@MLClark Relying on you for insight regarding the Ecuador assassination and Colombia. Hopefully this doesn't escalate into conflict.
Oh it won't! Two years ago a Colombian exmilitary group assassinated the president of Haiti, and the culprits were found and extradited. This time they found the people zippity quick. Colombia is a state with many dissident paramilitaries and active cartels (a bit like what parts of the US want the country to turn into!), so the mere act of Colombians being involved doesn't constitute an attack between state governments. Fascinating stuff, with a lot of moving parts.
Funnily enough, one of my podcast series (forthcoming Sept 4) reflects on the story told around the start of WWI. There's a myth of coherent states & preceding stability that doesn't hold if you look at where the assassination took place.
But more on that later!
This is one reason I left Canada; amid the stark binaries of N Am'n politics, I wanted to live in a place that challenged my thinking about social contract theory & political possibilities.
Colombia most certainly has!
@MLClark Lee Harvey Oswald was an utter failure at everything in life, yet he managed to assassinate President Kennedy.
Gang members or mafia types might have been a more appropriate analogy for me to use. But I can't think of any organized political assassination conspiracy in the U.S. other than Lincoln's at the end of the Civil War.
The FBI just killed a Trumper in Utah who was openly posting on social media he was going to use a sniper rifle to kill Biden in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.
@MLClark I look forward to September 4!
Pretty sure you know I'm a student of Russian history. That's my personal "challenge" as you put it
@WordsmithFL
"So basically it would be like one of our lunatic militias being hired to murder a Mexican presidential candidate."
Also, not to be too snarky about it, but your example would only hold if some of the US's most "lunatic militias" were actually competent enough to pull off such a feat. But I've seen their work with attempted coups, disrupting drag queen story hours, and even attacking power grids.
Long may they remain incompetent at most everything they try to do. ๐ค