7 ms·

I've always wondered: why poison? It doesn't always seem to kill the victim and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors.

baybal2 8y ago
>I've always wondered: why poison? Exactly for these reasons: >It doesn't always seem to kill the victim and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors. Quick and effortless death by a bullet don't terrify peons as much as death after weeks of excruciating agony. In this case, it is also to send intimidation message to the country hosting them: hey look, we just wetted a man guarded by a squadron of crack bodyguards on your soil, now, think what we can do to you
- seppin 8y ago
  Don't excuse people that are bad at their jobs. Poison is meant to kill people, which proves to be more difficult than it sounds. If you don't believe me, read up on capital punishment in the US and how often it fails.
make3 8y ago
maybe gunning someone down is an act of war, while poisoning sends a very clear message while somehow not being an act of war
- losteric 8y ago
  No, state-sponsored poison attacks are still acts of war.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
pulisse 8y ago
> makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors Which is what makes it useful as an intimidation tactic.
arkades 8y ago
> It doesn't always seem to kill the victim and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors. As others have said, identifying a state actor is a feature, not a bug. However, what others have neglected to point out, is that it's unreliable - and that is a feature, too. We can't easily identify the state actor. Polonium-210 pointed at Russia obviously, but Russia has also utilized dioxides (vs. Shchekochikhin), and opioids (fentanyl) (to wipe out the hostage-takers in the Dubrovka theater). The result is that Russia sends a message: we will reach out and kill our critics and defectors. Bullets don't have the same effect: a critic dies in his sleep. Was it a drop of fentanyl? Maybe. Maybe. The absence or presence of poison will be speculated on; the absence or presence of bullets is clear-cut. Through the use of poisons which vary in their ability to point the finger at Russia, any death of a critic that could plausibly be linked to a poisoning now raises the specter of Russian intervention. The result is that their psychological warfare is extended far beyond their actual reach. The KGB/FSB has always had a very significant attention to psych-ops. Their actions should not be interpreted strictly at face value.
- cynicalkane 8y ago
  I have a hypothesis that the polonium poisoners weren't planning on being detected. Polonium has no side effects other than radiation poisoning which can't be detected outside the body. To diagnose it, one would have to go looking for trace amounts in the body or in contaminated areas. If the poisoners weren't aware of the extreme sensitivity of alpha-particle detection -- reliably accurate to the single particle level -- they might have thought polonium would be undetectable and untraceable. Or they might of thought nobody would ever think to look for it. By some accounts, they almost didn't.
  - sephamorr 8y ago
    You're spot on here. As I understand, the Russian state was quite surprised at the capabilities of Western detection science. It was certainly not common knowledge that low-concentration alpha emitters (still plenty poisonous) could be detected in blood, nor that the assassins could be tracked all the way back to Russia just from their limited exposure.
freeflight 8y ago
The US version of it is a Hellfire missile from a drone remote-controlled from 2 continents away. Way more lethal, way more collateral, quite obvious to identify as the act of a state actor, still common practice barely anybody takes issue with.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  But they only target terrorists.
- erentz 8y ago
  Your comparison is completely unalike. Yes the US drone war program is bad. Yes the endless war on terror is bad. But these are not the same as a tyrant poisoning anyone who becomes inconvenient to him. The closest comparison I think you could validly make would be something like the harsh treatment of Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner (or Drake, or Snowden, etc). None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile. (Edit: that’s not to excuse the treatment of those people either.)
  - freeflight 8y ago
    No, it's exactly the same. Both are extrajudicial and state-sponsored killings aka assassinations. Just because many people have blind trust in the US government and the validity of its kill list aka "disposition matrix" [0] doesn't change the basic injustice of the act, which is just as unjust as poisoning some "enemy of the state". The international laws and human rights broken in both cases are exactly the same, the only difference is the methodology of the final "execution". > None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile. It's extremely naive to assume we know every drone victim ever, it's not like the US drone program is a shining beacon of transparency. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
    - erentz 8y ago
      Putin targets Russian citizens that are his personal enemies because they speak up, protest, or otherwise embarrass him. He does it using poison in a manner to make sure everyone knows who did it and what the consequences are if you cross him. The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. (Stating the obvious, but that’s not a defense of the drone program. You’ve outlined its problems. But it’s just clearly not the same thing.)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 8y ago
Because the point isn't necessarily to kill the victim, but to induce fear in the general population. Poisoning is similar enough to illness to be imaginable but different enough to be scary, and we tend to associate poisonings with horrible suffering rather than sudden and painless expiration.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
As an aside, you also just opened a can of worms here. Things that can be so 'easily' attributed to a given state actor can also then be used to try to frame said actor. Look at all the evidence, now obviously completely fake, that magically appeared when we wanted to 'prove' Iraq had WMD, even though they did not. For that matter look at the list of United States involvement in regime change [1] which is gradually turning into a novel. We make no secret, or at least declassification makes no secret, of overthrowing democratically elected governments, falsifying evidence to hurt sovereign nations, complicity to support of assassination of 'innocent' individuals, and lots of other great stuff. I think people don't understand that propaganda doesn't mean some crackly speaker in a third world nation spewing daily praise for the divine leader. It comes and all shapes and forms, and the US is actively involved in domestic propaganda that ensures we never really appreciate all the awful things we do. In a way we, as in our intelligence agencies, are probably protected by their own impudence. Many of the things I'm listing even I have trouble believing we'd do, yet declassified documents and open acknowledgement make it complete and crystal clear that we do. The point of this is not to say whether any party or another was involved in whatever event, but rather that trying to gauge things as an outsider based on the filtering of a news media which hungers both for clicks and war is unlikely to yield anything remotely resembling an educated opinion. We can even look to the history of Pussy Riot or this case as further examples. The victim here is not a member of Pussy Riot. His ex wife was a member. And the band themselves were not arrested for anything they said, but their behavior. They decided to stage a 'guerilla concert' inside a cathedral obviously completely against the wishes of the church and without their permission. They were charged with 'holliganism motivated by religious hatred' and sentenced to 2 years. They were released early on amnesty from the Russian duma/congress after serving most of their sentence. [2] Quite amazing what a different picture was spun by the media when all this was happening. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot
sbmthakur 8y ago
It makes it quite difficult to identify the origin. For example, in Skripal's case, we still don't know from where the Novichok came[1] or the assassins were Russians or not[2][3]. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/15/uks-claims-questioned-doubts-emerge-about-source-of-salisburys-novichok https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/15/uks-claims-q... 2. https://www.businessinsider.in/British-military-scientists-cant-prove-that-the-nerve-agent-used-to-poison-Sergei-Skripal-was-made-in-Russia/articleshow/63600728.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/British-military-scientists-c... 3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-stockpiles/secret-trial-shows-risks-of-nerve-agent-theft-in-post-soviet-chaos-experts-idUSKCN1GQ2RH https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-stockpiles...

