
Litvinenko was never spy. He served as agent of FSB but really he was the informant for oligakh Berezovskii.
Putin is evil no matter which way you slice it. And he could have very well ordered the hit on Litvinenko, but I think a lot more needs to come out before we jump to conclusions as to the reason for his death. ==
Putin "ordered" hits that they happened just during his meetings with highst europian officials? Funny isn't it?
Why not when he met pres Bush or went in Asia? Why he did it? Eh wanted the huge scandal during his vists and to answer the miriad of exulted journalists?
Seems to me someone wanted to create the huge scandals during Putin visits in Europe. Probably they wanted to undermine Russia-Europe cooperation. Then ask yourself who would benefit of it?
Putin could have ordered the hit. Or Litvinenko could have been working for Putin in a Plutonium-210 smuggling operation gone bad. After all, Gordievsky is almost certainly a phony defector, and he was very close to Litvinenko. For all I know they were both phony defectors. Or, if Litvinenko was genuine, then Gordievsky most likely had a hand in murdering him. As I said before, it is too early to tell who is who in this investigation. But one thing for sure, Putin is evil. He is a KGB criminal, a party to mass murder and police state repression, and an enemy of the United States of America...this is the case no matter who was behind the untimely demise of Litvinenko.
==FSB (FSS) is the russian FBI. The agency which is forbidden to work abroad. It works only inside of country.
"Early this month (July, 2006), the Russian Duma passed a new anti-terrorism bill (first introduced in March), allowing the FSB to mount anti-terrorist operations on foreign soil. Such legislation was bound to provoke a reaction from the GRU and SVR, which view international operations as their exclusive domain. That has proven to be the case–and the interagency war may take place in Iraq."
http://www.bu.edu/iscip/bbn/v4n3.html
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