Saturday, October 11, 2008

Jörg Haider Dies in Car Crash

Jörg Haider, the leader of the right-wing Austrian party BZÖ, was killed in a single-vehicle car crash early this morning.

According to Swissinfo:

Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider, a charismatic populist who helped thrust anti-immigrant politics into the European mainstream, was killed in a car accident on Saturday.

Haider, 58, who led the right into a coalition government from 2000 to 2006, polarised Austria and drew international condemnation with his anti-foreigner outbursts and for seeming to flirt with Nazi sympathies.

Last month, after years of retreat into provincial politics, he helped engineer a surge of Austria’s far right to 30 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election, mining discontent over feuding mainstream governing parties, inflation and immigration.

His spokesman Stefan Petzner said Haider, who was governor of Carinthia province, had been driving to his rural home near Klagenfurt early on Saturday morning for a family gathering to mark his mother’s 90th birthday when the accident occurred.
- - - - - - - - -
The car he was driving skidded out of control after he overtook another vehicle. He hit a concrete traffic barrier and rolled over several times, police said.

He was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.

There’s no indication in any of the news articles that the incident was anything other than an accident.

Mr. Haider was originally leader of the FPÖ (Freedom Party), but split off to form the BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria) after a disagreement over party policy. During the recent elections, the BZÖ garnered 11% of the vote, while the FPÖ received 18%.

It will be interesting now to see whether a new leader emerges to take charge of the BZÖ, or whether the two parties of the Right will reconcile and reunite.


Hat tip: Reinhard.

71 comments:

Félicie said...

A political assasination, I wonder?

Anonymous said...

I'm in shock. I didn't know much about Haider and what I did know I sometimes disagreed with, but still...

And this is interesting in light of recent events in Austria. I personally won't rule out assassination quite yet...

Anonymous said...

I won't claim this to be an assassination, but it's rather strange that he would die in an accident on an inner-city road, doing less than 100 k/ph, driving a VW Phaeton - a car so safe it allows VW to market it as the car with the "safest passenger cabin ever". And all the damage is conviniently at the very spot Haider's head was.

That being said, and having seen the photos of the accident, I have no idea how someone could have staged such an assassination.

Vladtepesblog.com said...

Given what recent events in Austria please?

Right Cross said...

Nothing would surprise me anymore. The big push is starting. The norwegian ambulance driver got an open letter written to him by Ali Baba basically referring to all Norwegian whites as a grey mass. The jist of it was that his kind were now entitled to be racist towards Norwegians in their own country.

Anonymous said...

To say that this looks suspicious is to make the understatement of the year.

Afonso Henriques said...

Conspiracy Theory:

Austria and the E.U., Jorg Heider, the first? (Not) the last?

Unknown said...

I do recall reading somewhere that the EU withheld Slobodon Milosevic's medicine from him, effectively killing him.

This does not sound on the face of it like an assassination. If he was overtaking a car he could well have crashed.

But how to know the truth?

Unfrench Frenchman said...

An accident? This car crash reminds me very strongly of the parachute failure that killed German conservative politician Möllemann a few years ago after he started taking what German mainstream media called a populist stance. Möllemann was widely popular in Germany and was about to start his own political movement.
Haider's death happens at so convenient a time that I deem assassination the most probable cause at this juncture. Will this event deter others from opposing EU immigration policies, or will it rather stiffen the EU opponents' resolve in Austria and elsewhere?

Woden said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
X said...

One has to be careful of falling into the trap of assuming that highly coincidental events are the result of third-party efforts. It's like the 9/11 troofers or the crazies who reckoned Diana was done in by MI6.

I notice, elsewhere, a lot of crowing over this death. The Elsewhere in question has turned into little more than a better coded DKOS or HuffPo.

Homophobic Horse said...

If Daily Kos were a country it would be an oppressive dictatorship that jails dissidents and encourages hate mobs to mock the dead.

Unknown said...

One has to be careful of falling into the trap of assuming that highly coincidental events are the result of third-party efforts.

True. People die in car crashes all the time. Without evidence I wouldn't be confident making any assertions.

Anonymous said...

Austrian ORF showed the whole accident site by now. It seems that he was going with far more than 100 km/h. Going by the additional damage to the area in his path I'd say he was racing like a mad pig. Sorry, I don't have any sympathies for speeders who get killed on the streets.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

Conspiracy theories? Give me break, people! The EU is not an organization that considers itself bound by its own laws, as recent events in Cologne have shown and many other before. I am absolutely certain that they will resort to murder when they see fit to do so. Check out the picture of the car wreckage on the German website politically incorrect. What kind of object penetrated the roof of Haider's car just above the driver's seat that Haider was occupying with enough force to blow both front side doors out? The wreckage looks extremely suspicious.
Political assassinations are not uncommon, so I have no reason to suppose that it was an accident rather than murder in this case.

Anonymous said...

One cannot ignore the fact that this accident is very, very convenient for the Eurabians, as was the murder of Pim Fortyn by an "anti-fa" activist six years ago. It seems that anti-Eurabian politicians have a strangely short lifespan. Nick Griffin or Filip DeWinter are probably next.

X said...

It's true that EU functionaries have been implicated in the deaths of a number of people who opposed them, though there was never any actual evidence. Apparently sane people suddenly jumping to their deaths from tall buildings, accounts of people dying in odd ways... and if not that, then often opponents of the EU's direction working within the system will find themselves effectively silenced through the application of medical opinions. In other words they're declared insane and put out to permanent, unpaid leave with little chance of being able to find any other employment.

