Assassination | NoisyRoom.net

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

With the release of the British report into the role of the Russian government in the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, some attention is returning to how President Vladimir Putin murders his perceived enemies. Last November, in one of the most sensational cases, the Russian creator of the propaganda channel, Russia Today (RT), Mikhail Lesin, was found dead in a Washington D.C. hotel room.

Former FBI agent John Whiteside, who handled Russian espionage cases, told me in an interview that it wouldn’t surprise him if Putin had engineered the death of Lesin. “Putin is a KGB guy through and through,” he noted. Since the evidence implicates the Putin regime in the murder by poisoning of former KGB agent Litvinenko, Whiteside found it reasonable to assume that he could do the same in America. He said, “Could Putin reach out to the United States? Absolutely. I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute.”

The KGB is now called the FSB.

The speculation in the media is that Lesin was in Washington, D.C. to cooperate with the FBI, and expose corruption and other misdeeds by the Putin regime.

A one-time Putin ally, Lesin had served as Russia’s Minister for Communications and Mass Media from 1999 to 2004. He had also been Director-General of Gazprom Media Holding, Russia’s largest media group that includes television, radio, printing press, cinema production, advertising, movie theaters and Internet assets. Gazprom Media was owned by Gazprombank, the financial arm of the Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom.

Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent, was targeted for death because he had blown the lid off one of the KGB’s most closely-guarded secrets—the Russian hand in global Islamic terrorism. Litvinenko revealed that al-Qaeda terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been trained by the KGB and was an agent of the Russian security services. Litvinenko died in 2006 in London—where he had fled from the Russian regime—after being poisoned by a Russian official. A film, “Poisoned by Polonium,” examines how the highly radioactive substance Polonium was used to kill him.

Robert van Voren, Professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania) and Ilia State University in Tbilisi (Georgia), has written an article on the poisoning of Russian journalists and political figures. When poisoning doesn’t work, the perceived political enemies of the Putin regime are usually shot and killed, such as the case with journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Van Voren notes that she was hospitalized after drinking tea on a Russian flight, but the toxin was never identified because the medical staff was instructed to destroy her blood tests. She survived, but in 2006 she was assassinated in the doorway of her Moscow apartment. Among other things, she had been investigating human rights violations in Russia and Putin’s war in Chechnya.

However, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says he is not convinced that Putin murders journalists or political opponents.

Van Voren tells me an increasing number of people from Russia “are dying under rather suspicious circumstances,” noting that “Recently two top generals died at a relatively young age, even for Russian standards, one of them being the head of the GRU—the military intelligence service. Both had been involved in military operations in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and thus had detailed, inside knowledge of what happened and how.” The head of the GRU was Igor Sergun. His and other deaths are usually called “unexpected.”

“At the same time,” he adds, “I am very hesitant to ascribe everything that happens to opponents to the FSB [as the work of the Putin regime]. People do die or wind up in car accidents, and do have terminal illnesses or sudden deaths—even when Putin doesn’t like them.”

RT is carried in the U.S. by such giant media companies as Comcast and DISH Network, and uses Americans such as former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief Michael T. Flynn in its propaganda broadcasts.

“Russia has reorganized and intensified its international propaganda machine so effectively over the past decade that some Western lawmakers and diplomats say Washington now is badly losing a global messaging war to the increasingly modernized blitz of anti-U.S. content from Moscow-backed news operations,”reported Guy Taylor of The Washington Times. “As of this year, RT claimed to be available to an audience of some 700 million across more than 100 nations, where viewers can soak in its Fox News-style 24-hour television content in English, Arabic and Spanish.”

But in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the channel is not carried in the U.S. with disclaimers identifying the material as foreign propaganda. Hence, it is disguised as real “news,” on the same level as privately-funded U.S. media properties, but with the benefit of foreign state funding.

RT immediately called Lesin’s death a “heart attack,” a dubious assertion. This claim came from the Russian embassy, which sent an official to identify him, before an autopsy was conducted.

The death followed revelations that he was under investigation by the Department of Justice, based on allegations that Lesin may have engaged in money laundering and corruption.

In a letter to the Justice Department, Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said that he understood that Lesin had “acquired multimillion dollar assets in Europe, including an estate reportedly purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, during his tenure as a Russian civil servant.” Wicker added, “I also understand that following his government service, Mr. Lesin moved his immediate family to Los Angeles, California, where he acquired multiple residences at a cost of over $28 million. That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets in Europe and the United States raises serious questions.”

Van Voren told me that the Lesin case is also “rather suspicious, and one has increasingly the feeling that Putin is getting rid of people who know too much.” He added, “It is not unusual behavior: being the Al Capone of a gangster state, he must be constantly worried about everything people know about him, his past and his corrupt businesses.”

Arlene from Israel

Tumult can be identified on several fronts right now, starting with the issue of the death of PA official and terrorist Zaid Abu Ein yesterday.

I had hoped that the autopsy, once it was done, would firmly put to rest the charge by the PA that we “killed” this man because our soldiers beat him with a rifle butt, etc. What actually happened after the autopsy, which was attended last night by an Israeli pathologist as well as Jordanian and Palestinian Arab medical personnel – and done under Jordanian auspices – was a bit more convoluted:

Reports earlier today seemed to indicate that the Israeli doctor, who said the cause of death was clearly a heart attack, was at odds with the Jordanian and Palestinian Arab officials who continued to maintain that Abu Ein had died from being struck, inhaling tear gas and not receiving prompt medical attention. But that assessment apparently came from one Palestinian official who shared this perspective with Reuters.

Now, it seems the various assessments are not so far apart. Abu Ein died of a heart attack. Not from a beating or being strangled or the like. That the heart attack was brought on by stress is a possibility.

