RELIGIOUS NUT PAT ROBERTSON'S
FATWA AGAINST HUGO CHAVEZ

From the Houston Chronicle:

Pat Robertson ignites war of words

During Monday's broadcast of Robertson's show, The 700 Club , on the Christian Broadcasting Network, the 75-year-old host painted Chavez as a menace intent on spreading communism throughout the hemisphere.

Rather than waging a war, Robertson said, it would be cheaper and easier to assassinate the Venezuelan leader.

"I don't know about this doctrine of assassination. But if (Chavez) thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said.

"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," he said.

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Communism? Communism?!? Robertson wants us to assassinate a democratically elected leader in order to stop him from spreading communism??? That's almost funny: not even the Red Chinese are communist anymore--indeed, nobody's communist anymore, except for maybe Chavez's buddy Castro, but Cuba is something of a joke as far as global influence is concerned. Forgive me for pounding away at the obvious, but there is simply no such thing as a communist threat in the 21st century.

Robertson's clearly a total loon, but that doesn't make his decree any less serious.

From Democracy Now, a whole bunch of context:

The Cannon of Christianity

AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to end by asking about this comment of the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States being concerned in if and when Hugo Chavez comes to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings in September, as so many heads of state do from around the world, what this means for him. Will Pat Robertson be detained during that time because he presents a danger to a foreign president?

MICHAEL RATNER: You know, this is – you know this is – we should not underestimate the seriousness of what Robertson did. I mean, what we have here is a man with millions of adherents around the world, in this country, possibly in Venezuela and other places. And when that person says it's good to take somebody out, it's good to assassinate him, what is he saying to his adherents except go for this guy? So, when Robertson – when Chavez is in Venezuela, there may be some guys there, when he comes to the U.S., obviously, this is the heart and core of Robertson's support, and is that statement, are his strong statements about what this guy represents going to cause somebody to do something? So, they have cause – they have asked for real protection, if and when Chavez comes here.

CHRIS HEDGES: And I think we have to remember that the radical fringe of this movement is violent, that those who attack abortion clinics, those who embrace this creed and are members of militia movements are people who not only believe in the use of violence but practice the use of violence. So, what you have potentially is the incitement of these fringe groups within the movements who are happy and willing to use force.

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Despite Robertson's obvious insanity, he wields a great deal of influence. His death sentence against Chavez is no joke. But, wait! Robertson claims that he never actually said anything about assassinating Chavez. No, wait, scratch that. Robertson apologizes for his fatwa. I mean...oh, just read this bit from the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Robertson apologizes for assassination remark

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized today for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, only hours after he denied saying Chavez should be killed.

"Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."

And

Today, he initially denied having called for Chavez to be killed and said The Associated Press had misinterpreted his remarks.

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,'" Robertson said on his show. "'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

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Well, actually, he did say "assassination," and made it completely clear that he wanted Chavez dead. I guess that's why he finally issued an apology. Ha! Still, despite the great fun it is seeing Robertson humiliate himself, this is no lauging matter.

Robertson is coming at the Venezuela issue from a decidedly fundamentalist point of view, seeing Chavez's leftist populism as an atheist threat to "Christian America," but that view reflects the much more sane, albeit evil, position of the wealthy elite. That is, it's pretty routine for the world financial establishment to punish third world nations that attempt to use what little wealth they have for much needed social reform by pulling out their capital. In other words, all international investment comes with strings attached: third world nations are to be run for the benefit of the global corporate elite alone; citizens be damned.

Oil-rich Venezuela is something of a wild card in this game. They can afford to tell foreign investors to go to hell, and build more schools and hospitals if they are so inclined. That might be okay because it's only one country out of hundreds, except for the fact that they set the wrong example for other third world nations. That's why the elites hate Chavez; that's why the US so quickly supported the failed coup there a couple of years back. That's the real threat, not communism.

Of course, Robertson isn't worried about that so much as he is working his own fundamentalist riff on the Chavez threat. But that doesn't really matter in this era of the pervasive conservative echo chamber: lots of Americans, fundamentalist and secular alike, probably agree with Robertson. And he just gave the true psychos among them the proverbial license to kill.

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