I'm just saying it's not a good idea to jump to conclusions. The evidence seems to be that he was driving far too fast and ended up wrecking himself as a result.

(also, apparently we're all "mourning"...)

Bert said...

There is a lot of talk going on about the hole in the roof of the car.

Only recently Haider opened a facility high in the mountains to lock up criminal asylumseekers to improve security in his federal state. The left and the Ultra Left where talking about "associations with the politics of the Nazis." Dedicated enemies enough…

Zerosumgame said...

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Avery Bullard said...

A poster at Majority Rights asked what would the reaction be if Obama died in a car crash a few days after winning the presidential election. The same people who scoff at conspiracies would suddenly claim he was murdered.

Homophobic Horse said...

The hole bends inwards. My guess: probably a fence post.

Anonymous said...

Vlad: I was referring to the elections in Austria. Didn't Haider's party make some gains or something like that? Do correct me if I'm wrong.

Queen, I really hope you're wrong about Dewinter. He is one my favourite people ever and it would be a huge blow if he died.

I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but this whole incident raises a lot of questions in my mind. It just seems like a rather strange coincidence to me that right after his party made gains in the elections and could possibly enter the new coalition, he dies in a government-owned car. Of course it could just be a coincidence, but I wouldn't put it past the EU to murder a dissident politician. All we can do is wait for more information to emerge.

Joanne said...

Coincidence? Nada! I bet that most people who heard this news, left or right-leaning, thought it was a deliberate killing.

"The car he was driving skidded out of control after he overtook another vehicle. He hit a concrete traffic barrier and rolled over several times, police said."

If this was the case, he was probably going extremely fast in his attempt to pass a car who I'm thinking had no intention of letting him pass. You either skid when the road is wet, you're going too fast, and you are hydroplaning out of control or you skid when you are trying to brake hard to pull back into the lane behind the other car. All the other car had to do really was pull out slightly into the lane the fella was passing in to cause him to skid towards the concrete barriers.

Whiskey said...

I am skeptical of murder conspiracy theories because it requires a certain state of mind.

Murder as a political means is not unknown, but look who does it -- Putin's goons are well known to do it, see Vladimir Litivenenko, or journalists shot in elevators, falling out of windows, etc.

To actually kill someone, do it, and keep the direct evidence away from the actors who did it is not easy. It requires a network of thugs who are trained, and can KEEP QUIET.

The EU member states and services leak like a sieve. They can't shut up about anything. Moreover, they are inept and passive and weak.

I could believe Putin capable of such acts, but not the EU. You can't be weak, milquetoast in one area and a lion in the other.

Murder requires hard-core thug killers, and Europe in the West just does not have those except for the Islamic variety any more.

Zerosumgame said...

I doubt this was deliberate. When the left wants to get rid of somebody, they'll brazenly kill them, like they did to Pim Fortuyn.

They know that they do not have to fear the legal system.

Somebody would do it in the open and claim credit for it.

Afonso Henriques said...

A Great man's death is always a tragedy and Heider was undoubtedly a great man. We shall pray for him and his two daughters.

That Austria can have a better future for which Heider have fought for!

Anonymous said...

Whiskey: anti-fa are not milquetoasts. They have already shown their willingness to use violence against their opponents. The man who murdered Pim Foruyn was an anti-fa who was egged on and enabled by the media and political establishment. All the EU milquetoasts need to do is look the other way. . .and later, use state power to cover it up. Like someone said though, we'll probably never know the real story.

Homophobic Horse said...

Maybe he was celebrating his electoral gains by speeding?

Unfrench Frenchman said...

Some people here seem to think that the EU cannot be malevolent because it has a benevolent face. This is a little naive. There is nothing crazy about suspecting political murder when one is talking about the death of someone like Haider, who was positively hated by many and whose political clout was a pain in the ass for Brussels. Haider was the most successful anti-immigration politician within the EU. It would be extraordinarily naive not to suspect murder when such a man dies in a car crash just a few weeks after an election break through. My point is: even if the investigation does not prove conclusively that it was anything more than an accident, it will not prove that it was not murder either, therefore I am not ready to let Haider's enemies off the hoof so lightly, after Fortuyn and Möllemann died so conveniently just before they could become a hindrance to the enablers of Eurabia.

Afonso Henriques said...

Oh Whiskey, please...

It's not Putin who does the dirty work (or order it to be done). Those are lower level politicians who have something to lose or are just making a statement. Also, they USUALLY only kill traitors, have you noticed that?

And that guy in London... do you really think that if the FSB wanted, they would not be capable of killing that insignificant man without leaving a trace? Say, pay a bully...

But no, they orchestrated an incredible sophisticated cenario to kill the man only in order to make a statement:
Traitors are not tolerated; NO ONE PLAYS WITH THE FSB.

Simple as that.

And the European Union does have "unlimited resources". It could very well had payed for a especialised American agency like "Blackwater" to do it. Or do you think that only happens in Holywood?

By the way, Putin is BUILDING A NATION and the Eurocrats are just playing with us, testing us for their social experiments and trying to recreate "europe" at their image... So, well done Putin!

"The EU member states and services leak like a sieve."

No, the ones who are really powerfull are very silent and are in the shadows, and that is scarry.

