Given what they are willing to do, why aren't there more? Of course, there are still plenty of people that are disappeared, in China and Russia, in particular. And some edge cases, like Princess Diana, where we aren't sure it was an assassination or not.
Here are few proposals on why there aren't more in places like the USA and the Netherlands, excluding dictatorships or 3rd world countries. Please add more.
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If you're in the public eye, it looks too suspicious.
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Counter-blackmail.
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Most people aren't worth killing. Character assassination is more effective at silencing people.
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Fear of assassination and counter-assassinations spiraling out of control. This assumes there are multiple groups of competing elites.
The basic system of control has been for a long time:
So, assassination is always at the bottom of the pile, almost as a last resort.
Why? It's too messy, too much eyes on what happened, risks getting caught.
Besides grooming, corrupting, bribing and bringing into network new people always takes time. If you kill somebody it takes time to replace him/her which puts all big efforts on hold, until the new person is in place.
Assassinations are almost exclusive used when all the other options are exhausted, there is a hurry and no time to do the usual stuff, or there is a need to send a public message of humiliation-control to other people : "you are not in control, you are not safe, we can get to you anywhere and anytime".
These are good points.
Vetting implies within the control system already in place. Before that has to be the suggestion of a system tempting others to consent to the system, which in return permits control of consentee with suggested.
Suggestion implies control system of others for each consenting one.