Litvinenko post-mortem 'probably most dangerous ever'
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
From an evil dictator point view killing defectors in horrible ways does make sense. It is also imperative that everyone knows who did it but hopefully without there being a clear way of factually proving it.
This wasn't just simple revenge this was a message to other agents who might have thoughts about defecting.
That you failed to even come up with that and instead are wondering whether I'm trolling or not indicates that either you are trolling yourself or that the situation is so complicated that you need way more space to articulate a rationale and you're just testing to see if I'm worthy of that kind of effort. Which, when you think about it, is silly, because your audience isn't just me, it's everyone seeing this thread.
Putin is the obvious choice because shortly before Litvenenko died, he'd written several anti-Putin screeds for the British press. Putin might not have green-lit the murder himself, it could well have been someone in his intimate circle. Doesn't matter which, Putin's still the one to blame.
Litvenenko was also anti-organized crime, it's possible one of his many enemies in that sphere could have influenced Lugovoy to do this. I don't rate that as particularly likely though. Lugovoy himself has taken the outlandish position that British intelligence did it, hah.
1. dictator
Putin is de facto ruler of Russia since 2000. He changed consitution to allow him to still be in power. He shut down free press, introduced laws persecuting minorities (homosexuals for example), was involved in election falsification.
2. evil
Putin annexed part of Ukraine (Crimea), his army is occupying other parts of it (Lughansk and Donetsk) and invading further west. Russian army is also in parts of Moldova and Georgia against their will.
The fact that Americans aren't always the good guys change nothing. I can show you many bad guys, this doesn't mean we should stop naming them.
The fact that he has huge support in Russia also change nothing - Hitler had huge support too (especially after sucessfull campaigns).
Putin is evil dictator and should be stopped.
Anyway, which part wasn't true?
The issue is that you are applying your moral outrage selectively, against Putin but not against Obama, although Obama is objectively and provably committing atrocities above and beyond what Putin is doing. But Putin is the one getting all the bad rep from your media and you are content to uncritically recite their propaganda. Your selective moral outrage is as bad as French using laws that restrict free speech directed against Jews but not against Muslims.
Anyway, to require people to criticize equaly or not at all is just dumb. Different people are intersted in different things, and it's OK. Just say "OK, Russia is bully there, but I don't care". Instead you try to defend such behaviour by showing that others do the same - not gonna work.
This is just distraction debating tactic by you and you know it.
[1] here you can see photos BTW https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajuc00/sets/72157629041344779/
Now, you may not agree with all this (you probably don't) but you should understand that lecturing on the selectiveness of moral outrage is not going to change the fact that this is how current events are perceived in the west.
Putin's point of view is that US brought a violent and dangerous regime to the doorstep of the Russian world. Sounds like this isn't a starting point for a discussion.
>Putins actions are believed to go against every principle on which this stability is based
Putin's point of view is that Russia has no seat at the table that decides what are the global governance principles and what is the Western consensus. Further Western actions in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Kosovo have been interpreted by Putin as harmful to stability and peace of the Russian world. Bottom line both West and Russia have different narratives of the past 10-20 years. The problem of the West is that it doesn't admit the validity of alternative narratives (i.e. unipolar world) while Russians understand both their own narrative and the Western narrative. Further, Russians are more effective than Westerners at winning the hearts and minds of those who don't belong to the "golden billion". I agree with you that ultimately this is a war of perceptions. I think it is one that the West is losing because the contradictions of its narrative are surfacing very quickly.
Here's an example of where US is running scared of Russia's effectiveness in media space: http://rt.com/news/225543-rt-isis-us-broadcaster/
It (this "applied postmodernism") starts with the assumption that truth doesn't exists, and goes to prove that all possible narratives are as good as any other, so don't criticize us, let us do what we want in our backyard (including ex-soviet countries).
You do the same in most of your comments.
I highly recommend his speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFObB6_naw
Starts with short history of Ukraine but it's very short and most western viewers need it to understand anything anyway.
The fragment about applied postmodernism starts at 44:00 but it's worth listening through the whole thing - a lot of insights (and some that you probably will agree with, even if you won't share the conclusions).
But it does with Russian propaganda. See for example all the different unfounded and unrelated theories and insinuations that RT spread around after the MH17 downing, such as "Ukraine had BUKs too", "It was Ukraine thinking it was Putins presidential plane" and "why didn't Ukraine close off the airspace?" Now, is that serious journalism? The sole purpose of that was to confuse people and instill in them the idea that the truth about MH17 will never be known.