You see, this guy is nuts; he's now in jail despite had done nothing to be there. However, the court sentenced him and he was treated in a very "especial way" by the all system in a surrealistic way... the court sentenced him but could not present any proof worth noting: Racial discrimination and minor agressions.
He was sentenced in the same day that three youths "descended of Christian African immigrants" assaulted a small shop and gang raped the girl who was alone in the shop just three hundred meters away from my home just to be sent free by the judge in same day. If you want, I can provide you a link. Anyway, what is really scarry about that man was the speach he made to the cameras. What is profoundly disturbing is that his speach, the speach of this lunatic man made perfect sense. The system has turned the agressive mode on.

In all this atmosphere you are still believing that the E.U. is too morally "good" to commit murderers and that the real bad guy is Putin?
I wish I was being governed by Putin! Russian girls usually are not gang raped by third worlders.
And the political opponents in Russia are yet to die whenever they do some electoral progress. Think about what really matters...

Lombard1985 said...

I too am tempted to believe that there's more than meets the eye in this tragedy. But a s Queen and others have said, we'll probably never know.

May his spirit rest in peace.

Afonso Henriques said...

Unfrench, all the other cases were "normal", that's the price of politics. In Europe it usually goes that way, just look to the XIX century in this little Southwestern Hispanic corner.

The problem with this is that IF it is true, the sophistication is too great, and the E.U. will never be blamed, or anyone in the E.U..
It's a clean and sophisticated blow. The responsibles will go free. IF it is true.

We are now in an all new level.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

"the sophistication is too great, and the E.U. will never be blamed, or anyone in the E.U..
It's a clean and sophisticated blow. The responsibles will go free. IF it is true."

Exactly, Henriques. I cannot say I am 100% sure it was murder, and I am pretty certain that the investigation will not point to an assassination no matter what. Now I find it scary the way so many right-wing politicians die before they can accomplish anything, and the matter is too important to put suspicions aside just because one is afraid to sound like another conspiracy theorist with a tinfoil hat.

Avery Bullard said...

whiskey:I could believe Putin capable of such acts, but not the EU

whiskey has just made me doubt everything he's ever written. How can a person so intelligent be so naive? How many 'accidents' involving nationalists have to occur in the EU before people start wondering about the odds?

BTW it is extremely unlikely that Litvinenko was killed by Putin. The reason Putin is constantly accused of misdeeds by the George Soros/neocon/pro-EU/pro-American crowd is because he governs like a nationalist. Our anti-nationalist ruling class can't accept that.

darrinh said...

"Progressive" extremists celebrate this tragic death:

Little Green Footballs
Lancaster Unity
Revolutionaryleft.com

Reading the various comments, its hard to tell the difference between them...

Afonso Henriques said...

Unfrench,

Me too does not piously believes that it was assassination.
However it is an acceptable Conspiracy Theory and a Conspiracy Theory is just that, something you don't know for sure something for which you have concurent good points in conflict.
It must never be rulled out.

But I am leaning towards it. Too many coincidences, the state of the car... the sophistication crips me out...

Conservative Swede said...

Unfrench,

Some people here seem to think that the EU cannot be malevolent because it has a benevolent face. This is a little naive.

Exactly! And this is the most annoying feature of this forum. The amazing nativity of far too many of the commenters here. People who indeed came here because they awakened to something, but who frozen in the position of having only one eye half open. People who get it, but still not get it. People who's seen some aspect of how rotten the West is, but haven't followed the traces to its conclusion. People who, probably for sentimental reasons, cannot see the West for what it truly is.

There is nothing crazy about suspecting political murder when one is talking about the death of someone like Haider, who was positively hated by many...

I agree again. And I see that the other commenters here whom I consider sane and fully awakened agree.

Let's have an analytical look at the case:

* Motive - check! A very strong one.
* Timing - perfect! I order to destroy the possibilities for a new government including BZÖ and FPÖ.

This in itself does not lead to any conclusion, but makes it worth discussion, as all the serious people here are doing now.

From the little that I know so far, I think that tampering with the breaks looks like the likely way of killing him. But I would need to know more details of the course of events -- so that it fits such a scenario -- before I would believe in it. We should also await what will be said in the police investigation. Of course that one might very well be tampered with too, but even so there will always be useful information (if nothing else so between the lines).

Conservative Swede said...

I wish I was being governed by Putin! Russian girls usually are not gang raped by third worlders.

Thank you Afonso for expressing this point (which I have been trying to make for some time now) so eloquently.

After all, there are people here in this forum, for whom gang rape of our girls by third worlders in effect has low priority. They might be concerned about it for an instance of a moment (e.g. while reading an article about it), but as soon as the Western propaganda megaphone is shouting into their ears -- how benevolent and free and nice the West is, and how evil and bad Russia or any nation taking care of itself is -- they immediately raise into "at attention" position, animated by the myths, as a an army of robots.

It's a mystery how these people believe in all these lies, given that they know how this propaganda megaphone is persistently lying about so many other things, such as immigration etc. As they say "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". And these people let themselves be fooled over and over and over and over, even though they should know better. I think this accounts for the majority of the Westerners in this forum. When will people ever learn?

Conservative Swede said...

Avery Bullard,

BTW it is extremely unlikely that Litvinenko was killed by Putin. The reason Putin is constantly accused of misdeeds by the George Soros/neocon/pro-EU/pro-American crowd is because he governs like a nationalist.

Exactly! And this is precisely what McCain has against Putin, that he runs Russia putting the interest of Russia and the Russians at the center. To a hyper-internationalist such as McCain this is pure evil.

