Sun, Apr 11, 2004 page8

• A-bian's shooting? It was me

  • By Mac William Bishop 楊謙信
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  I have a confession to make.

  I shot the president.

  Now, it is no easy task to hit a man-sized target moving at a speed of 30kph from a distance of greater than 10m.

  I know, because I have done it many times. As a former sergeant in the US Marine Corps, I was required to maintain proficiency in -- and received training with -- a variety of weapons. I won't pretend to be a super-marksman, nor was I ever trained as a sniper or a hit man. But I do reckon myself a fair shot, and so did the US Marine Corps, which awarded me its highest marksmanship designation.

  This, coupled with the highly-respected tradition (Lee Harvey Oswald fans will appreciate this) of using former Marines in presidential-assassination plots, was all it took to spur the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into action.

  So when they came to me a week before the election and asked me if I could wing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) while he stood in the back of a Jeep moving 30kph from 10m with a handmade 8mm two-shot pistol using homemade ammunition, I replied, "Why the hell not? Any requests for where exactly you would like me to flesh-wound the target?"

  But perhaps you don't believe me.

  So let me give you a more realistic scenario: The DPP shot the president in private before the entourage began wending its way through Tainan, and then had him stand and wave to the thronging crowds while bleeding profusely into a small plastic bag. Meanwhile, they surreptitiously replaced the undamaged windshield of the Jeep -- as it traveled down the road amidst hundreds of people -- with one that had been perforated with a bullet. They then hauled tail for the Chi Mei Medical Center.

  Sound implausible?

  Here's a more believable chain of events: A highly-trained super-assassin waited on a rooftop with a unique folding air-rifle that fires pistol rounds at deadly velocities. Indoctrinated and brainwashed through a regimen of mind-altering drugs and hypnosis techniques, he mindlessly carried out the mission given to him by his controller, a sinister figure we shall dub the "Betel-Nut Girl."

  As the presidential motorcade passed, our killer sprang into action, firing an undetermined number of shots which had the effect of: A) Putting a hole in the Jeep's windshield, B) grazing the president's stomach and C) wounding Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) slightly above the knee.

  Meanwhile, the Betel-Nut Girl had left two spent brass shell casings -- which match the bullets -- lying in the road to draw attention away from her insidious plot, which was calculated to ensure Chen's victory, thereby completing her revenge on Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for carrying out his campaign against betel-nut chewing in 1999.

  Having carried out a number of ultra-accurate secret opinion polls in the run-up to the election, she knows that giving Chen a gash across his belly is all that it will take to ensure Ma's Chinese Nationalist Party is ignominiously defeated by a 0.2 percent margin.

  Don't buy it? Well, then try this one:

  A nutcase with an 8mm pistol tried to shoot Chen -- for whatever reason. As the pistol was either homemade or poorly maintained and the ammunition was homemade, the nutcase only succeeded in wounding Chen before his weapon jammed.

  Perhaps that is a little too far-fetched for anyone to believe. After all, how realistic is it that some unhinged fruitcake would make an amateurish attempt to kill a prominent and controversial political figure?

  As the astronomer Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

  There is only one valid response to those who still believe these idiotic conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt on the president: Prove it.

  Mac William Bishop is an editor at the Taipei Times.
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