EITHER Thomas Crooks — the 20-year-old sniper who shot Donald Trump during the recent election rally in Pennsylvania — was an excellent marksman and nicked only Trump’s ear deliberately, or he missed his target’s head by accident.

Gradually, more and more details are emerging of that portentous incident which could have changed modern history. Crooks had been meticulous in his preparation. He chose the rooftop location for its uninterrupted view of the podium where Trump would stand. He flew a drone over the rally site hours before the event began. (The police have since recovered the drone.)

Crooks used an AR-15 style high-powered rifle. His first shot “came less than a quarter of an inch from entering [Trump’s] head, and struck the top of his right ear”. Having mis­sed Trump, Crooks fired multiple shots, killing a firefighter and injuring two spectators.

Lessons learned from J.F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 came into play. A Secret Service counter sniper reacted swiftly. Although he could see “only Crooks’ gun scope and the top of his eye and forehead”, he fired and in a “one-in-a-million shot” killed Trump’s would-be assassin.

Was Crooks a fall guy like Lee Harvey Oswald?

Who was this young not-so-sharp shooter, fresh out of high school? A fellow student in Bethel Park high school described him as smart and friendly, “definitely nerdy for sure”, but he “never gave off that he was creepy or like a school shooter”. And in a phrase used years ago by Alfred Hitchcock with chilling effect about the villain Norman Bates in his horror movie Psycho, the student added: “He seemed like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Conspiracy theories have already begun to swirl about this event. Why did the Secret Service not reconnoitre the venue with more professional thoroughness? How did Crooks aiming from his more advantageous machan fail with repeated firings when the Secret Service man succeeded in a “one-in-a-million shot”?

Did Trump know when to duck? (Many might recall president Ronald Reagan’s riposte to his wife Nancy after the assassination attempt on him in 1981: “Honey, I forgot to duck!”). Was Crooks a fall guy like Lee Harvey Oswald, a casualty of murky, murderous US politics?

One wonders whether there will be a second Warren-style Commission to obfuscate the truth.

By not killing Donald Trump, Crooks has grouted Donald Trump’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate. Intere­stingly, Trump has recovered faster than the painter Van Gogh did after his ear wound.

The November elections are only a few months away. Harried Democrats have been demanding a change in leadership. Biden has answered their prayers by withdrawing and proposing his obedient Vice President Kamala Harris as his substitute. Biden ought to have heeded the advice of a Republican predecessor — Abraham Lin­coln: “Never change horses in midstream.”

It is a truism that the US presidential elections have a seismic effect on almost every country in the world. A left-wing Keir Starmer may take over in the UK. An ornamental Ursula von der Leyen may return as a second term president of the European Commission. Emmanuel Macron may continue in a presidency with a built-in expiry date. None matter except for China and Russia in international geopolitics. The president of America always will.

Ever since 1945, the US has been involved perpetually in a war, somewhere. The Cold War is now a ‘Warm War’. For 20 years, Af­­ghanistan was in. Hamid Karzai and his de­­signer chogha are now out. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his comma-nder T-shirts and false fatigues are in. Peace summits are out.

According to the German Kiel Insti­tute, since 2022, the US and the Euro­pean Union have pledged or provided ‘more than $380 billion’ in military, fi­­nancial and humanitarian aid to Ukra-ine. Even innocuous Azerbaijan has supplied bombs, but via Sudan. Pakistan, not to be left behind, decided to provide Ukraine with Kamikaze drones and Man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS) surface-to-air missiles.

The Afghan war lasted 20 years and cost $3 trillion. Who can predict how long the Ukrainian war will last? Probably as long as it takes to bleed Russia dry, or America’s allies run out of patience, or a re-elected President Trump decides that enough is already too much.

The pattern of EU elections has raised an interesting possibility. When 27 disparate European countries can hold ‘free and fair elections’ to elect a president, isn’t there an argument for countries affected directly by the decisions of a US president to be allowed a say in his (or her) appointment? After all, their destinies are involved, their stability affected by the whims of one man chosen by 170m or so insular American voters.

It is a frightening thought that Crook’s single bullet, not a mass ballot, has already decided the fate of the free world.

The writer is an author.

www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2024