The comments made by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of the popular and democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are repellent, and are customary of a confused man who has purposely swapped the compassionate teachings of Jesus with his spiteful doctrine of murder and mayhem.
The Associated Press transcribed Robertson’s comments made during his “700 Club” television show on August 22. “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he (Chavez) thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go a head and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.
“We have the ability to take him out, and I think that the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
Knowing that some would rightly point at the linkage between Robertson and the Republican Party, various Republican figures — including former Sen. Bob Dole and Sen. Norm Coleman among others — went into crisis management mode, reproaching the man who once ran for the Republican nomination for presidency. Indeed, in 1988, Robertson defeated the eventual nominee, George H. W. Bush in the Iowa caucuses.
His comments are “ludicrous, ridiculous (and) irresponsible,” said Dole. The White House dismissed Robertson’s incitement as “inappropriate,” while Rumsfeld — with a soft spot for religious extremism, unless on course it’s Muslim extremism — opted to resort to his twisted interpretation of civil society and the private citizen’s right to express himself. Robertson is a “private citizen”, Rumsfeld said, and “private citizens say all kinds of things all the time. Next question.”
Yet what I find most interesting are comments made by Sen. Coleman, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “It was an incredibly stupid statement and has no reflection on reality,” he said, as quoted in an article published by CBCNews.com.
Coleman’s comment is interesting because it’s simply not true. In fact, Robertson’s assassination bid is a dreadful expression of a reality that continues to incarnate itself in US foreign policy around the world. While this reality is anything but a novel invention by President Bush and his “endless war” crowd, never before has such a frightening pack of religious extremists, Zionist ideologues and pro-war military enthusiasts consolidated their control over the White House, almost completely marginalizing any calls for sense and reason.
Considering the special relationship between the Bush administration and this powerful and extremist clique, one must not easily dismiss Robertson’s comments as he has explained later: A result of his “frustration”. Nor can one afford to ignore the fact the Robertson’s “700 Club” — aired five times a week — has an average viewership of 863,000, that’s over 150,000 more viewers than any CNN primetime program and over three times as much as that of MSNBC. If it was not for this large reservoir of support, wealth and political influence, one could choose to settle for the White House’s mild rebuke of Robertson’s call for assassination, or Chavez’s own, more imaginative depiction of Robertson and other critics as “mad dogs with rabies.”
But this is not exactly about Robertson and his “frustration” with a Latin American president who has helped the poor of his country as much as Bush has deprived the poor of his. This is more about the reality of the foreign policy agenda of the US government that saw, in 2000, Chavez as a “threat” for providing Cuba with cheap oil in exchange for the deployment of 22,000 Cuban doctors to rural areas in Venezuela, followed by the tacit support of the organized coup to overthrow the charismatic leader in April 2002. The fact is that successive US governments have attempted, orchestrated or supported the assassination of many leaders around the world.
It was this inviting atmosphere of bloodshed that made the Robertson with his “can-do” attitude decide to “take out” Chavez. It was against the backdrop, which Sen. Coleman falsely disowned — that Robertson spoke, and thus it is against the same backdrop that his comments should be examined. Indeed, Robertson’s statements were stupid, for they should be discussed and considered in private meetings and not on national television. That way it would have freed more air time so that Robertson and nearly one million viewers of his can carry on praying for Israel, condemning Muslims, the Palestinians, and all who dare question the motives behind wars and mass murder.