Regarding Litvinenko, in fact it is not even likely that he was murdered at all. I have been investigating this case carefully and will present it here at GoV. This is an excellent example of the Western propaganda megaphone (that I mentioned above) in action, spurting out tons of the most outrageous lies and distortions, while all the Western sheep (including the supposedly "awakened" ones) just follow the propaganda like robots, without questioning, without checking anything by themselves.

It is of course extremely easy to lie to people who just reflexively believe everything you say, and never check any facts themselves (or do all and any checks within the glass bubble, i.e. confirming the propaganda with another piece of propaganda).

Afonso Henriques said...

Conservative Swede,

thank you once more but you know how I feel about Russia... "Regarding Litvinenko (...) This is an excellent example of the Western propaganda..."

I would very much to see that, but I doubt you will make me believe in that ;)

---------------------------------

Darrin, thank you very much for your links.

I just came from Little Green Footballs and I am astonishing on how badly so many "greats" of this blog were so eager to join in with LGF. What the hell! They have nothing to give us or the world. Let the parish in Mexifornia. They do not have a clue of what Europe is, they fight for anti, anti, anti, they are the true antifas, they are leftist too the bone, they are empty, nihilistic.

You see, I did not understand a thing about that post about nazis and islamists besides that some very stupid people who like to be called nazis see the light in islam. Their problem! I find them nihilistic, I found that post semi-nihilistic and for what I've known, Nazism was not nihilistic.

You can not be against, you have to be pro something!

And LGF is just not worth it. Let them be, forever...

Conservative Swede said...

Afonso,

I would very much to see that, but I doubt you will make me believe in that ;)

Well, it's significantly less interesting what you think now, than what you think after I have presented the case. So far you have only listened to Western lies and the Western propaganda megaphone, and there's nothing but distortion and misinformation from that direction.

The information I will present is so clear and overwhelming that it will speak for itself. So Afonso, I already know something about you that you do not know yourself yet. Namely, what you will think of this case after I have presented it to you.

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...

When I first heard about him being killed on the news, my first thought was murder. I'm highly intuitive and if an impulse is this strong and comes this fast, I'm oftenly correct.

Conservative Swede said...

Some people seem to suggest that a killing could have been ordered by the EUrocrats. No way! It simply doesn't work in that way.

The West works just like Islam, it's a distributed/decentralized system, such as with the voluntary Jihad syndrome. These people do their acts based on what they perceive as the command from higher ideological doctrines; cf. the killer of Pim Fortuyn, Antifa etc.

And quite as in Islam, these violent and murderous (and divinely inspired) people keep the society in terror. And quite as in the Muslim world, the general population is in denial about it.

Anonymous said...

Con Swede, I assume that, to you, I'm one of those naive Westerners, but the first thing I thought, before reading any of the comments, was how suspicious this accident looked. Whether it really was an accident, I have no idea. But I consider the idea of EU higher-ups having somehow "arranged" this accident to be quite reasonable, and if this thought occurs to anyone, it's only natural. Whether or not it really did happen like that, it certainly could have, given all that we know of them and their goals.

I guess there were no witnesses to this accident???

Anonymous said...

Okay, maybe not an EU higher-up, maybe just a free-agent carrying out internalized commands from EUrocrats. Same results.

Afonso Henriques said...

Conservative Swede,

We'll see...

"Some people seem to suggest that a killing could have been ordered by the EUrocrats."

In this case it was (if it is true). The sophistication is too great... If it is true we have entered an all new level. And I am not saying that it was Jean Monet in person who ordered the killing... but some other Eurocrat...

Anonymous said...

Have you all seen this?

Conservative Swede said...

Thanks Natalie,

Mr Haider, 58, was travelling alone at 142km/h (88mph) in a 70km/h zone when his Volkswagen Phaeton V6 crashed.

Knowing that, and looking at pictures and the clip, it looks less likely that he was murdered. Murders generally do not happen in very complicated and far-fetched ways. Anyone who wants to claim the he was murdered will have to come up with a credible story. that fits all the facts we know.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

The fact that Haider was driving too fast proves nothing. His car had been for two days away for repairs and its electronics may have been tampered with. Car assassinations used to be common in the GDR. Here is a description of car assassination methods used in the GDR. It was posted on www.pi-news.de:

#82 Phygos (11. Okt 2008 13:19)
@#6 Hombre
(11. Okt 2008 12:10) @Kreuzritter
Womit würdest du so ein Auto abdrängen wollen, mit Hummer?
Mit Licht. Der Fachausdruck zu Stasizeiten nannte sich damals "verblenden" Dazu baute man in unübersichtlichem Gelände ( meist eine kurvige Landstraße ohne Seitenstreifen) eine Blendanlage auf ( 2 Scheinwerfer + eine Batterie) Bei einfahren des Zielfahrzeugs in die Kurve schaltete man diese mit maximaler Blendwirkung ein und erreichte so die optische Täuschung, ein frontal entgegenkommenden sehr breiten Fahrzeugs ( LKW) Die typische Reaktion ist dann das verreißen des Fahrzeugs nach Rechts von der Straße weg. Das führt einerseits zum Verlassen der festen Straße, und weiterhin meist zu einem mehrfachen Überschlag über die linke Wagenhälfte (Fahrerseite) mit maximalem Schadenseintritt. Ist die Gegend auch noch baumbestanden, kann man auch noch auf ein hochgeschwindiges Auftreffen der Fahrgastzelle an ihrer schwächsten Zone(Türseite) auf einen Baum hoffen, was zu einer Maximierung der Schadenswirkung führt. Wurde zu DDR-Zeiten vom Mfs mehrfach + erfolgreich in Westdeutschland praktiziert. Das ist aber heutzutage so bekannt, das dies jeder Depp durchführen kann. Sogar die Pläne dazu gibt's im Internet. Abmessung der Kurve, Positionierung und Bauanleitung der Lichtanlage die in einen Rucksack passen muss, Zeitpunkt der Blendauslösung, Positionierung von Beobachter und Blender, Spurenminimierung etc etc. Die RAF soll soch in ihren DDR-Lehr/und Versteckjahren auch damit beschäftigt haben. Findet sich aber auch auf einigen linken Aktionsseiten als probates und vorallem spurenfreies Mittel zum Beseitigen von politischen Gegnern.

