Doing research on Russian journalists murdered

[Amused Musings]

I have to write a policy memo for my boss in DC about the recent string of murders and attempted murders of people looking into the actions of the Kremlin. I started browsing the wikipedia entry on Litvinenko and frankly, I was shocked at some of the accusations he makes. Let's put it this way: his accusation about the FSB being behind the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings is not the biggest bombshell. Some of the links were in Russian (which I cannot read) or dead, so take it with a grain of salt. I know this is wikipedia but there is some very interesting stuff here:

-The Kremlin was behind the 1999 Moscow Bombings
-The Kremlin had agents in the Chechen group that held the movie theater hostage in 2002 and knew what was going to happen beforehand
-Putin is a pedophile(!) and a newspaper editor that was going to publish the an article about it died mysteriously in a plane crash
-Putin, while in the FSB, had personal contact with organized crime
-That Prime Minister Prodi of Italy was the KGB's "man in Italy" (!!!!) (I am not sure of what to make of this)
-He had fled Russia after coming out and claiming that he was ordered to assassinate and kidnap allies of Yeltsin
-many "celebrity" terrorists had connections to the KGB or the FSB

I mean, Sheesh, no wonder Putin wanted to make im die a slow and agonizing death with a dirty bomb!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litvinenko">Litvinenko

[Redstone]

1. As much as I detest Russians, this stuff is a bit of a stretch. Also, are you REALLY

going to cite wikipedia as a reliable source? If I were your teacher, and you cited them as a source in your paper, I'd reject it and make you do it over.

Redstone

[manic expression]

2. You detest Russians?

what other group of people do you "detest"?

[Redstone]

3. I fought the fuckers in Viet Nam. You need any other reasons?

Redstone

[manic expression]

5. That's no valid reason

It is a bigoted view stemming from a ridiculous reason. Why is it ridiculous? For starters, hating an entire people because you were in a war with a faction that was backed by a certain nation is beyond delusional and petty. I could go on all night, but just try to understand the fact that such a statement is simply putrid.

My family lost a member to that war and you don't see us hating Russians or Vietnamese people.

[Redstone]

7. Thank you SO much for the lecture.

I stand corrected, and humbled.

Redstone

[manic expression]

13. Anytime

although it seems as though this piss poor piece of sarcasm wasn't enough to satisfy your thirst to support delusion, since you needed a second bite at the apple of hate.

[Redstone]

10. "Bigoted and ridiculous." Were you THERE?

Redstone

[manic expression]

12. Do you think it matters? n/t

[Amused Musings]

4. Oh I know

I am not actually using wikipedia as a source, I was just looking through it to get an initial overview. The links on the accusations of pedophilia are dead ends and some of the other links are in Russian. I was just taken aback because I only knew him before as the guy who claimed the NSB (successor to the KGB) was behind the Moscow apartment bombings. I did not know that he has such an extensive list of other claims.

[Redstone]

6. Well, if you're going to get into the truly Byzantine workings of Russian (nee Soviet) politics,

you're entering a dense thicket indeed.

I wish you well, trying to figure that stuff out and make it understandable. The truth takes many forms in that country, in ways that Americans cannot understand. Business is conducted there by the size of one's bodyguard, not by the position of one's company in the market. Rather than the democracy we hoped would succeed Communism, there ended up being - for lack of a better term - a Thugocracy.

And Putin, with his roots, remains an enigma. So those rumors and whispers you found may may, in fact, be true.

Discount nothing when you enter the Russian forest, OK?

Redstone

[Big Pappa]

8. Yes, well

the coincidences keep piling up don't they. The body count continues to multiply.

[Redstone]

9. That it does. While trying not be a conspiracy theorist, it's hard to discount the connections.

Redstone

[Amused Musings]

11. Exactly right

life is cheap in Russia and everyone is scheming. The problem with these murders is that you cannot definitively put the blame on the Kremlin yet it seems so likely. Another problem is that many of these people have enemies (with lots of guns and bombs) outside the Kremlin too.

Woops, I realize I did not put the link. I'll do it now.