August 25, 2005

• This Just In:

  
  

  

  
  

  “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he (Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez) 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.
  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.”

  
  

  ….Pat Robertson, 75 year old televangelist, ex-Presidential candidate, and supposed “Christian”.

  
  

  We’ve all heard about this by now. Pat Robertson is one of my roommate’s favorite television personalities only because of the crazy things he sometimes says on his television program, “The 700 Club”. A lot of people, pundits, and media folk were rightfully shocked and upset about Pat’s statements on Monday’s edition of his show. A lot of bloggers have already weighed in with an opinion. Jesus advocated “turning the other cheek.” And Robertson certainly resembles the antichrist Bush in some of his photos. We’re having a “Crusade” in Iraq (Bush’s words, remember?) Now the religious right is advocating murder.

  
  

  Yesterday, when questioned about his comments, Robertson developed a bit of dementia, and denied making them. (I always love it when they do that, which flies in the face of the recordings). Then he stated: “I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our special forces should ‘take him out, ‘Take him out’ could be a number of things including kidnapping.”

  
  

  Rambo knows what “take him out” really means.

  
  

  Probably 90 percent of the American populace doesn’t know (or care) who Hugo Chavez is. The popular President of Venezuela is a pretty vocal critic of Bush and American foreign policy. He has claimed in the past that America is planning to topple his government and possibly plot his assasination. What is particularly riling about all this is what Robertson said about “covert operatives”. I immediately thought of the banana republics, Guatemala in particular, back in the 50s, when the “free” government of Jacobo Arbenz was toppled in a CIA sponsered coup signed into action by John Foster Dulles and President Eisenhower to further United Fruit’s interest in the region. They branded Arbenz a “communist”, an all purpose ploy back in the 50s to label anyone not “agreeing” with our policies so as to immediately incapacitate them. I’m sure a lot of folks today have forgotten, or don’t even know about the history of the United Fruit company (Now Chiquita Banana) and what those little “banana” icons on the “National products” maps REALLY meant in the country of Guatemala.

  
  

  “WE” have a history of protecting our multinational interests in the central and South American countries. It helps to know that Venezuela is the fifth largest oil producing country in the world, and that Hugo Chavez was in Cuba with “communist dictator” Fidel Castro. Our State Department called Robertson’s remarks “inappropriate.” Robertson just wants to champion the status quo, and he doesn’t want to see another costly war.

  
  

  I could detail the history of our involvement in the nations south of our borders, and that might be the subject of a future blog entry. In the meantime, here is a neat link. about United Fruit, albeit it is a bit one sided.

  
  

  Glad you really didn’t mean you wanted the guy assasinated, Pat. I know you’re still upset about the “rampant secularism” that is destroying this country, so why not target anyone who is an “enemy of the State”.

  
  

  Jesus wept.

  • 8:43 am
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