This is the statement from the Israeli Ministry of Health:

Abu Ein’s death “was caused by a blockage of the coronary artery (one of the arteries that supplies blood to the heart) due to hemorrhaging underneath a layer of atherosclerotic plaque. The bleeding could have been caused by stress…

“Indications of light hemorrhaging and localized pressure were found in his neck. The deceased suffered from ischemic heart disease; blood vessels in his heart were found to be over 80% blocked by plaque. Old scars indicating that he suffered from previous myocardial infarctions were also found.

“The poor condition of the deceased’s heart caused him to be more sensitive to stress. It is necessary to wait for the medical treatment report before determining more incisive explanations on this matter.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/12/11/idf-soldiers-we-acted-with-restraint-at-protest-where-abu-ein-died-video/

The report on medical treatment is important because what is described as light hemorrhaging may have been caused not by anything IDF soldiers did, but rather by attempts by Arab medical personnel to resuscitate him.

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I would like to make two other points here, and would hope then, to turn to other matters. My guess is that in the end, after all the requisite grandstanding, the PA will not break off security cooperation with Israel in spite of threats to do so. Quite simply: the PA will suffer if it does so.

IDF soldiers have made it clear (Algemeiner source cited above) that they acted “moderately” and within the “official rules of engagement” when dealing with Abu Ein. I make the point again here that this was a hostile man, prone to violence. Abu Ein and his group of protesters had been told that they could not advance beyond a certain point, but they attempted to advance anyway and had to be stopped. According to the report of one officer, the protesters were attempting to move towards an IDF jeep, with intent of hanging a Palestinian flag on it.

The rules of engagement would have required the soldiers to fire on the protesters, at their legs. But the officers instead acted with restraint and did not fire – just pushing them back instead.

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Lastly, I would like to call my readers’ attention to something I learned after I wrote last night. I had indicated that an Israeli medic had offered medical assistance on the scene – assistance that might have saved him. But, according to reports, Abu Ein refused this assistance, requesting that he be taken to Ramallah instead.

As it turns out, it appears that it was not Abu Ein who made the decision to reject the assistance of the Israeli medic – it was the decision of his “associates” – those who were surrounding him.

See the video below. About 9 or 10 seconds into it, you see Abu Ein being lifted up by those around him and carried away. In that moment, there is a glimpse of someone with a blue glove. That is the Israel medic, who was standing right there, prepared to lend assistance. The actions of the Arabs surrounding Abu Ein, who had just had the heart attack, may have sealed his death. The charge of “lack of medical care” points the finger in the wrong direction.

http://www.skynewsarabia.com/web/video/708504/%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%AD%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%94%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B9%D9%8A%D9%86

(My thanks to Winkie and Barbara O. on this.)
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Briefly, now, I want to do a turn about and look at the political circus, which is filled with its own sort of ferment. Please understand that three months is a very long time in an Israeli campaign. Polls leaning in one direction may reflect something else in a matter of weeks. Thus, I prefer at this point to only paint a political picture in broad strokes.

The Likud Central Committee has approved Prime Minister Netanyahu’s proposal to move up the date of the primaries – which determine the order of candidates on the party list -until December 31. This is considered a major victory for Netanyahu. It is presumed that he sought this change in the primary date so that potential candidates who would challenge him as head of the list would not have time to put their campaigns in order.

“Potential candidates” = Gideon Sa’ar. And what do you know? Sa’ar has just announced he would not be running in the Likud primary after all. At least not this time around.

The scuttlebutt of the last few days has been that Netanyahu has gotten weak and is losing control in Likud. But this victory goes a long way to dispelling that impression. All the more is this so, as the proposal that has been approved also permits the chair of the party to select the candidates for the 11th and 24th spots on the Knesset list.

Credit: Flash 90

Danny Danon – who has been locking horns with Netanyahu for some time – will be challenging him in the primary. Danon has his eye on the premiership, certainly, but I do not believe that he or anyone else seriously considers that he will achieve the number one spot on the list now.

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On the left, Yitzhak “Bujie” Herzog (Labor) and Tzipi Livni (Hatenua) have decided to join forces and combine their lists, in order to successfully challenge Netanyahu. And right now the polls are looking good for them. From where I sit, this is the stuff of nightmares. They say they would take turns serving as prime minister.

Credit: Flash 90

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The big story, in the end, may rest with those parties that are relatively centrist, as they might swing in either direction.

There are rumors of all sorts of cooperative efforts or list mergers among the parties of Lapid (Yesh Atid – “there is a future”), Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu – “Israel our home”), and Kahlon (the brand new Kulanu – “all of us”).

They deny these rumors, and I do not trust their denials. Anything is possible.

I expect nothing of Lapid and wish he would disappear from the political map with this election.

Kahlon, originally from Likud, seems to have a solid following, but he makes me mighty uneasy. He calls himself “centrist-right,” but declares that he knows when to give up land and is for negotiations with the PA. Centrist-right?

And Lieberman? His self-serving game-playing is a huge disappointment. Remember that he had a combined list with Likud the last time around. There is the possibility that he won’t go along with Lapid and Kahlon, but is lending the impression that he might in order to be better able to name his political price when going with Likud.

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It seems a reasonable certainty that the Ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas, Sephardi, and United Torah, Ashkenazi) will figure in the next coalition. Right now there is considerable tension within Shas itself, between Aryeh Deri and Eli Yishai. Something else to track.

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And today’s good news:

An Israeli start-up company called White Innovation has developed a machine – the “Genie” – that prepares food in pods that have a shelf life of up two years. We’re talking about healthy meals, without preservatives added. There are savory dishes and sweet; breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, gluten-free meals and other specialties – all of which are reconstituted by the “Genie.” A launch is planned for mid-January.