Afonso Henriques said...

Yeah, thank you Natalie.

But I am still more with Unfrench. That does not mean the conspiracy is over. It only means that the accident is (much) more plausible now.

--------------------------------

By the way, I'm just seeing the most outraging thing: a report on a Catholic priest who is a member of the Communist Party.

Onde foram os Padres como o D. Cerejeira?

Afonso Henriques said...

Something like this may eventually come out.

Baron Bodissey said...

Woden --

Please don't paste long URLs into the comments; they make the post page too wide and mess up the appearance of the permalink page.

Use link tags; the instructions are at the top of the full post's comment section.

----------------------

Woden said...

Apparently he was driving in a government owned car.

link

Tampering with the breaks or accelerator anyone??
Just to add to the conspiracy theories

Henrik R Clausen said...

With the speeding we've seen, I'd say that a pure accident seems more likely. It appears that Haider himself chose to drive like this, and faced the consequences.

Still a throughout examination of the car is desirable. It might even have something similar to the 'Black box' of airplanes, recording the last minutes of the cars' manouvers.

While the timing sure is stunning, I think the technical expertise needed to do sabotaging on a car at this level (computer programming, probably) is available only at the highest level of Volkswagen engineers.

Unless actual evidence comes to the contrary, I'll take this as an honest accident and move on.

Anonymous said...

the technical expertise needed to do sabotaging on a car at this level (computer programming, probably) is available only at the highest level of Volkswagen engineers

Henrik, I don't take a position on whether or not it's an assassination, since I don't know anything, but OTOH, why should we, who don't know what happened, give any hypothetical assassins the benefit of the doubt? Haider, may he rest in peace, could have ruined a lot of things for some very powerful people. Do you really think the people who run the world don't have the resources to set up something like this and then cover it up? Again, I don't have an opinion yet, accidents do happen.

Anonymous said...

Was he known to be a reckless driver? If he was known for driving too fast, it's less suspicious. If not, it's more suspicious.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Latté, I'm not saying "should not be investigated" - see above.

What I am saying is that this does look like an honest accident. There's a witness, a plausible cause and lack of any external events, like stuff that explodes or someone ramming him from the side.

Conspiracy nuts drive me crazy...

Anonymous said...

NYTimes

Jean-Pierre Stirbois, Politician, 43

Published: November 6, 1988
LEAD: Jean-Pierre Stirbois, the second-ranking official in France's far-right National Front, was killed in an automobile accident Friday night, the police said today. He was 43 years old.

Jean-Pierre Stirbois, the second-ranking official in France's far-right National Front, was killed in an automobile accident Friday night, the police said today. He was 43 years old.

Mr. Stirbois, who was driving alone, missed a turn and crashed into a tree after leaving a political rally in Dreux for Paris, the police said. He held the post of Deputy Mayor in Dreux.

Mr. Stirbois's death was a major blow for the National Front, which is led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. The party is struggling to recover from a poor showing in local elections last month and bitter internal disputes.

As Secretary General of the National Front and a trusted confidant of Mr. Le Pen's, Mr. Stirbois played a decisive role in forming the party's anti-tax, anti-immigrant policies.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

I think Haider's enemies have the technological capabilities needed to tamper with the electronics of a vehicle like Haider's so as to make the driver lose control of it, including losing control of speed. Haider's enemies were at the highest level. It is odd that so many right-wing politicians suddenly and unexpectedly die throughout the EU while pols of every other stripe enjoy perfectly good health until they reach a ripe, old age. No, I don't think that Haider "chose" to drive this fast, and no, I will not move on, because it would mean letting his assassins off the hook.

Western Initiatives said...

I think it's safe to assume this was an assassination, until proved otherwise. It's too convenient.

Nationalists of Haider's stature are too significant a threat for the EU to ignore. But I think it might be useful to look at another angle. The Israelis were already spying on Haider, due to his reluctance to denounce the Iraq regime sufficiently, so it's entirely possible Mossad had a role in this. If you read the Israeli media, you will see they are celebrating Haider's death.

Perhaps it's time for some at GoV to reassess the "special relationship" with Israel.

Conservative Swede said...

Unfrench,

I think Haider's enemies have the technological capabilities needed to tamper with the electronics of a vehicle like Haider's so as to make the driver lose control of it, including losing control of speed.

Which would be too risky since in most cases he would have found out how the car behaved strangely in a safe situation and the plot would have been revealed.

But OK let's stay with this hypothesis for a while, making it as good as possible. Today the electronics of a car are computer programs that can be made to do anything. So yes, a program can be added that makes the car lose control whenever it is driven above a certain speed, e.g. 140 km/h. Then the driver won't find out during normal driving, but only once up in high speed. Steering can be made to wobble out of control, break stop functioning, speed accelerate. The driver has no more the control. All this can be done.

