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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Why would they go through the trouble of poisoning someone just to give them migraines?

What would you do if the world's most powerful state sent undercover agents to your country? This is a powerful message to send. It says, "We know what you're doing. Moreover we known who's doing it. And there's a risk and a price for doing that on our sovereign soil." This message isn't just sent to the leaders and higher-ups, who has most likely already gotten protests through diplomatic channels. Instead it's directly targeted at agents, of whom many will have second thought about accepting such assignments if they know they're putting their own life and health at stake. On the other hand, I'm not truly convinced about case. It also sounds a bit like American made spin, to increase hostility towards Russia. On the other hand, Russia has indeed increased their undercover activities, and some of them might be eager to show or warn the world that they're capable and dangerous. But death rays? Sounds like something out of an old James Bond film lol. So if nothing else, perhaps more people will write good spy flicks from this...

> This is a powerful message to send. It says, "We know what you're doing. Moreover we known who's doing it.

I’d suggest you read the article. He was in Russia to meet with Russian intelligence, presumably to discuss whatever it is that the CIA and Russian intelligence have to talk about, which the article describes as a common thing for CIA agents to do.

I'd suggest you make fewer unsubstantiated claims about people you do not know, AmericanChopper. How does meeting opposing intelligence officers diminish the power of the "message"? It still sends the message that they not only have that capability, but that they're also willing to use it. And it may still have the desired effect of discouraging Americans from wanting assignments in Russia. That is if the agent here dind't just get food poisoning... As I wrote in the original comment, there's still some chance that this is only NPR spin.

Your parent comment is just a dramatic fan fiction. This man wasn't in Russia on some clandestine mission. He was there as a CIA agent to meet with Russian intelligence. They didn't need to send him a message that he knew who he was, or what he was doing, because his identity and the purpose of his visit was already in all of their calendars. You'd presume that message was sent when they RSVP'd the meeting.

I’d suggest you read the comment. Particularly the opening line.

> What would you do if the world's most powerful state sent undercover agents to your country?

This opening line? Where you say he was an undercover agent? Even though the article explicitly states he wasn't? I mean, that's why I suggested that you should actually read it.

> This opening line?

Yes. I'd suggest you read up on what a hypothetical situation is. Also, did you notice where I wrote about American spin? Yeah, I'd highly suggest reading that part too. :)

Since the world's most powerful states have been sending undercover agents to their adversary states for millennia, that is hardly a (new) reason to take action against them. Both states have plenty of tools to simply kill every identified agent of the other side, so how far they go in their actions is always a policy decision, balancing goals with retaliation. Plausible deniability helps, at least for awhile.

>if they know they're putting their own life and health at stake

Sounds like a default setting when operating on foreign soil

So tell me, if you got three choices, Russia, Ukraine or Afghanistan, which one would you preferr? The one that actively hunts agents, the one where you might die to an IED, or the one where they're more likely to try to pay you huge sums of money to look the other way?

I'm sorry, but I can't connect the outcomes with your list of countries. Maybe we can rule out IED possibility in Russia, but that's a maybe.

As someone who suffers from infrequent migraines, I can attest to the fact that they are completely debilitating to me. That seems reason enough. I haven’t had the time to read this particular story but a recent one I did read claimed that this led to the retirement of a CIA officer.

This article indeed includes that detail.

Ok, but this officer can't be THAT important to U.S. goals in Russia. Let's say they did give him migraines, ok, now what? The U.S. just sends in 5 other agents with protective headgear. It just doesn't really achieve anything.

I dunno, why go through the trouble of deathraying them towards the same goal? To send a message? To test it out? Could be anything.

Poisoning is not that hard when you're a nation state. Light coat of magic dust on your door handle is just one of many methods.

Because it disables a person that CIA has spent years and countless $$$ training. Since symptoms are psychological, there no way to even prove that you did anything.

One person. That's an awful lot of coordination and risk and planning to pull it off for one guy. No offense, but he can't be that important. There's tens of thousands of agents in the CIA. He still has his memory, so it's not as if there's some secrets being protected there.

Looks like it scales fine to an embassy in Cuba.

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