Kremlin Poison

It appears that the Kremlin has attempted to assassinate Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, whose warnings to the West have been repeatedly cited in this column.

A former lieutenant colonel of the KGB/FSB, Litvinenko wrote a book titled Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within. During an interview with Rzeczpospolita in July 2005 he explained that al Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB (KGB) in Russia along with other al Qaeda leaders. According to Litvinenko, “[there is] only one organization which has made terrorism the main tool of solving political problems.” And that organization, he said, “is the Russian special services.” The KGB trained terrorists all over the world. “The specially trained and prepared agents of the KGB,” said Litvinenko, “have organized murders and explosions, including explosions on tankers, the hijacking of passenger jets, attacks on diplomats, as well as state and commercial organizations worldwide.” Litvinenko added: “The bloodiest terrorists of the world were or are agents of the KGB-FSB. They are well known [like] Carlos Ilyich Ramiros, nicknamed ‘the Jackal,’ the late Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein … [and others].” According to Litvinenko, “All of them were trained by the KGB, received money from there, weapons and explosives….”

It is being reported that Litvinenko was poisoned with thallium, described by the Telegraph (UK) as a colorless and odorless liquid “that is often used to kill rats.” The poisoning occurred in London while Litvinenko was gathering information on the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Litvinenko has argued that Chechen terrorism is a KGB-inspired provocation used to legitimize Putin’s dictatorship, and that Russia is pretending to fight terrorism with one hand while guiding it with the other. A man brave enough to risk his life to warn others, to lay an accusation against the most dangerous criminals in the world, deserves to be taken seriously. But the fact that his message has been systematically ignored, that no newspaper or politician will discuss his testimony concerning Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a sociological artifact of great significance. The Kremlin’s grand deception strategy has been effective, and there is no danger that the West will figure it out, because the truth is economically inconvenient for politicians and businessmen alike. Things have advanced so far that the Kremlin sees no danger in murdering people outright, as in the days of Stalin. In this way a message is sent to all writers, and all those with bits and pieces of the great puzzle.

The Russian strategy should be obvious by now. We know that China and Iran are being armed with Russian weapons – including Russian nuclear technology. Such moves deserve an explanation, but nobody wants an honest discussion of the problem. Given the economic logic of U.S. statesmanship, a confrontation with Russia is to be avoided. The Left/Right political divide paralyzes any and all realistic analysis because one side of this political divide is incapable of acknowledging a Russian threat while the other has attached itself to claims of victory and the prospect of “open” markets in “former” communist lands. We know that Russia is working to form various alliances with countries like Brazil, India, Venezuela, etc. We know that Russia and China have formed an intimate partnership, that they have conducted joint military exercises, and that China has been cultivating Mexico as a strategic partner. The balance of power is shifting, perhaps decisively, and the results of that shift may soon become apparent to everyone. The Iranian nuclear crisis serves to dramatize this shift. Three years ago President Bush would have bombed Iran. Today he is timid, hesitant and beleaguered. Many of the president’s supporters have turned against him. Perhaps President Bush realizes that a preemptive attack on Iran will divide the United States politically, with further consequences to the Republican Party.

Looking back at the long row of fallen dominoes, from South Africa and the Congo to Venezuela and Germany, the fall of the Israeli domino stands in prospect. The Israelis believe the neutralization of Iran’s nuclear project is essential to Israel’s security. Israeli analysts are already warning that Iran could destroy Israel without launching a single nuclear weapon, because many Israelis will leave Israel if Iran becomes a nuclear power. The morale of the Jewish state would suffer a crippling blow. But the plight of Israel does not move the American public. Just as the American consumer abandoned Vietnam to the Communists, some believe that Israel will be abandoned to the Islamists. Many observers expect that the Americans will not remain loyal to their allies, choosing instead to “cut and run” when things become difficult. After all, it was the Americans who abandoned Southeast Asia. It was the Americans who pushed for the Communist takeover of Rhodesia, and the Communist-ANC takeover of South Africa; and who allowed the Communist victories in Angola and Congo. The African Communists have won the long war for the mineral rich sub-Saharan region. And the Americans don’t care in the least. In fact, we are about to watch the United States Congress cut the legs out from under the government of Colombia as it struggles to contain a growing Communist insurgency.

The suicide of the West is happening before our eyes. From the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, from the fall of South Africa to the electoral victory of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, the same old Communists continue to kill their enemies as they advance from victory to victory. The KGB rules Russia openly, flooding China with weapons, encouraging Iran’s nuclear ambitions, arming Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, subverting the Western alliance through economics, neutralizing Germany by way of German unification, undermining NATO as one Warsaw Pact country after another joins under false democratic colors. Do the Americans have eyes? Do they have sense?

