Dec 05 2006
TIMES UK Off The Deep End
One has to realize what a marginal nutcase Litvinenko was, in terms of being a threat to Putin, to grasp the incredible leap in illogic now permeating the UK news media regarding Litvinenko’s death.
Alexander Litvinenko said a lot of outrageous things when he was alive. He claimed that Al Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a Russian agent. He alleged that he had a tape of Russian President Vladimir Putin having sex with another man.
The efforts now being expended to sustain the assassination theory is incredible. Litvinenko was one of 100’s of thousands ex-pat Russians in the UK. He was by far the least successful and least pwerful. He was in desparate need of cash so he cooked up an idea to blackmail Russian leaders, who probably would have laughed the guy off since his credibility was totally shot. But now, this insignificant man has morphed into such an enemy that Russia and its FSB had to use $10’s of millions of dollars worth of Polonium and activated an army of people to carry out a hit on this one low level nuisance:
Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London.
…
Intelligence officials say that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficent amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Mr Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.
…
MI5 and MI6 are working closely with Scotland Yard on the investigation. A senior police source told The Times yesterday that the method used to kill the 43-year-old dissident was intended to send a message to his friends and allies.
“It’s such a bad way to die, they must have known,” the source said. “The sheer organisation involved could only have been managed by professionals adept at operating internationally.”
Gimme a break. For the price of a bullet or some Ricin Litvinenko would have been dead and few would have cared. The organizational effort required in this case is WHY the assassination theory makes no sense. This police source is either naive has hell or feeding the media what they want to hear. But the larger this gets the less likely it was an army of people out to get one insignificant person. And apparently the size of the effort is gettnig quite large
Intelligence officials believe that a sizeable team was sent from Moscow to smuggle radioactive polonium-210 into Britain and to shadow Mr Litvinenko.
Shadow Litvinenko? How about meet with him so he could assess their status and progress and report back to his boss? Why send an army of people to move a highly profitable black market substance? As reader Crosspatch I believe said on a comment a while back that is like giving an assassin a platinum brick to use to kill someone. The minute the brick is handed over, that assassin is gone and living it up on a beach somewhere. The cost-risk equation is simple – take the treasure and forget about taking any risks for a murder rap.
Should I die under suspicious circumstances, I ask that Mariposa be put on the case. Just saying.
Thanks, Clarice — that, coming from a good investigator like you means a lot.
What’s the “HOW?”
HOW do you get Litvenenko interested? Somebody offered him money. But it had to be within a circle of people he KNEW! Ditto, for the Berezovsky guy. Look at all the places the “accident” dropped off “hot stuff” that you couldn’t taste. Or smell. Or even shower away?
Who knew?
And, Soros? Sure. He has motive. And, money.
But you still need the HOW.
Oh, and how clever it all is! The Chechnyans aren’t used to “receiving” death. They export it!
Putin? Wouldn’t the KGB, if this wa something where you were going “after one fella,” work it a bit less haphazardly?
Hasn’t all the PR stuff appeared AFTER the boob, Litnenenko got sick enough to be hospitalized?
You believe the SPIN?
There’s stuff that doesn’t add up, here!
Include in this mix that the spill contaminated not just offices; but people. Family members. (Plus? For all you know the staffs of the hotels where maids not only come into contact with all your crap, it’s their job to “freshen rooms” for the next guest.)
You think you’ve got the whole list of worried people, here?
Let alone this STORY dropped the CAT OUT OF THE BAG.
Londonstan is surely at risk for awful terrorist “explosions.”
But where would the media get the story from? People exposed. Not getting sick, except individually. And, then only apparently sick when their hairs fall out of their heads.
Leukemia victims? Happens all the time. Why would individual pediatricians become alarmed? If you view this story from the perspective of “before.” Not “after.”
How would you “buy” Litvenenko’s “cooperation?” And, let’s call this deal A STING.
State sponsorship for political reasons seems not likely. Especially with the item used for the death.
It would make as much sense as our CIA dosing OBL’s next dialysis with bubonic plague. Yeah it takes out a bad guy in a dastardly way, but it risks unleashing a wave of world of hurt.
More likely this is a bunch of unprincipled goof offs who would smuggle anything to anyone without care for the consequences.
No matter who the original source is, they will be attempting now to spin the bottle to point in another direction and possibly erasing a few damaging links as necessary.
Carol, unfortunately, the Chechens are very used to “receiving death.”
Have you looked at photographs of their country lately? Many tens of thousands more Chechens than Russians have died in the past decade or so. Their country is devastated. Anna Politkovskaya was rumored to be working on a story about Russian-run concentration camps in Chechnya.
Not all Chechens are terrorists, not even close. As I told a friend recently, to equate all Chechens with terrorism is akin to believing that all Northern Irish Catholics are IRA terrorists.
