"Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt"

Do Soviets kill Popes? Absolutely, says an Italian commission investigating the matter. The commission's draft, scheduled to be approved next month, says:

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla."

Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, was of course a strong supporter of Solidarity labor movement in Poland, one of the biggest threats to the Evil Empire the Soviets faced at the time.

That's motivation enough, but the brief AP report (via Brietbart) is short on new facts. It will be challenged, but in the end, it's obvious that the Soviets could have done it and very well may have done it -- and that's damning enough.

And if they tried to kill the Pope, why reject out of hand the idea that they might have killed Kennedy?

And, if they tried to kill the Pope and Kennedy, why assume that the Putin regime isn't above considering such tactics? They've rolled back democratic rights, stepped up government control and are led by a former KGB agent.

Yes, things are friendlier with Russia than they were with the Soviets, but it would be a policy error to consider them friends.