> The root of the conflict between West and Russia today is deeper than superficial slogans about who shot down MH17 <snip>
Many things can be said about what you're saying but I won't and I'll stop you here. 300 innocent civilians (mainly Dutch, Malaysian and British) died a horrible death due to this dirty war and evidence is overwhelming that it was done using Russian weapons by Russian or Russia-supported soldiers, in a dirty war that is fueled (at least materially) mainly by the Kremlin. Your claim that this is about "superficial slogans" is telling. Yes, many more people have died and yes, on the grand scale of things, 300 casualties is peanuts. But in the west these things are taken seriously and will not be forgotten. MH17 and the aftermath is one of the growing number of red lines that Putin crossed, and Russia will have to pay the price for this. Again, you may not agree but these red lines do exist and it's not up to you or Putin to decide that they don't. I feel sorry for the Russian people, but I have no sympathy for a Putin apologist who believes the MH17 event is about superficial slogans.
Polish communist colonel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kukli%C5%84ski that defected to USA (together with his family) during cold war and gave NATO USSR's invasion on western Europe plans.
> In subsequent years, both of his sons died. The older, Waldemar, was run over by a truck without a licence plate in August 1994 on the grounds of an American university. His younger son, Bogdan Kukliński drowned half a year earlier, on January 1, 1994, when his yacht capsized on a silent sea. Ryszard Kukliński did not insist that they were assassinated by the KGB, but he never rejected such possibility either.
As one of the two in the group with access to that room to maintain etc. it, he was required to get a special clearance, and one of the requirements was that he never ever visit certain parts of NYC (where he was from) and Long Island, where we know the UN KGB types spend a lot time (including on the beaches :-). That's because too many of our people just up and disappeared while visiting those areas....
Very different from a completely overt hit like this, or shooting someone with a rictin pellet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov), but, still, it happened sub rosa.
Disappeared as in "assassinated"? That sounds a little too made up.
If I was the security officer of that employee I would also probably try to make up some scary stories to make sure he never even feels temped to go there by telling him "some" agents had been captured, tortured and dissolved in acid by secret and evil commie rat agents.
I have reasons to believe this was something way beyond a security officer making up wild stories, e.g. he was working for one of the nation's top nuclear scientists, a protege of Edward Teller ... the other person cleared for that room. Who also lived under the restrictions, although things like overt, official conferences in Moscow were OK.
The scientist was a real character, at one of those (maybe the only one), he sent back a post card saying "They've met my price! Please send my library." The security officer, while recognizing it was a joke, found it in very poor taste.
And why bother with all this unless there were concrete reasons to make them no-go zones? If not a threat of kidnapping with a very Bad End, why were these areas off-limits???
This was not unusual. Doesn't mean there were assassinated. So my point still stands, there has not been any publicly known case of an assassination by Russia on US soil or by US on Russian soil.
If you are a spy in any of those countries and want to defect, go to the to other country. Don't go to South America or Europe.
"22 July [2014]
A public inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's death is announced by UK Home Secretary Theresa May. It is due to conclude by the end of 2015."
So, it seems that the investigation is still ongoing!
That being said, this case makes me wonder if political assassinations also occur in Western politics, or if the killing of dissidents is mostly an Eastern Bloc thing.
I think you mean:
* he helped capture and execute two soldiers
I'm not sure why one person working in military/intelligence being killed is a "political assassination" while the other one being killed is not.
Well if that's not good enough, here's another Mossad piece of work, a Moroccan waiter with no political involvement at all gunned down by the Mossad in Norway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Capture is fine. Summary execution of POWs is a war crime.
> I'm not sure why one person working in military/intelligence being killed is a "political assassination" while the other one being killed is not.
My point is: neither one was a political assassination.
> Well if that's not good enough, here's another Mossad piece of work, a Moroccan waiter with no political involvement at all gunned down by the Mossad in Norway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Again, not a political assassination (as you said, he had no political involvement). That's an outright fuckup.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/yasser-arafat-probably-poisoned-...
That was most probably a "western" nation state at work too.
Why would you poison somebody with polonium of all things, if not to send a message "don't defect or else"?
If "they" wanted him gone quietly almost all other solutions are cheaper, easier and less risky than polonium. Starting with organising a car accident.
BTW why wrtie "eastern block" if you only have example from 1 country (namely Russia)?
It's not like eastern block countries are similar to each other (except for 50 years of history ending 25 years ago). Compare Belarus, Estonia, Moldova and Czech Republic - completely different cultures, political systems.
>This seems more like spycraft than a politically motivated assassination.
Spies are rarely killed. They're traded for spies. Life isn't a Jame Bond movie. This, on the other hand, is clearly a politically motivated killing from a dictator known for it as well as annexing land and arbitrarily invading countries with unmarked troops.
>That being said, this case makes me wonder if political assassinations also occur in Western politics
More whataboutism when Russia comes up in the news? Color me unsurprised.
It is dangerous if you get it into your body where the alpha radiation will mess things up.