Shameless

The shooting of a US Representitive, Gabrielle Giffords, and a crowd of other people has inevitably been seized upon by various factions to advance political agendas and find a way of blaming their political opponents. This is inevitable I suppose even thought the evidence about the shooter's political leanings is highly patchy and paranoia seems like the common theme rather than a left or right ideology.

The Guardian's Alex Hannaford's effort is particularly nauseating though because after running through a litany of smears: along with a wide eyed protestation of innocence- "Of course, there's no suggestion that the suspected gunman – a college graduate from Arizona who lists reading as his favourite pastime – was particularly inspired by Sarah Palin"- he then has the chutzpah to express outrage that people are expoiting the
shooting to advance their political agendas:

Incredibly, though, what happened on Saturday is already being seized upon by the pro-gun lobby. One comment on Sarah Palin's Facebook page reads: "This will be another avenue for gun control groups to further their sick agenda."

I didn't detect one hint of irony.

Me neither Alex, me neither.

Speaking Of Insane Conspiracy Theories....

I see that some people suggesting that Jill Dando was murdered by Serbian hitmen, resurrecting a theory which was laughable in 1999. As far as I understand the theory is that after NATO bombed that TV station in Serbia during the Kosovo war, the top Serbian military leaders got together and thought of a way to retaliate by killing the presenter of the Holiday programme. As revenge attacks go it seems a little futile if you don't let the other side know that you did it. Wouldn't they kill a foreign correspondent or an editor? Furthermore seeing as the theory presupposes that Yugoslavia had hitmen in London during the war wouldn't it have made more sense to target someone from the Foreign Office or MOD?

Are Assassinations 'Successful'?

When a political leader is assassinated, such as Benazir Bhutto yesterday, the assassins usually hope to influence the future direction of the society they reside in. There is an argument to say that almost all assassinations fail to achieve the intended result, with the results often being exactly the opposite of what the killers intended. A recent example of that tendency would include the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, after which having demonised him so thoroughly in life by making out that he was some kind of Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen figure the main Dutch political parties have all adopted significant aspects of his platform. This kind of result is quite common in stable countries where assassins tend to simply make martyrs of the victims whose successors can pursue the same policies with greater vigour as a result of the ensuing public sympathies.

The problem with the Bhutto killing though is that she did not run her party as a constitutional organisation with defined rules of succession, rather it is a dynastic organisation where the power was far too dependent on one person whose death has the potential to create a power struggle that will negate any sympathy votes the party will receive.

Still the list of assassinations that were successful in changing history to the murderers liking is rather short, the assassinations of Admiral Carrero Blanco and Leon Trotsky spring to mind as isolated examples but those are very much the exceptions.