baybal2 8y ago

>I've always wondered: why poison? Exactly for these reasons: >It doesn't always seem to kill the victim and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors. Quick and effortless death by a bullet don't terrify peons as much as death after weeks of excruciating agony. In this case, it is also to send intimidation message to the country hosting them: hey look, we just wetted a man guarded by a squadron of crack bodyguards on your soil, now, think what we can do to you

seppin 8y ago
Don't excuse people that are bad at their jobs. Poison is meant to kill people, which proves to be more difficult than it sounds. If you don't believe me, read up on capital punishment in the US and how often it fails.

make3 8y ago

maybe gunning someone down is an act of war, while poisoning sends a very clear message while somehow not being an act of war

losteric 8y ago
No, state-sponsored poison attacks are still acts of war.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

pulisse 8y ago

> makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors Which is what makes it useful as an intimidation tactic.

arkades 8y ago

> It doesn't always seem to kill the victim and makes it easy to identify the perps as state actors. As others have said, identifying a state actor is a feature, not a bug. However, what others have neglected to point out, is that it's unreliable - and that is a feature, too. We can't easily identify the state actor. Polonium-210 pointed at Russia obviously, but Russia has also utilized dioxides (vs. Shchekochikhin), and opioids (fentanyl) (to wipe out the hostage-takers in the Dubrovka theater). The result is that Russia sends a message: we will reach out and kill our critics and defectors. Bullets don't have the same effect: a critic dies in his sleep. Was it a drop of fentanyl? Maybe. Maybe. The absence or presence of poison will be speculated on; the absence or presence of bullets is clear-cut. Through the use of poisons which vary in their ability to point the finger at Russia, any death of a critic that could plausibly be linked to a poisoning now raises the specter of Russian intervention. The result is that their psychological warfare is extended far beyond their actual reach. The KGB/FSB has always had a very significant attention to psych-ops. Their actions should not be interpreted strictly at face value.

cynicalkane 8y ago
I have a hypothesis that the polonium poisoners weren't planning on being detected. Polonium has no side effects other than radiation poisoning which can't be detected outside the body. To diagnose it, one would have to go looking for trace amounts in the body or in contaminated areas. If the poisoners weren't aware of the extreme sensitivity of alpha-particle detection -- reliably accurate to the single particle level -- they might have thought polonium would be undetectable and untraceable. Or they might of thought nobody would ever think to look for it. By some accounts, they almost didn't.
- sephamorr 8y ago
  You're spot on here. As I understand, the Russian state was quite surprised at the capabilities of Western detection science. It was certainly not common knowledge that low-concentration alpha emitters (still plenty poisonous) could be detected in blood, nor that the assassins could be tracked all the way back to Russia just from their limited exposure.