I think it can be done so it's more likely to lead to a crash than not. However, I'm not sure the chance for a death crash is over 50%, and that makes the method very risky. The likely result is the victim surviving and witnessing about how the car behaved strangely, and the people doing the last repair will be traced. And they will get the wrath of the car companies over them too.

It's all possible. But no, it's too unlikely. I don't believe in it.

Conservative Swede said...

Mr-Nazi-shirts wrote:

Perhaps it's time for some at GoV to reassess the "special relationship" with Israel.

Maybe you should just drop your obsession with the Jews.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Perhaps it's time for some at GoV to reassess the "special relationship" with Israel.

WI, theories of grandiose sinister Jewish conspiracies went out of fashion in 1945 - the hard way. Except of course in Islamic countries, where the mindset still exists.

Trying to revitalize these abominations, without even the slightest of evidence, is plain dumb.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

Conservative Swede,

I did not mean to say that the vehicle's electronics were set to cause its driver to lose control once a certain speed level was attained. I meant to say that the the vehicle could have been remote controlled to suddenly start speeding and become unsteerable. This, made to happen at a convenient location and in conjunction with a sudden blinding light flashed into the driver's eyes from the road, is more than enough to cause this kind of accident.

Western Initiatives said...

Conservative Swede & Henrik -- It sounds as if you both are reading from the same script. Your blindness would be amusing, you know, if it weren't so pathetic. Don't be a tool.

Henrik R Clausen said...

It sounds as if you both are reading from the same script.

We are.

Jews have contributed more to science and culture than any other etnic group, and assuming them to be full of evil plots is just - evil. Mossad, BTW, is one of the finest intelligence services out there.

Your blindness would be amusing, you know, if it weren't so pathetic.

Derogatives, no documentation.

No reason to take you seriously, and plenty of reasons not to.

Don't be a tool.

Still no documentation, no reasoning, only this blind assumption that some sinister Israeli/Jewish conspiracy must be behind this.

Nothing to see here, move on.

The_Editrix said...

Unbelievable! It's as if someone said "All stupid people please write a comment here". And so the stupid people did.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

"Unbelievable! It's as if someone said "All stupid people please write a comment here". And so the stupid people did."
No, you're mistaken: that someone actually said: "if you don't have anything to say that is relevant to the topic at hand, please abstain from posting."

Unfrench Frenchman said...

Many questions remain unanswered about Haider's death:

info.kopp-verlag.de:

Eine Art über- oder außerirdisches Phänomen scheint das Fahrzeug zerstört zu haben. Die Luxusklasse-Limousine steht weitgehend zermatscht auf der Fahrbahn, wie eine Fliege, deren vorderer Teil von einem riesigen Stiefel zertreten wurde. Genau über dem Fahrerplatz klafft ein kreisrund wirkendes Loch.

Da staunt der Fachmann, und der Laie wundert sich: So dürfte diese Limousine eigentlich gar nicht aussehen: »Der VW Phaeton, die Luxuskarosse des deutschen Autoherstellers, gilt jedenfalls als sehr sicheres Fahrzeug«, schrieb der österreichische Standard: »Das Portal ›Auto Motor und Sport‹ bescheinigte der Limousine nach einem Crashtest ›besten Insassenschutz‹.« Das kann man wohl sagen. In einem Phaeton sitzt man so sicher wie in Abrahams Schoß, jedenfalls, wenn man der VW Werbung glaubt:

»Der Einsatz von 16 unterschiedlichen Metallen und Spezialkunststoffen sowie eine computeroptimierte Rahmenkonstruktion sorgen für ein Höchstmaß an Stabilität und Crash-Sicherheit sowie für eine konkurrenzlos hohe Torsionssteifigkeit. Und auch beim Flankenschutz setzt der Phaeton zum Schutz der Passagiere beim Seitencrash Maßstäbe. Dieses hohe Niveau setzt sich im Innern des Phaeton fort: Passagiere werden von zwei Frontairbags, vier Seitenairbags sowie zwei innovativen Kopfairbags auf die Tausendstelsekunde präzise geschützt. Kontrolliert werden die Airbags von Early-Crash-Sensoren, die sich an verschiedenen Punkten der Karosserie befinden und im Falle eines Unfalls in Millisekunden exakte Informationen über Unfallschwere, -winkel und -gegner übermitteln. Jeder einzelne Airbag reagiert dann selbständig und punktgenau. Und in perfektem Zusammenspiel mit den Anschnallgurten, die in Verbindung mit den 18-Wege-Sitzen über zwei Gurtretraktoren verfügen. Dieses neuartige System erlaubt nicht nur erheblich mehr Bewegungsfreiheit und damit mehr Komfort, es bietet auch einen höheren Schutz: Der Gurt liegt in jeder Situation straff am Körper an und wirkt Fliehkräften schneller entgegen. Ebenfalls einzigartig sind die aktiven Kopfstützen mit AKS-Funktion: Sie verringern bei einer Heckkollision in Bruchteilen von Sekunden automatisch den Abstand zwischen Kopf und Kopfstütze und reduzieren so das Risiko eines Schleudertraumas erheblich.« (Phaeton-Prospekt)



VW Phaeton: »Höchstmaß an Stabilität und Crash-Sicherheit, konkurrenzlos hohe Torsionssteifigkeit, zwei Frontairbags, vier Seitenairbags, zwei innovative Kopfairbags, Early-Crash-Sensoren, zwei Gurtretraktoren und aktive Kopfstützen, Elektronisches Stabilitätsprogramm (ESP), ABS ...«



