Stuff For Tin-Foil Hatters – Moon of Alabama

October 8, 2007

Stuff For Tin-Foil Hatters

In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
U.S. considered radiological weapon

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On November 1, 2006, former lieutenant colonel of the Russian Federation’s Federal Security Service Alexander Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised.
Alexander Litvinenko poisoning

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[Another] priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
U.S. considered radiological weapon

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He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome.
Alexander Litvinenko poisoning

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"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
U.S. considered radiological weapon

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The use of polonium in the poisoning has been seen as proof of involvement of a state actor, as more than microscopic amounts of polonium can only be produced in nuclear reactors.
Alexander Litvinenko poisoning

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The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government’s involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability" that is central to U.S. covert actions.
U.S. considered radiological weapon

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Vladimir Putin’s aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky commented: "The excessive number of calculated coincidences between the deaths of people, who defined themselves as the opposition to the Russian authorities, and major international events involving Vladimir Putin is a source of concern. I am far from believing in the conspiracy theory, but, in this case, I think that we are witnessing a well-rehearsed plan of the consistent discrediting of the Russian Federation and its chief. In such cases, the famed "qui bono"[sic] question has to be asked."
Alexander Litvinenko poisoning

Posted by b on October 8, 2007 at 16:11 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Which would have some persuasive power if the Putin regime weren’t already involved in bumping off its critics through less exotic means, and if Putin hadn’t just been through a four-year process of removing potential sites of disagreement or accountability within the Russian government.

Posted by: Nell | Oct 8 2007 17:28 utc | 1

Putin’s people we’re capable of kidnapping and drugging a presidential contender, and then leaving a threat with Novaya Gazeta, to be transmitted to the man in London, his place of exile, that if he dished any dirt in public, to embarrass the president, that Putin might just seek to distract the country with another “terrorist attack”.

A call to our newspaper’s editorial offices, supposedly from “a well-wisher” in the intelligence services. “Pass it on to London, as we know you can, that if Rybkin should produce any compromising material against Putin in television debates, another terrorist attack will follow. The president will have to distract the attention of the public somehow.”
We passed the message on, but Rybkin has already washed his hands of the election. He is in fear for his life.
–Anna Politkovskaya, A Russian Diary, p.96

Putin is capable of anything.
Bush is also capable of anything.

Posted by: Copeland | Oct 8 2007 19:22 utc | 2

Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?
-King Henry II
Who will rid me of this troublesome journalist?
-Tsar Vladimir I

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 8 2007 19:46 utc | 3

Whoever it was who caused Litvenenko to die in agony from what, in essence, was acute internal sun-burn, we can say for sure they were monsters.
As the anthrax attacks in 2001, this had to be hit with some form of backing of the resources of a national state. Only the US and Russia really qualify here. My understanding is that Russia has the bigger capicity for producing the polonium isotope used — but the question here is who would have the will to do such a thing?
I don’t want to say that a US agency couldn’t have done it, but still, I figure it was a Russian hit.
At the end of the day though, this is something you don’t really want to have solid information about — for reasons of health.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Oct 8 2007 20:10 utc | 4

My understanding is that Russia has the bigger capicity for producing the polonium isotope used
Correct – funny thing, most of it is sold to the ‘west’.

Posted by: b | Oct 8 2007 20:15 utc | 5

Better spooks die in the intelligence game than innocent bystanders.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 8 2007 21:45 utc | 6

“most of it is sold to the ‘west'”
Right, and some folks will tell you that you can buy it over the Internet, which is a truth with a footnote bigger than an elephant’s, that to accumulate the dose they spiked Litvinenko’s tea with you’d need some 10000 doses and millions of $ (my figures are from memory, but they are on that order). The idea of somebody with a pair of tweezers making a killer dose is ridiculous.
Soo, the dose was prepared in one batch and sealed in something — a piece of glass would do. In any case, although it could have been done in the US, Russian facilities are best suited. The anthrax, though, was a hit that had US as the return address.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Oct 9 2007 3:58 utc | 7

Polonium is an exotic thrill…
How much depleted Uranium has the US and its allies scattered in Kosova, Yugoslavia as a whole, Iraq, Afgh.? How many Us soldiers are contaminated? How much ground is burnt for ever? How many cancers, still births, etc. amongst these people, and others, such as …9/11 responders?
Hard numbers don’t exist because no stamp of officialdom is forthcoming, it is all matter of estimation, these are easily decried, negated. Minimizing deaths on the battlefield as the US does, most die after being heliported to Ramstein etc. and so are not counted in the official stats. And so it goes. Vets who are wrecked are not diagnosed and sent on a merry go round, they have psych problems and no real disease, god forbid they might find out that they have something in common with an Afghan woman, howling with pain in her hut, bones and liver rotting, womb wrecked, babies dead, surviving on opium….

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 9 2007 18:01 utc | 8

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