Litvinenko's demise points Putin's way [Charles Krauthammer]

Washington Post Writers Group ^ | Dec 7, 2006 | Charles Krauthammer

[jdm]

The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed "rogue elements" either in the Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage.

Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented —- the deathbed —- by the victim himself. Litvinenko directly accused Putin of killing him.

Litvinenko knew more about his circumstances than anyone else. And on their deathbed, people don't lie. As Machiavelli said on his (some attribute this to Voltaire), after thrice refusing the entreaties of a priest to repent his sins and renounce Satan, "At a time like this, Father, one tries not to make new enemies."

In science, there is a principle called Occam's razor. When presented with competing theories for explaining a natural phenomenon, one adopts the least elaborate. Nature prefers simplicity. Scientists do not indulge in grassy-knoll theories. You don't need a convoluted device to explain Litvinenko's demise.

Do you think Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was investigating the war in Chechnya, was shot dead in her elevator by rogue elements? What about Viktor Yushchenko, the presidential candidate in Ukraine and eventual winner, poisoned with dioxin during the campaign, leaving him alive but disfigured? Ultra-nationalist Russians?

Opponents of Putin have been falling like flies. Some jailed, some exiled, some killed. True, Litvinenko's murder will never be traced directly to Putin, no matter how dogged the British police investigation. State-sponsored assassinations are almost never traceable to the source. Too many cutouts. Too many layers of protection between the don and the hit man.

Moreover, Russia has a long and distinguished history of state-sponsored assassination of which the ice-pick murder of Trotsky was but the most notorious. Does anyone believe that Pope John Paul II, then shaking the foundations of the Soviet empire, was shot by a crazed Turk acting on behalf of only Bulgaria?

If we were not mourning a brave man who has just died a horrible death, one would almost have to admire the Russians, not just for audacity, but for technique in Litvinenko's polonium-210 murder. Assassination by poisoning evokes the great classical era of raison d'etat rubouts by the Borgias and the Medicis. But the futurist twist of (to quote Peter D. Zimmerman in The Wall Street Journal) the first reported radiological assassination in history adds an element of the baroque of which a world-class thug outfit such as the KGB (now given new initials) should be proud.

Some say that the Litvinenko murder was so obvious, so bold, so messy —- five airplanes contaminated, 30,000 people alerted, dozens of places in London radioactive —- that it could not have possibly been the KGB. But that's the beauty of it. Do it obvious, do it brazen and count on those too-clever-by-half Westerners to find that exonerating. As the president of the Central Anarchist Council (in G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday") advised: "You want a safe disguise, do you? . . . A dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb? Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool!"

The other reason for making it obvious and brazen is to send a message. This is a warning to all the future Litvinenkos of what awaits them if they keep going after the Russian government.

Some people say that the KGB would not have gone to such great lengths to get so small a fry as Litvinenko. Well, he might have been a small fry but his investigations were not. He was looking into the Kremlin roots of Politkovskaya's shooting. And Litvinenko claimed that the Russian government itself blew up apartment buildings in Moscow in 1999, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, in order to blame it on the Chechens and provoke the second Chechen war.

But even Litvinenko's personal smallness serves the KGB's purposes precisely. If they go to such lengths and such messiness and such risk to kill someone as small as Litvinenko, then no critic of the Putin dictatorship is safe. It is the ultimate in deterrence.

The prosecution rests. We await definitive confirmation in Putin's memoirs. Working title: "If I Did It."

[quantim]

Putin could have hired Fat Ted as a limo driver in a trade for a union contract to commit murder without radioactive pellets.

[sageb1]

"The prosecution rests. We await definitive confirmation in Putin's memoirs. Working title: "If I Did It."

Ouch. Love Krauthammer. This thing is pretty complicated. Reserving judgment.

[Timedrifter]

And on their deathbed, people don't lie.

A full 25% of inmates executed claim to be innocent up until the time the switch is thrown. Are one in four wrongly executed by this reasoning?

[DenverCossack]

Putin is KGB scum.... put a bullet in him.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

Krauthammer provides not a single fact in this op-ed that points towards Putin. Just insinuations and assumptions. If this were truly a trial and this was the all he got as a prosecutor the defendant would walk free in no time.

[Lurker]

Krauthammer provides not a single fact in this op-ed that points towards Putin

That's why it's called an 'opinion piece'.

L

[hatfieldmccoy]

Nicely struck Witch-- We as a Nation have become too PC to engage in the obvious. It was a KGB hit by a KGB guy. Dumb violet thug answers to free speech. It's been the favorite sport of Russia since Stalin.

