Here’s Salon.com quoting Pat Robertson’s interesting approach to popularly elected leaders of other sovereign nations. Pat Robertson is a great teacher and leader of the so-called Christian right. But if the only trump values are oil and power – how is that Christian?
Pat Robertson is all about the sanctity of human life — except when he isn’t. The Christian Coalition founder and Christianist political activist said on his television show Monday that it’s time for the United States to stop Venezuela from becoming “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.” How do you do that? Assassinate the president, Robertson says.
“We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,” the Associated Press quotes Robertson as saying. “It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
“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,” Robertson said. ”It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
Ahh. As long as no oil shipments stop.
He sees in Venezuela “communist infiltration and muslim extremism”. Wow. That sounds almost like the take Presidents Johnson and Nixon had on Vietman, only more ecumenical. I’ll bet Osama and Saddam and MTV are involved too. And maybe even Senator Hagel and the Dixie Chicks and the teletubbies.
Some people have funny little hangups about destroying other people’s lives and manipulating other governments by violence and lawlessness. Some people call that “terrorism,” and launch wars against it. But for Robertson it seems it’s not terror as long WE do it – we’re the good guys after all – and especially if we do it to keep other people’s oil flowing into the right hands.
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I think Pat Robertson advocated political assasination 5-6 years ago, so while I find this disturbing, I do not find it surprising. But what is even more disturbing than his comments is that other leaders of the religious right assent to it by their silence. At the heart of Robertson’s objection to Chavez is that he publicly criticized President Bush and the Iraq war. The most extreme among them could interpret this to advocate violence against anyone who disagrees with them, and their silence on the matter is nothing less than morally bankrupt.
It will be a revealing experience to learn whether those religious or political groups who side with or are backed by Mr. Robertson will be capable of an unequivocal disclaimer of his utterly outrageous remarks. Just talking of “personal opinions” as Donald Rumsfeld does, is certainly not enough. One can see throughout history how neatly even a passive backing of murderous machinations may work if spiritual leaders poison the public opinion and are not checked by a firm front of denouncement. Last time, we saw such a thing happen, was when Ayatollah Khomeini levelled a “death sentence” at Salman Rushdie. I have especially sore feelings at this issue because my homeland, Germany, has experienced how infamous the atmosphere of political murder can grow, as large parts of middle-class society have virtually pandered to the assassinations of Walther Rathenau and Gustav Stresemann in the 1920s, thus contributing to the unsettlement of the Weimar Republic, which found itself deprived of its most spirited and able politicians. It gets nothing better for this being brought upon a foreign nation.
As to Mr. Robertson’s religious homestead, the Southern Baptist Convention has carefully avoided reprehension. SBC president Bobby Welch is quoted thus: “The Southern Baptist Convention does not support or endorse public statements concerning assassinations of persons, even if they are despicable despots of foreign countries, and neither do I”. (italics by me) This is a pronouncement the pertinent core of which should go entirely without saying in a civilized, let alone christian culture. But even this shade of rebuke is immediately obliterated by one more of those seemingly never-to-die slanderous suggestions against the legitimacy of Mr. Chavez’s presidency, despite his clear victory in last year’s presidential recall referendum, the democratic standard of which was extensively overlooked and eventually endorsed by the Carter Center in cooperation with the OAS (Organisation of American States).
I honestly suggest that Mr. Robertson should be called upon in stern manner to apologize first to Mr. Chavez, then to his people, who by majority are setting a most reasonable hope in their president, and finally to all the Christians of the US, on whom he has (as founder of the “Christian Coalition”) reflected poorly. He ought to do this without any excuses or soft-padelling quirks. Moreover, if the US has any pride to figure as sound moral environment, Mr. Robertson should be brought to realize he has to put in at least say half a year of penitentiary silence before teaching the public again on christian values and politics.
This is not written as a vent to any personal wrath, rage or hate against conservative or pro-life christians. But sometimes, one has to crane one‘s neck above the mist of political everyday abrasion of principles, in order to recall once more the sun shines from the sky and assassination calls are just stark evil.
Pat Robertson is a loose cannon. He used to bother me a lot and I took it personally when he called Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians “the Antichrist” but now I think maybe getting insulted by this man is actually a compliment.
And our chief head of state thinks it’s cute to say “nucular” instead of “nuclear.” What does this tell us?
When are Christians going to figure out that our leading US televangelists are among CIA operatives, and probably pedophiles to boot? Does anyone think these voices of murder are even sincere? Or how could Satan better deceive us that to appear in a suit and tie on TV in the name of Jesus? Do people really think guys in Biblical dress riding donkeys through the wilderness of Afghanistan are our worst enemies? Our enemies are our heads of state and leaders of the so-called church. This may be shrill, but nothing short of a glowing nuclear fuel mess could adequately communicate the danger of taking these television personalities at their word.