Tuesday, November 21, 2006
State Sponsored Terrorism: Now and Then
Former KGB/FSB (Federal Security Bureau) operative Alexander Litvinenko is lying in a London hospital after being poisoned in a case reminiscent of Cold War-era John LeCarre novels. The former-spy turned Putin critic has by living in asylum in England since 2000, from where he has continued to be a thorn in the side of the Kremlin. Doctors now think he was poisoned with a radioactive thallium, which will be virutually impossible to trace at this stage. Even though he was rushed to the hospital, doctors give him a 50-50 chance of survival.
Litvinenko was poisoned during a meeting at a London sushi restaurant with a contact who reportedly gave him the names of the killers of Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya (AHU October 20), who herself was investigating Russian atrocities in Putin's-own-War-on-Terror in Chechnya. The Kremlin denied any responsibility for the poisoning, calling the notion "nothing but sheer nonsense" and refusing to even entertain questions about it. This despite the fact that "Other Russian dissidents in Britain also blamed the Kremlin for Litvinenko's condition. "Permission to assassinate abroad can only be given from the top," Oleg Gordievsky, former deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet Embassy in London told the Associated Press. "How can it not be state-sponsored?"'
Scotland Yard is said to be vigorously investigating. We'll see how the lame-duck Blair and Bush administrations deal with this crime. The track record isn't too good, but it seems this is not only blatant but has the potential to draw a number of strings together tied to Vladimir Putin.
How did the Russian media respond to all of this? Only independent raido station Ekho Moskvy has reported consistently on the attack. Other staions have shunned the story, which makes sense since they're all controlled by the same folks who likely committed the crime. Look for Ekho Moskvy to lose its license or have a key representative gunned down in the next few weeks. Par for the course in 'free, capitalist' Russia these days.
Speaking of Cold War and State Sponsored Terror, we learned today that Janet Ray and members of another family have been awarded $91 million dollars in frozen Cuban assets for the deaths of two Americans killed in the Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. Now I'm sorry about the loss these people have suffered this whole time (Ray was 6 when her dad was killed), but, c'mon now people!!
Our CIA was invading a sovereign country which at the time was flirting with but not yet staunchly committed to the Soviets--and we were doing so mainly to get back assets that supporters of the ruthless Batista regime and US corporations had had seized following the revolution (The anti-pinko stuff of Three Days in October was still in the future). It was a covert and ill-fated attack, but one in which the US government was clearly backing rightist Cuban elements, in fact, the state-sponsored terrorists. So funny that "(t)he plaintiffs used a 1996 law that allows victims of designated terrorist states to sue for damages."
Wow. And the start of a nice cottage indutry for American families of CIA/NSC operatives stretching back decades. Maybe someone could sue Nicaragua or Guatemala for the deaths of covert operatives who invaded those countries, killed its (often innocent civillian) citizens while intentionally trying to overthrow those governments.
Now that's justice.
Former KGB/FSB (Federal Security Bureau) operative Alexander Litvinenko is lying in a London hospital after being poisoned in a case reminiscent of Cold War-era John LeCarre novels. The former-spy turned Putin critic has by living in asylum in England since 2000, from where he has continued to be a thorn in the side of the Kremlin. Doctors now think he was poisoned with a radioactive thallium, which will be virutually impossible to trace at this stage. Even though he was rushed to the hospital, doctors give him a 50-50 chance of survival.
Litvinenko was poisoned during a meeting at a London sushi restaurant with a contact who reportedly gave him the names of the killers of Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya (AHU October 20), who herself was investigating Russian atrocities in Putin's-own-War-on-Terror in Chechnya. The Kremlin denied any responsibility for the poisoning, calling the notion "nothing but sheer nonsense" and refusing to even entertain questions about it. This despite the fact that "Other Russian dissidents in Britain also blamed the Kremlin for Litvinenko's condition. "Permission to assassinate abroad can only be given from the top," Oleg Gordievsky, former deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet Embassy in London told the Associated Press. "How can it not be state-sponsored?"'
Scotland Yard is said to be vigorously investigating. We'll see how the lame-duck Blair and Bush administrations deal with this crime. The track record isn't too good, but it seems this is not only blatant but has the potential to draw a number of strings together tied to Vladimir Putin.
How did the Russian media respond to all of this? Only independent raido station Ekho Moskvy has reported consistently on the attack. Other staions have shunned the story, which makes sense since they're all controlled by the same folks who likely committed the crime. Look for Ekho Moskvy to lose its license or have a key representative gunned down in the next few weeks. Par for the course in 'free, capitalist' Russia these days.
Speaking of Cold War and State Sponsored Terror, we learned today that Janet Ray and members of another family have been awarded $91 million dollars in frozen Cuban assets for the deaths of two Americans killed in the Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. Now I'm sorry about the loss these people have suffered this whole time (Ray was 6 when her dad was killed), but, c'mon now people!!
Our CIA was invading a sovereign country which at the time was flirting with but not yet staunchly committed to the Soviets--and we were doing so mainly to get back assets that supporters of the ruthless Batista regime and US corporations had had seized following the revolution (The anti-pinko stuff of Three Days in October was still in the future). It was a covert and ill-fated attack, but one in which the US government was clearly backing rightist Cuban elements, in fact, the state-sponsored terrorists. So funny that "(t)he plaintiffs used a 1996 law that allows victims of designated terrorist states to sue for damages."
Wow. And the start of a nice cottage indutry for American families of CIA/NSC operatives stretching back decades. Maybe someone could sue Nicaragua or Guatemala for the deaths of covert operatives who invaded those countries, killed its (often innocent civillian) citizens while intentionally trying to overthrow those governments.
Now that's justice.
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