[justa-hairyape]

Are one in four wrongly executed by this reasoning?

Perhaps they were holding out hope that a Governor would be calling at the last minute ? Litvinenko knew the Governor would not be calling. IMHO he was being honest. He did two major things on his death bed. He accused Putin and he converted to Islam. The conversion took credibility away from his Putin accusation. If he was a death bed liar, he would have been consistent. Otherwise, why lie ?

[AmericaUnited]

Krauthammer provides not a single fact in this op-ed that points towards Putin.

What an utterly ridiculous statement! What don't you understand in the following sentence?

State-sponsored assassinations are almost never traceable to the source.

I suppose you think Putin lets the assassins use his personally INTERPOL registered handgun, so people like you will know whether he had anything to do with the killing.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

So any murder untraceable to the source is state-sponsored?

[AmericaUnited]

Hmmm... If someone posted "Most men are stronger than most women", would you rebut with "So that means any man is stronger than any women?" ?

[Witch-king of Angmar]

If you want to show somebody is responsible for murder you'd better have something more then generic phrases and slogans.

[Sam Hill]

"Moreover, Russia has a long and distinguished history of state-sponsored assassination of which the ice-pick murder of Trotsky was but the most notorious."

The Russkies aren't so subtle.

They used an ICE AXE.

[sodpoodle]

Late to the thread, but this time I disagree with Charles.


We have become aware that Muslims commit suicide for a "GREATER GOOD" and video their last testaments.

Hatred for Putin might very well be the motive....and the last will & testament is good evidence of this.

sp

[veronica]

You can take the man out of the KGB, but you can't take the KGB out of the man...

[harrowup]

"Moreover, Russia has a long and distinguished history of state-sponsored assassination of which the ice-pick murder of Trotsky was but the most notorious."
The Russkies aren't so subtle.
They used an ICE AXE.

For those of us who have actually used such a device in manual labor, the common terminology is pick-axe, which should be clear even to those of you who claim to have been a fluent translator of five Soviet newspapers a day while you worked (along with the rest of your family) for The NSA back in the early 70s when you were ten.

[Sam Hill]

As usual Admiral, you are wrong:

Ice axe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_axe

How's Ireland?

LOL

[Sam Hill]

  

What is hilarious is that you (being an Admiral, a doctor, a lawyer and an MBA as well as a linguist) not only don't know the difference between an ice axe and a pick axe, but you also don't know the facts of one of the most famous crimes in history.

The assassin pulled the ice axe out of his jacket -- where he had hidden it to gain entrance to Trotsky's study. Try doing that with a pick axe, Admiral. (An ice axe is featured in the left photo composite. A pick axe is shown on the right.)

Aren't you an expert in forensics as well? LOL!

[Sam Hill]

From Reuters:

Trotsky's murderous ice axe 'resurfaces'

Mexico City
July 12, 2005 - 2:37PM

The ice axe used to murder exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico may have been recovered, 65 years after his death.

A Mexican taxi driver told reporters she has the ice axe used by a Spaniard to kill Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

The woman, Ana Salas, says the axe was handed down to her by her late father, a policeman.

But details are sketchy as to how it came to be in his hands.

Stalin threw his former comrade Trotsky out of the Soviet Union in 1929 and he later emigrated to Mexico.

Spaniard Ramon Mercader, a secret follower of Stalin who pretended to sympathise with Trotsky, smashed the revolutionary's skull with the ice axe at his home on August 20, 1940.

Trotsky died in hospital a day later.

Trotsky's grandson, Esteban Volkov, says he suspects Salas is attempting to sell him the axe, and does not even know if it really is the weapon that struck down one of the greatest figures in left-wing history.

Volkov, a retiree and resident of Mexico City, suggested today that Salas bring the axe to a museum in Trotsky's former house to compare it with a photograph there of the murder weapon.

"That would be an initial test to see if it is the ice axe or not," he said.

"There is quite a precise photograph of detectives holding the ice axe and we could check the size of the handle in proportion to the metal part," he said.

Volkov has offered to take a DNA test and compare it with blood that Salas says is on the axe if she will donate it to the Trotsky museum.

But the pair have failed to agree on carrying out the tests.

Salas said she would discuss with Volkov his new proposal of a visual comparison with the photograph.

"It is a good idea," the taxi driver said.

Trotsky is buried in the garden of the museum in the arty Coyoacan neighbourhood, near the former home of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who was briefly his lover.

Unfortunately the full sized photo of Ms. Salas with the ice axe seems to be missing.

But even a color blind pilot should be able to make out that she is not holding a pick axe.