In 1999 I would have scoffed that the bombings in Moscow were anything but Chechen terrorism. Now, I don’t think so. I also have extreme doubts about the 2002 Moscow theater incident.
I don’t think the KGB ever died in Russia; they just changed their names and became the heads of state — then proceeded to take over all lucrative businesses. Having a big fight in Chechnya, something to distract the Russian people’s eyes from scutinizing them too closely, is important to the those who run the Kremlin today.
here’s a little something from 2005 – I don’t think this has been mentioned here but I am having memory overload:
Berezovsky Claims Chechen Rebels Have A-bomb
Created: 08.02.2005 Chechen rebels could have an atomic bomb, Boris Berezovsky, Russian tycoon currently living in self-imposed exile in Great Britain, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on the phone. Russian security officials refused to comment on Berezovsky’s statement. It is a small portable device which had not been used until now for only one reason: because some necessary element was missing,†he said citing what he referred to as “credible sourcesâ€.
“Litvinenko made the claim that the FSB (the KGB’s successor agency) was behind the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and that senior al-Qaeda organisers are, or were, Russian agents”
Maybe Bush killed him.
wonder why Berezovsky leaked or claimed this and especially the little detail about the mysterious missing part –
A few things that don’t make sense:
The jailed Russian told Litvinenko several years ago that his life was in danger. Several years go by, nothing happens. This guy has been sitting in prison. Suddenly he takes the risk of having a letter smuggled out (apparently in english?) to the Italian who simply *must* meet right now in order to show Litvinenko the same thing he was told 4 years earlier?
Now, if you were sitting in prison, just exactly how might you be keeping on top of the latest FSB skulduggery? Chances are that you aren’t. I am really sorry but these people are such loonies about some things I wouldn’t put it past them to try to sicken themselves just to lend credence to their stories … and maybe one of them screwed up and overdosed himself.
“because some necessary element was missing,â€
Maybe a neutron source for a trigger? Anyone been missing any beryllium lately?
Here is what I *would* buy …. something having to do with this circle of characters:
regarding the jailed guy – it is Goldfarb and the jailed guy’s lawyer who have ben pressing Scotland Yard to try to interview him (S.Yard has so far have shown no interest in an interview) – they are trying to make some kind of cause celebre out of him in all of this and somehow link it all – this is all part of the Berezovsky spin to discredit putin and bring down his regime if you ask me and somehow the less than credible Scaramella is playing a role in it all. You realize that the only info we have on any of these documents that changed hands are from Goldfarb, Scaramella and the Z man “moderate” Chechen. I don’t think we have heard about the contents of these documents from “official sources” – I could be wrong
If Litvinenko was going into the blackmail business … he might be interested in blackmailing some pretty big fish. Maybe his trip to Israel was more along the lines of blackmailing Nevzlin.
“You realize that the only info we have on any of these documents that changed hands are from Goldfarb, Scaramella and the Z man “moderate†Chechen. I don’t think we have heard about the contents of these documents from “official sources†– I could be wrong”
I did read that Scaramella said something along the lines of the documents being in english and it taking Litvinenko a while to go through them because he isn’t a native english speaker.
So why would one Russian write to another Russian in english? Makes no darned sense at all to me.
Nevermind, I got ahead of myself. The jailed Russian might write to the Italian in english if it was the only shared language. Does the Italian speak Russian? He seems to hang out a lot with Russians.
Also, it might be in Berezovsky’s interest to do all he can to point the finger at Putin if he is in Nevzlin’s pocket or afraid of his goons.
Check out the names mentioned in this blog entry from back in July. Gee, we have all of our players here and a few more:
http://www.russiablog.org/2006/07/post.html
“Before the high profile murders of Politovskaya and Litvinenko, both Berezovsky and Nevzlin faced the threat of extradition back to Russia. In August, Russian federal prosecutors presented state’s evidence against the oligarchs to their counterparts in Britain and to a group of influential Israeli lawyers in Tel Aviv. Now neither oligarch is likely to face extradition for the foreseeable future.”
“The suggestion that perhaps powerful oligarchs have profited from Politovskaya and Litivinenko’s deaths has mostly been ignored or rejected by several commentators in the U.S …”
Link
Maybe Putin did this too:
http://www.russiablog.org/2006/11/russian_mp_crashes_his_million.php
Exactly, Berezovsky et al will never be extradicted back to Russia after the death of Lutvinenko – who profits in the end?
There’s no indication he was going to be extradited BEFORE either.
These groups of oligarchs worked for Putin’s successor. The present group for Putin. We are taking about a criminal enterprise, not a state. About billions in assets and resources up to the highest bidders and closest allies of Putin. The charges against the old oiligarchs were rather transparent and thin–just a way to strip them of their assets and put them under Putin’s control.