Robertson: U.S. should 'take out' Venezuela's Chavez

[bishop]

you know.. when you hear robertson speak, and then you hear these zealots talk about their "family values" conferences - they all say the same damn thing.

the line "the greatest danger to this country is judicial activism" has been said by many more people than patty robertson..

[bishop]

something else...

isn't this advocating terrorism? if bin laden advocates assassinating bush, wouldn't that be called terrorism? seems to me that robertson's dumbass is advocating terrorism as well.

if they want to test out their patriot act powers, they should lock that start by locking up this nutjob for a bit.

[PatrickHenry]

He sorta looks like a chipmunk. But maybe he's rabid...

[Rainbow]

Quote by: bishop http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/rob...vez/index.html Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas

Pat Robertson should lecture people on Morality and Ethics.
Pat is obviously getting older, and that dramatically reflects his grey-cells' aging process. It clearly shows that Pat is having delusions and/or (somehow) hallucinates.

[bishop]

pat is no different than the rest of the evanglical asshats. he's in the club with people like jerry falwell who blamed 9/11 on gays and lesbians.. there are loads of other twits just like them, so don't go scapegoating robertson as if he's the only one.

for all the preaching these self-proclaimed champions of christian morals do, they sure seem mighty immoral. high and mighty holy rollers that they are.

[bill3]

Pat Robertson's comment was one that comes from the mind of a man, not from the Lord. We Christians are called to love all persons and that does not mean except .......... The Lord has the situastion in hand. If Hugo Chavez is to be killed, the Lord will provide for it. If not, the Lord will allow him to live.

[righthand]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel WTF? Strong arm dictator? The people love Chavez, they elected him fair and square, unlike the crap they are selling us here all wrapped up like democracy. A gift wrapped turd is still a turd.

"The people love Chavez, they elected him fair and square". Absolutely true. I was going to say elected how many times and then remembered georgie. Then I remembered the "fair and square" bit and knew for sure we were both right, gr8fuldaniel.

This I also agree with. I didn't think that TIME would get it right.

Why Pat Robertson's Statements Help Hugo Chavez
TIME ... Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2005 ...By TIM PADGETT
The Venezuelan President has long thrived on criticism from the U.S.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has a new best friend this morning: television evangelist Pat Robertson. With his astonishing call for the left-wing leader's assassination last night—"I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it...We have the ability to take him out"—Robertson will have surely made Chavez an even more popular anti-yanqui icon in Venezuela, Latin America and around the world. Like his mentor Fidel Castro, Chavez thrives on threats from the U.S., real or perceived. He has long insisted that his foes are plotting to kill him, and this summer had armed civilians training with the Venezuelan military to prepare for what he says is an imminent U.S. invasion. A public effort to whack him, offered from the right-wing Christian establishment so closely aligned with President Bush, is just what Chavez needs to keep his approval ratings soaring as high as the price of the Venezuelan oil he controls, the largest crude reserves in the hemisphere. Chavez is no doubt a source of concern for Washington, if only because Venezuela is America's fourth-largest foreign oil supplier. Chavez's erratic and often bellicose anti-U.S. rhetoric—he publicly called Bush an "ass____" in Spanish last year—as well as his desire to sell less oil to the U.S. and more to ideological allies like China, are hardly comforting as gas nears $3 per gallon. But neither is Chavez's embrace of nations like Iran, and nor is the fact that he's leading a politically potent (and, to the Bush Administration, potentially destabilizing) wave of angry neo-leftism in Latin America, from Argentina to Mexico. But Chavez holds cards that make remarks like Robertson's all the more incendiary on the Latin American street, where language like "U.S. imperialism" suddenly has currency again. One is the past: Latin Americans have too many vivid and bitter memories of U.S. intervention in their countries—operations that sometimes included brazen assassinations —which is why the Bush Administration got burned by accusations it backed a failed coup against Chavez in 2002 (the White House denies the charge). Another is democratic legitimacy: Chavez, for all his authoritarian tendencies, is a democratically elected head of state who last year won a national recall referendum approved by international observers. Perhaps an even more important factor is populist backing: leftism is on the rise again in Latin America for a reason, namely the burgeoning feeling around the region that a decade of U.S.-backed capitalist reforms has simply widened an already epic gap between rich and poor—and that the Bush Administration is indifferent to it. As Chavez uses his multi-billion-dollar oil revenues to fund the kind of social projects that Venezuela's legions of impoverished never saw from his kleptocratic predecessors—and to subsidize cheaper oil for his cash-strapped Latin neighbors—more people are willing to defend him, as most Latin leaders did last spring when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice toured South America. As a result, any cold war-style talk about "taking Chavez out" with "covert operatives," as Robertson suggested, just confers more Che Guevara cachet on the former army lieutenant colonel (who himself led a failed coup in 1992). And since Chavez has threatened to cut off oil exports to the U.S. at the first sign of gringo aggression, it makes America's important Venezuelan oil supply look all the more volatile.

