State Sponsored Terror

The recent assassinations of former KGB and FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko and crusading journalist Anna Politkovskayax were carried out with a contemptuous audacity that suggests the Putin's Russia now believes it can murder with impunity. In particular, the high-tech murder of Litvinenko was clearly the work of a sophisticated technological state. The obviousness of the crime suggests that Putin had in mind not merely terror, but a calculated gesture of contempt toward Bush and Blair.

When GW took office, Russia was still crippled by its weak economy. High oil prices, and Russia's control of much of the World's natural gas, have changed that. So has Bush's decision to fritter away American power, lives, and money in Iraq.

Polonium 210 looks like a good way of saying: "This message approved by the FSB." According to Wikipedia, Polonium 210 is about 250 billion times as toxic as cyanide per unit mass.

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