Poisonous Putin

Since the name Vlad the Impaler has been taken, Vladimir Putin is going with Putin the Poisoner.

In further developments from the Anna Politskovskaya murder, a former member of the FSB (the modern KGB), Alexander Litvinenko, has been poisoned in London. According to the WaPo, Litvinenko has been investigating Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow last month. Now Litvenenko has been in a London hospital for two weeks and could die from the rat poison slipped to him during a meal.
Remember Politskovaya said she had been poisoned on her way to Chechnya last year. And here is where the circle gets completed in this Russian web: Litvinenko had written a book saying Putin had authorized the bombings of apartment buildings in Chechnya which started the second Chechen war. Politskovskaya had been covering both wars and had always maintained that Putin was responsible for starting the second Chechen war.

Also there was the case of the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the current President of Ukraine. Yushcenko, who was the anti-Kremlin candidate in the election, was taken ill during the campaign in what was later diagnosed as poisoning. Yuschenko's face was disfigured from the poisoning and remains scarred today.

In the Tuesday Post, the editorial board takes a well deserved whack at Putin and his buddy Bush not to mention Tony Blair who all happened to be together this weekend, dressed in their finest Vietnamese wardrobes.

We trust that the British authorities will vigorously investigate the attack on Mr. Litvinenko -- who is now a British citizen -- and that Prime Minister Tony Blair will take seriously the possibility that a colleague in the Group of Eight sanctioned a political murder attempt in London.

I guess now I will never get to go to Russia after writing all this online. Oh well, at least I can continue to honor Anna Politskovskaya and share the news. Too bad Putin, you poisoner, I hope you are about to get caught with your hand in the rat poison.