freeflight 8y ago

The US version of it is a Hellfire missile from a drone remote-controlled from 2 continents away. Way more lethal, way more collateral, quite obvious to identify as the act of a state actor, still common practice barely anybody takes issue with.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
But they only target terrorists.
erentz 8y ago
Your comparison is completely unalike. Yes the US drone war program is bad. Yes the endless war on terror is bad. But these are not the same as a tyrant poisoning anyone who becomes inconvenient to him. The closest comparison I think you could validly make would be something like the harsh treatment of Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner (or Drake, or Snowden, etc). None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile. (Edit: that’s not to excuse the treatment of those people either.)
- freeflight 8y ago
  No, it's exactly the same. Both are extrajudicial and state-sponsored killings aka assassinations. Just because many people have blind trust in the US government and the validity of its kill list aka "disposition matrix" [0] doesn't change the basic injustice of the act, which is just as unjust as poisoning some "enemy of the state". The international laws and human rights broken in both cases are exactly the same, the only difference is the methodology of the final "execution". > None of which were taken out with poison or a Hellfire missile. It's extremely naive to assume we know every drone victim ever, it's not like the US drone program is a shining beacon of transparency. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix
  - erentz 8y ago
    Putin targets Russian citizens that are his personal enemies because they speak up, protest, or otherwise embarrass him. He does it using poison in a manner to make sure everyone knows who did it and what the consequences are if you cross him. The US drone program does not target US citizens who speak up, protest, or embarrass the president of the USA, at the behest of just the president. (Stating the obvious, but that’s not a defense of the drone program. You’ve outlined its problems. But it’s just clearly not the same thing.)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

anigbrowl 8y ago

Because the point isn't necessarily to kill the victim, but to induce fear in the general population. Poisoning is similar enough to illness to be imaginable but different enough to be scary, and we tend to associate poisonings with horrible suffering rather than sudden and painless expiration.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

As an aside, you also just opened a can of worms here. Things that can be so 'easily' attributed to a given state actor can also then be used to try to frame said actor. Look at all the evidence, now obviously completely fake, that magically appeared when we wanted to 'prove' Iraq had WMD, even though they did not. For that matter look at the list of United States involvement in regime change [1] which is gradually turning into a novel. We make no secret, or at least declassification makes no secret, of overthrowing democratically elected governments, falsifying evidence to hurt sovereign nations, complicity to support of assassination of 'innocent' individuals, and lots of other great stuff. I think people don't understand that propaganda doesn't mean some crackly speaker in a third world nation spewing daily praise for the divine leader. It comes and all shapes and forms, and the US is actively involved in domestic propaganda that ensures we never really appreciate all the awful things we do. In a way we, as in our intelligence agencies, are probably protected by their own impudence. Many of the things I'm listing even I have trouble believing we'd do, yet declassified documents and open acknowledgement make it complete and crystal clear that we do. The point of this is not to say whether any party or another was involved in whatever event, but rather that trying to gauge things as an outsider based on the filtering of a news media which hungers both for clicks and war is unlikely to yield anything remotely resembling an educated opinion. We can even look to the history of Pussy Riot or this case as further examples. The victim here is not a member of Pussy Riot. His ex wife was a member. And the band themselves were not arrested for anything they said, but their behavior. They decided to stage a 'guerilla concert' inside a cathedral obviously completely against the wishes of the church and without their permission. They were charged with 'holliganism motivated by religious hatred' and sentenced to 2 years. They were released early on amnesty from the Russian duma/congress after serving most of their sentence. [2] Quite amazing what a different picture was spun by the media when all this was happening. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot

sbmthakur 8y ago

It makes it quite difficult to identify the origin. For example, in Skripal's case, we still don't know from where the Novichok came[1] or the assassins were Russians or not[2][3]. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/15/uks-claims-questioned-doubts-emerge-about-source-of-salisburys-novichok https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/15/uks-claims-q... 2. https://www.businessinsider.in/British-military-scientists-cant-prove-that-the-nerve-agent-used-to-poison-Sergei-Skripal-was-made-in-Russia/articleshow/63600728.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/British-military-scientists-c... 3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-stockpiles/secret-trial-shows-risks-of-nerve-agent-theft-in-post-soviet-chaos-experts-idUSKCN1GQ2RH https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-stockpiles...