Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Fatwah of Pat Robertson



He has recently advocated assassinating Hugo Chavez:

ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think 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.

Atrios points out how it is odd for a man of God to advocate assassination, not because the object of the fatwah would be guilty of torture or the violation of human rights or anything of that sort but for the simple crime of sitting on a whole lot of oil that the U.S. wants.

I'd like to point out that now Robertson is mainstream in this country. Now people who we laughed at only a decade ago hold the steering wheels in the media, and what they say is taken seriously and discussed all over the blogosphere. Gah. I'm going out to watch the guy who preaches about the end of the world at the nearby street corner. He'll be the next president of the U.S., probably, and if I can get in at this early stage my career will be made.