Zionist war has reprinted a Guardian article which makes the claim that Alexander Litvinenko (the Russian ex-spy and dissident recently poisoned who had been investigating Anna Politkovskaya’s death) may have been killed by “rogue” Russian agents.

Since these “rogues” would have been following what seems to be rather openly the Russian government’s policy toward high profile dissidents, and to have done so at a rather opportune time, (when Litvinenko was deep into an investigation of the murder of a much higher profile dissident), makes me wonder what exactly makes them “rogue”.

If it’s going to be claimed only that they weren’t “ordered” to kill Litvinenko, that’s not going to hold a lot of weight. Much of the Russian intelligence apparatus still traces it’s training back to the KGB days. The KGB had as part of their training regimen, and as part of their toolbox of survival skills, the ability to “read into” any order, statement, or situation what ought to be their action.* They could all then be declared rogue or not rogue, as the situation demanded.

The most roguish thing about these guys in the end I suspect will be a tendency not to salute, or maybe they skimp on paperwork.

I’ve read accounts from American intelligence defenders where they account for the CIA’s (and precursor organizations) drug trafficking problems (they’ve been credibly accused of being involved in creating the heroin trade on the South China border in support of the Kuomintang, in funding part of the Vietnam war (and prewar) with heroin sales and transport), and varying degrees of involvement in the cocaine trade of the Contras, amongst many others), as a problem of rogue agents. In some cases this has been followed by an admission that in the situations they find themselves in, going “rogue” is just a matter of time.

Which I totally agree with. We’ve seen time and again how disciplined soldiers turn to running prostitution and drug rings when wars are protracted and low intensity.

What’s different is that these prostitution rings primarily benefit the soldier pimps themselves, the drug rings the soldier dealers. These rogue actions supporting the drug trade on the part of the American intelligence services however, uniformly contain a large element of the profits benefiting the mission. It’s even rare outside of the Vietnam** instance to find any claims that American operatives were making money off of these deals themselves. And the “roguery” of the FSB agents in the Litvinenko seem far from self-benefiting roguery.

Their actions could be argued as self-beneficial if they were killing Litvinenko because they feared he might expose those particular agents for killing Politkovskaya. Which is presumed to have been a state sanctioned action. So their roguery would have been in service to the state there… Unless Politkovskaya’s murder were a “rogue” action too. But Russian dissident journalists drop like flies, and their deaths frequently go investigated. Which has to be seen as state sanction. But lets give them that, let’s assume that Litvinenko was murdered in a rogue operation to cover the rogue murder of Politkovskaya.

Why was Politkovskaya killed then? Maybe for rather mundane reasons. But she was a dissident journalist with a high international profile, and they, as I said, drop like flies in Russian. So there seems a strong basis for assuming that she was killed for her dissident writing, specifically on the Chechnyan, and neighbouring, wars. (A lot of assumptions, I know. I don’t like dealing with so many, but this post isn’t really about Litvinenko and Politkovskaya, so much as about the “rogue” designation.) So maybe that was a rogue action too, but this one can’t be argued away as a rogue action to cover another rogue action. What’s a happening in Chechnya is government policy. It’s a Dirty War as Politkovskaya called it, but it’s not a rogue war.

So in the end, even if her murder was a rogue action to cover up the war, and Litvinenko’s murder was to cover her murder, in the end it’s result is to cover crimes that are not considered rogue, that are considered policy. These rogue actions just happen to protect the Russian state and further it’s interests. Especially if these FSB agents can be declared rogue agents. Which is a constant feature of security/intelligence services rogue actions.

I’m not saying that an agent can’t go rogue and happen to act in line with their conception of the good of the government, or that the only rogue actions are ones that pad your own bank-account. What I’m saying is one of three things:

1. A lot of these “rogue” actions are purely sanctioned operations which governments call rogue only to cover their asses.
2. The culture*** which dominated these organizations in their infamous pasts has not been addressed and combated either by design or due to the difficulty in changing an organizational culture in 15 years without seeming to fire anyone (or move past things such as name changes during reform). The FSB is not an underfunded organization, I suspect it has the capability to draw on whatever sectors it needs to to properly reform. That it hasn’t done so, and hasn’t been forced to implies the continuing criminal culture is by design to me. Which means that even if there is a “problem” of agents going “rogue”, the situation which encourages these actions is policy.
3. That because “rogue” security and intelligence operatives have such an interesting record of working to further government objectives, even at the cost of their careers and lives, if they are actually rogues, the government, judicial system, and security forces must go practically out of their mind hunting down and taking out these agents. It won’t prove that either of the above two points aren’t the case, but it may do some good in both discouraging such roguery, and convincing maybe your citizens and others that you’re making an effort. This is obviously just advice from a hastily written blog, but it seems a reasonable first step towards at least making it so justice is seen to be done.

I lean toward option b truthfully, but I’m not privy to the goings on in the FSB world of work, (beyond that I heard Andrei Rahtimov wore really tight lowrider leather pants with a thong visible riding up the back on the last casual friday. And I also suspect something is going on between Jimski and Pamlovna.)

---

*-Also a problem with the CIA of course. It’s just the best way to run these things if you’re looking to do jerky things. And in all truth, why would you run an intelligence services and not do jerky things?
**- The main claims of personal profit I’ve heard of there consisted only of Air America pilots getting paid for “extra” (drug) flights.
***-What I mentioned before about “advanced interpretation skills” re: orders and statements from above, alongside the reliance on “inspiration” from above. Hannah Arendt’s Totalitarianism has a pretty good discussion of these issues within the KGB and it’s precursor organizations.

---

Technorati: politkovskaya, litvinenko, putin, fsb, kgb, cia, murder, rogue agents, intelligence services, drugs, heroin, cocaine, murder, assassination, reform