Erstaunlicherweise aber erscheint nicht nur das Auto wie von einem großen Stiefel zertreten, sondern – pietätlos formuliert – auch der Insasse wie durch einen Fleischwolf gedreht: Trotz Kopf-, Seiten- und Front-Airbags, Gurtstraffern und Flankenschutz schwerste Kopf-, Brust- und Wirbelverletzungen, den fast abgerissenen Arm nicht zu vergessen. Ja, genau wie das Auto muss die Leiche ein grauenvolles Bild der Zerstörung geboten haben. Jede der festgestellten Verletzungen wäre für sich tödlich gewesen, stellten die Gerichtsmediziner fest. Erstaunlich: Wie kann es zu einem so totalen Versagen der zahlreichen Sicherheitseinrichtungen des Luxus-Fahrzeugs kommen?

Verletzungen dieser Art sind bei den Insassen eines solchen Fahrzeugs normalerweise eher bei Unfällen der »Lady Di-Klasse« zu erwarten: Mit 180 bis 200 Stundenkilometern ungebremst gegen einen Betonpfeiler. Fahrzeuge wie der Phaeton sind für hohe Geschwindigkeiten (Höchstgeschwindigkeit des Haider-Phaeton: 239 km/h) und raue Umgebungen wie Autobahnleitplanken oder gar Brückenpfeiler gebaut. Selbst da sollen sie dem Fahrer noch eine gewisse Überlebenschance bieten.

Die Umgebung, in der der Haider-Phaeton zermatscht wurde, wirkt dagegen harmlos. Weit und breit nur »weiche Ziele«: Büsche, Gartenzäune, Vorgärten – zu den Wänden der Einfamilienhäuser ist der Phaeton gar nicht durchgedrungen.



Wo man hinsieht, nur »weiche Ziele«: Hecken, Büsche, Vorgärten ...



Gegen Verkehrsschilder, eine Hecke und einen Hydranten sei der Phaeton geprallt, ist den Medien zu entnehmen. Nicht besonders beeindruckend:

Von dem Hydranten gibt es nirgends ein Foto.
Der überall erwähnte »Betonpfeiler« entpuppt sich als ein etwa einen halben Meter aus dem Boden ragender, scharfkantiger Pfosten mit vielleicht 20 Zentimetern Kantenlänge. Er steht nur etwas schräg, als sei er nur leicht touchiert worden und nicht, als habe er ein Zweieinhalb-Tonnen-Auto aufs Dach gelegt. Man sieht auch keinerlei Lackspuren.


»Betonpfeiler«, aufgewühlte Erde und Bepflanzung – am Fahrzeug sieht man davon keine Spur ...




»Haider fährt auf dem zweiten Fahrstreifen, vorbei am Auto einer 37-jährigen Klagenfurterin«, schildert die Kleine Zeitung der Steiermark den Unfall: »Dann reiht sich der Politiker wieder auf den ersten Fahrstreifen ein. Dabei geschieht das Unfassbare. Ein Rad der allradgetriebenen Limousine gerät rechts über den Asphaltrand auf das Grasbankett. Jörg Haider versucht zu korrigieren. Der Wagen kommt auf die grasbewachsene Böschung, dreht sich 360 Grad um die eigene Achse, wird zum unlenkbaren Geschoss.«

Geschoss klingt gut. Aber um aus einem Phaeton ein »unlenkbares Geschoss« zu machen, bedarf es doch etwas mehr. Deshalb ist diese Schilderung leider ziemlich schwierig nachvollziehbar. Von der Fahrerin gibt es nirgends einen Namen oder ein Foto. Angesichts der Tatsache, dass der Phaeton über eine fast gerade Strecke fuhr und sowohl über ABS als auch über das Elektronische Stabilitätsprogramm ESP verfügte, mit dem man sogar über Eis fahren kann, ohne ins Schleudern zu geraten, ist dieser Hergang wenig plausibel. Mit anderen Worten: So ein Auto fährt wie auf Schienen. Typische Faktoren für solche Unfälle fehlen außerdem:

nasse Straße
Eis oder Schnee
Alkohol am Steuer
Weiter mit der Kleinen Zeitung:

»Mit der Fahrerseite ›rasiert‹ das Auto einen Betonpfeiler, Thujen und Gartenzaun eines Einfamilienhauses, einen Hydranten, überschlägt sich und bleibt schließlich nach 36 Metern total zertrümmert auf den Rädern im rechten Winkel zur Fahrbahn stehen.«

Ein Auto, das auf ein Grasbankett schliddert, auf eine grasbewachsene Böschung rast, Lebensbäume und einen Gartenzaun mitnimmt, sollte außerdem eine ganze Menge Grünzeug und Erde aufsammeln. Indessen: Das Fahrzeug ist absolut sauber: Weder an den Reifen, noch an der Karosserie klebt auch nur der kleinste Grashalm.





Trotz Irrfahrt durch Hecken und Grasstreifen: Nicht das kleinste bisschen Grünzeug an Haiders Fahrzeug, rechtes Hinterrad angehoben, rechtes Vorderrad auf die Straße gequetscht.