This is really good. This is more than could be expected from a US magazine. They might have included that he is the pinup for all of Latin America; that he has more backbone than the Andes; that all but Columbia is behind him; that he wins his battles like chairman of OAS. I could go on all night.

[Jack]

The Administration reacts.

The Bush administration swiftly distanced itself Tuesday from a suggestion by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, long at odds with U.S. foreign policy. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing at a Pentagon news conference, said when asked: "Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law. He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time." Acknowledging differences with the Caracas government, and saying it should be promoting democracy in the Western Hemisphere, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks "inappropriate." "This is not the policy of the United States government. We do not share his views," McCormack said of Robertson's suggestion that the United States "take out" Chavez to stop Venezuela from becoming a "launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism." Separately, the Rev. Jesse Jackson issued a statement denouncing Robertson's remarks as "morally reprehensible and dangerously suggestive."

[gr8fuldaniel]

Venezuela responds:

LA TIMES Venezuela Slams Robertson Over Remarks By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer CARACAS, Venezuela -- Pat Robertson's call for American agents to assassinate President Hugo Chavez is a "terrorist" statement that needs to be investigated by U.S. authorities, Venezuela said Tuesday. The Bush administration quickly distanced itself from the religious broadcaster. <snip - - - - - - Note: Chavez doesnt know who Robertson is but.....> In Venezuela, however, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said the U.S. response to Robertson would be a test of its anti-terrorist policy and that Venezuela was studying its legal options. "It's a huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those," Rangel said. More....

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Rainbow Pat Robertson should lecture people on Morality and Ethics. Pat is obviously getting older, and that dramatically reflects his grey-cells' aging process. It clearly shows that Pat is having delusions and/or (somehow) hallucinates.

I would suggest that these are not delusions, but the mans true character showing through.


This statement also reminds me of how Jesse Jackson lectured Billy Clinton about his morals just prior to his own outing on ethics violations.


...anf they say its always the quiet ones...

[arlogirl]

Puh -leez. Get some cajones, kids. The world isn't pretty, and it certainly isn't perfect. Honestly, I'm all for going for the jugular. Way to let them hang, Robertson.
Some of us are willing to let the big guys take care of the human cockroaches that block the progression and liberty of others. It's a dirty job. And some of us are willing to admit it. And then others are willing to say it.
You can sit around and think of willy-nilly and unrealitsic methods of dealing with such problems. Usually those solutions are viable only in a controlled environment [maybe a vacuum?]
It would be nice if people didn't act as animals, but they do and they will...treat them accordingly.
Where has everyone's muster gone?

[Jack]

For one thing, the U.S. is terribly poor at carrying out political assassination. The vast majority of those we've attempted we've failed at.
But the subject here isn't whether or not the country should assassinate a foreign leader, it's that a supposedly religious leader would so casually suggest we should, in contrast to all that his own religion holds sacred.

[Trotsky]

Quote by: arlogirl Puh -leez. Get some cajones, kids. The world isn't pretty, and it certainly isn't perfect. Honestly, I'm all for going for the jugular. Way to let them hang, Robertson. Some of us are willing to let the big guys take care of the human cockroaches that block the progression and liberty of others. It's a dirty job. And some of us are willing to admit it. And then others are willing to say it. You can sit around and think of willy-nilly and unrealitsic methods of dealing with such problems. Usually those solutions are viable only in a controlled environment [maybe a vacuum?] It would be nice if people didn't act as animals, but they do and they will...treat them accordingly. Where has everyone's muster gone?

What the fact that Chavez has the popular support of a large majority in Venezuala and the only real oppositon he has comes from big buisness means he is infringing on the liberty of others?? Get a grip child. I'm nae his biggest fan, the mans a deluded socialist for christ sake, but he was elected fairly, he managed to resist a US 'encouraged' coup. Untill the majority of Venezualan's want himout, he's perfectly entitled to stay. And before you say it, the elections were monitored by several independant groups, with the only major reports of electoral fraud being reported in areas where opposition candidates were returned.

[tinybear]

Yep. Much as I hate to say it, Hugo Chavez was elected fairly and squarely by the Venezuelan people and, like it or not, he's entitled to stay.