Yesterday American strategy was based on a false victory. Today the logic of retreat takes hold as the party of retreat takes Congress. In terms of Iran’s WMDs, American politicians see no other choice than to sacrifice Israel to the “peace process.” It will prove to be a slow and grinding death, similar to that of white South Africa. The grim prospect is so real that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already compared his country’s fate to that of Czechoslovakia (sold out to appease Hitler). The West will do nothing to punish Vladimir Putin for assassinating and intimidating journalists, for poisoning Alexander Litvinenko. The West will do nothing about the Iranian bomb. The Americans will eventually leave Iraq, and America’s cities will be attacked by nuclear weapons. In this sequence one failure leads to another. Weakness, lack of resolve, stupidity and incompetence add up to defeat.

From outward appearances it would seem that the old Soviet Union has returned. A thing crucified, dead and buried has been resurrected. Four weeks after Vladimir Putin’s re-election, a procession led by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church arrived at the Church of Christ the Redeemer in Moscow. In keeping with ancient tradition the doors of the church were shut, symbolizing the sealed cave where Christ’s body was placed following crucifixion. “After midnight,” noted Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, “the Orthodox faithful taking part in the procession await the opening of the church doors. The patriarch stands on the steps at their head and is the first to enter the empty temple where the Resurrection of Christ has already occurred.” In due course the Patriarch offered up a prayer, the doors of the Church of Christ the Redeemer were opened and out stepped President Vladimir Putin. If any Christians were present for this ceremony they offered no protest to this blatant sacrilege. The woman who reported this event for the benefit of Western readers has since been assassinated. The KGB defector who was investigating the circumstances of her death has been poisoned (i.e., Litvinenko). The West thinks it an amusing spy story, something out of fiction. But the situation is hardly amusing. As Russian dissident Yuri Yarim-Agaev recently explained to Jamie Glazov of Frontpagemag.com, “That in foreign policy, the U.S. remains for them [Russia] enemy number one, and that they would support anyone who tries to undermine American power whether it be North Korea, Iran, you name it. That in domestic policy they consider their major enemies democracy, human rights, and the free market, and they will try to suppress them by all means, and the bring back under their control most parts of the former Soviet Union.”

Russia is a big player, despite what we’ve been told about “the fall of communism.” The Kremlin now acts boldly, in the open, so that every Russian understands. It is a case of terrorism. It is a case of instilling fear. Writers are being killed, and now intelligence defectors have been targeted. Decisive cards are being played, and the international press, the public and many politicians are clueless.

I want to know something... Who poisoned Alexander Litvinenko?

Let me ask you what evidence have you examined?

I am not saying or implying that public debate should take place only on the condition of perfect information – criminal courts certainly do not operate like this ( if we were to stick to the analogy). The problem is not so much the access to all the facts, but rather whether the available facts merit a given inference. If you have a murder, and a number of different suspects with motives, you can not reach a legitimate conclusion if you simply ignore all but one of them simply because he is “black” (given media coverage Putin is definitely “black”) without addressing other suspects, their motives and their alibis you do not have “sufficient evidence” for legitimately focusing solely on the one you have chosen. And there is no need to speak of interpretations because all interpretations are not equivalent, some interpretations are more coherent and better supported by evidence than others. The level of this support is precisely the issue. But if all of the interpretations, by some fluke, are equally probable, then you withhold judgment, because making an arbitrary choice in such matter is worse then no choice at all.

We certainly must rely on media to get our information, but we can also improve our understanding by doing actual research and reach the information from a variety of sources. More importantly, though, we must not ignore some information and emphasize other simply because it improves our case. When people start taking information and interpreting them “as they see fit” they end up like Powell pronouncing on the floor of the UN Security Council that Iraq has WMD “beyond any doubt”. In fact, that whole WMD campaign is a perfect example of the difference between a belief based on evidence and one that arises out of the infamous “group-think” phenomenon, succumbing to which eventually led New York Times to a public apology. With regards to the equation of the court of law, public debate, and the scientific method – it is not so much an equation as a reduction to certain basic rules that govern our acquisition of knowledge. Some of these rules can be found in any introductory text book to Critical Thinking or informal logic:

Fallacy: Ad Hominem fallacy (Putin is KGB he must have done it),
Fallacy: Appeal to Belief (Everybody believes Putin did it, surely it is not a coincidence),
Fallacy: Appeal to Common Practice (Punditry is what media does, therefore it is right),
Fallacy: An Appeal to Emotion (Just look at all these pictures of the sick guy, surely you have no moral right to deny that Putin did it),
Fallacy: The Subjectivist Fallacy (there is no absolute truth, everything is interpretation and mine is that Putin did it),
Fallacy: Ad Baculum, Appeal to Fear (Putin did it because KGB is strangling Kremlin critics),
Fallacy: Bandwagon (if you deny that Putin did it, you are supporting political assassinations)
Fallacy: Begging the Question (if Putin did not do it, experts would not be saying he did it)
Fallacy: Biased Induction or Biased Generalization or Biased Sample ( KGB assassinated in the past, so they did it this time as well),
Fallacy: Ad Ignorantiam or Burden of Proof (Putin did it, prove me wrong),
Fallacy: Post hoc (Putin did it because the victim criticized Putin before the assassination)
Fallacy: Appeal to ignorance (no perfect evidence for any conclusion exists, therefore Putin did it)
Fallacy: Division (Secret Service does it, Putin part of Secret Service, so Putin does it as well)

Now, have you looked at the evidence? What does it tell you?

Who is Boris Berezovsky?

Who gave Litvinenko money to make a film?

Was it Berezovsky who has made repeated public announcements about trying to stage a coup or revolution in Russia against Putin?
Could it be Litvinenko's use to Berezovsky has expired... Especially now that new evidence has uncovered key inconsistencies and falsehoods in Litvinenko's (and Felshtinsky's) books about Russian agencies involvement in the bombings of Moscow apartment blocks in 1999?

Could it be Litvinenko, may therefore have more of a role to play as a martyr for "proving" Russian involvement in his death, than he wills or realizes?

But of course, this theory would have to rest on Litvinenko believing all the stuff that he writes, and therefore genuinely suspecting that the FSB is out to get him...

Why hasn't Berezhovski been killed yet? One would think he would be higher on the hit list than a lowly Lt. Colonel.

If Berezovski gets killed then who will be financing the anti-Putin campaign?

But then you have considered this, haven't you?

In February 2004, journalists were invited to a plush hotel (as it happens, also in Piccadilly), to be regaled with an extraordinary story from a bedraggled Russian MP, who had run against Putin in elections. The MP, Ivan Rybkin, gave a muddled account of being abducted, put on a train, drugged and filmed in compromising positions. It was all, we were told, the doing of Putin and his secret agents.
The truth turned out to be rather different. Rybkin, not for the first time, had been on a bender. He and his supporters abroad had found an ingenious way of "explaining" his absence to his wife and discrediting Putin at the same time. Alas, Rybkin could not keep up the pretense."

In a chess game sometimes a pawn or a bishop needs to be sacrificed to win the game.

The Russian strategy should be obvious by now. We know that China and Iran are being armed with Russian weapons – including Russian nuclear technology.

About the nuclear tech: that's not proven. Russia is building a nuclear power plant equipped with light-water reactors which run on 5% uranium. It also supplies the fuel rods to Iran for the plant. But that's not a military nuclear technology. Iran has received much from the Pakistani "bomb-father" in the nuke dimension.

We know that Russia is working to form various alliances with countries like Brazil, India, Venezuela

You're an adult, don't cry.

The suicide of the West is happening before our eyes. From the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

What the hell does this have to do with the West?

undermining NATO as one Warsaw Pact country after another joins under false democratic colors

Tell it to those countries. Do you mean Poland among others?

According to Litvinenko, “[there is] only one organization which has made terrorism the main tool of solving political problems.” And that organization, he said, “is the Russian special services.”

What else could you expect from a defector?

Too big heap of crap to dig it further.

Right, Putin's awesome, Russia's great, they've got some sweet human rights there. Litvinenko was randomly poisoned by somebody, Anna Politkovskaya was shot on accident, and the other 14 journalists must have died from "natural causes".==

You just falling to another extreme. Once you blaim Putin as the murderer of Politkovskaya and the poisoneer of Litvinenko but next just out of your sarcasm you tell that the murder or poisoning didn't happen. It is just the polimic trick.
You just create the implication that if those crimes happened then it was Putin the perpetrator or another choice the crime didn't happen. It is smart trick but not that smart. You are far form mastership of those soviet propagandists of Soviet reign. I in turn was fed by thier production for years (I lived in USSR) so for me it is very easy to recognise the propagandistic fraud and lugh oon it:)).
To conclude I choose the third choice of your dilemma: those crime did happen but it wasn't Putin the perpetrator but the third side who wanted to frame him and undermine him. How about that version?:)
My prove of it is that Putin has no motives to do such crimes. Both Politkovskaya and Litvinenko was juts the neglegible values on the political spectre. Same as for thier master Berezovskii. Everyone knows that they eat form Berezovskii hand. They were his clients. So their credibility wasn't higher then the credibility of Berezovskii himself means something near zero.
But the use them as the scapegots could bring some dividends to him as the political provocation and frame.
But I honestly think that thier efforts are futile. They wasn't damage Putin approval rate whatever they do because Russians do not trust Berezobskii then his clients. But Putin approal rate with Russians is the most important thing isn't it true?

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