Demnach kann Haiders Fahrzeug kaum durch einen Haufen Grün gepflügt sein. Der Unfalltheorie nach muss das Auto vor allem mit der rechten Seite in die Zäune, Büsche und Bäume gerast sein. Die rechte Seite ist – bis auf den Bug – jedoch fast unbeschädigt. Nicht mal Längs-Kratzspuren an den Türen. Ja, auch eine charakteristische Delle des »Betonpfostens« fehlt auf der rechten Seite. Der scharfkantige Pfosten hätte eine prägnante Einprägung oder auffällige Schleifspuren hinterlassen sollen.

Total zerstört ist dagegen die linke Seite – die Fahrerseite. Von wegen »Überschlag«: Das Dach scheint im hinteren Bereich demgegenüber vollkommen unversehrt zu sein.



Hinteres Dach erscheint nach »Überschlag« unbeschädigt ...




Dafür wirkt der Bug des Fahrzeugs an den Boden gequetscht, die Vorderreifen sind geplatzt und wurden teilweise von den Felgen gedrückt. Das Heck blieb dagegen weitgehend formstabil, die Hinterreifen haben noch Luft. Der rechte Hinterreifen scheint sogar etwas über dem Boden zu schweben. Das heißt: Die enorme Last muss vor allem links vorne auf das Auto gewirkt haben, so dass es in der Diagonalen angehoben wurde.

Berücksichtigt man alle Bilder, weist die Schneise der Verwüstung von rechts vorne über die gesamte Kühlerhaube nach links zu dem Loch über dem Fahrersitz. Danach verlässt sie das Fahrzeug wieder. Die Türen sind herausgeflogen oder -getrennt (laut Medienberichten schon beim Eintreffen des Notarztes), der linke Heckbereich ist aber unbeschädigt. Hier hat also keine Einwirkung mehr stattgefunden. Insgesamt bleiben fast die gesamte rechte Seite, die Heckscheibe, das hintere Dach, die Hinterräder, der Kofferraum und das linke Heck so gut wie unbeschädigt.



Haider-Phaeton: Die Schneise der Verwüstung …




Interessant ist, wie eilig die Medien es haben, »Verschwörungstheorien« zu psychiatrisieren: »Unerwartete aufsehenerregende und oft grausame Ereignisse beschäftigen die Menschen und wirken je nach Betroffenheitsgrad traumatisch«, schreibt der österreichische Kurier: »Bei einem belastenden Ereignis sucht der Mensch immer nach Erklärungen, weil sein Selbst- und Weltverständnis erschüttert wird«, beruft sich der Kurier auf eine Psychologin namens Eva Münker-Kramer.

Hätte sie nur geschwiegen. Denn damit wird die Marschrichtung schon mal klar: Wer nachdenkt, steht bestenfalls unter Schock, schlimmstenfalls hat er einen an der Waffel. Ein Reflex der offiziellen Medien, der nachdenklich stimmt: Warum ist so etwas hier nötig?

Baron Bodissey said...

Unfrench --

Fewer than half our readers understand German. Please include a translation or at least a precis if you paste long German articles here; otherwise leave them out.

And when I say a translation, I don't mean just a machine translation, which is usually inadequate.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

I'll see if I find the time to translate that. Many posters here just don't know what they are talking about because they are living on the other side of the pond where they read short English-language news stories about Haider's demise. If you really want to know about the particulars of Haider's car crash death, I can only advise you to read German-language material in case you have some German. After all, this happened in Austria, which is a German speaking country, and so commentators in the know write in German about this event, rather than in English.

Unfrench Frenchman said...

Here is a translation of the first part of the text:

"A sort of supra- or extraterrestrial event seems to have destroyed the vehicle. The luxury sedan stands on the road crushed like a fly whose front part has been trodden on. Just above the driver's seat, a round hole is gaping.

There the expert marvels and the layman wonders: that vehicle should not look like that: "The VW Phaeton, the luxury model by the German car maker, is known as a very safe vehicle" Austria's Standard wrote: "In a crash test by the ›Auto Motor und Sport‹ portal the sedan came out as the vehicle with "best passenger security". (...)

Yet, oddly enough, not only the car looks like it has been crushed by a huge boot, its driver - to put it bluntly - looks as if he was run through a meat grinder: in spite of head-, side- and front airbags, of belt pretensioners and an interlocking route safety guards, he sustained severe injuries to the head, breast and spine, and an arm was almost completely severed. Just like the car, the corpse must have presented a horrific picture of destruction. Nearly every injury that was observed would have been lethal on its own, the coroners said. Astonishing: How could all the safety devices on the luxury car fail so completely?

Injuries of this kind you would rather expect to befall the victims of a Lady Di-class crash: a full 110-125 miles per hour run into a concrete pole. Vehicles such as the Phaeton are built for high speed levels (...) and rugged conditions like highway guardrails or even bridge poles. Even there they are supposed to provide a driver with a certain chance of survival.

The circumstances in which Haider's Phaeton was crushed seem benign. As far as the eyes can see, only "soft targets" come to view: thickets, garden fences, front gardens - the Phaeton didn't run up to the walls of the single-family homes.

Far and wide, "soft targets" and nothing else: hedgerows, shrubs, frontyards...

According to media reports the Phaeton is supposed to have run into road signs, a hedgerow and a fireplug. Not really impressive: nowhere on any picture is a fire hydrant to be seen.
The "concrete pole" mentioned in every story turns out to be a sharp-edged post no higher than two feet above ground and with an edge length of eight inches. It looks hardly touched, not at all like it should after putting a two-and-a-half ton car on its roof. No trace of car paint is visible either.

Concrete pole, churned up soil and plants - none of that has left a trace on the vehicle..."

Maybe I'll post some more later.