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A Christian viewpoint?
A Times Editorial
Published August 24, 2005
A religious extremist has called for the assassination of a foreign leader. This time, however, it is not some Islamic ayatollah issuing a fatwa to murder some infidel. It's our own Pat Robertson, a Christian broadcaster who has done the math and concluded it would be cheaper if the United States just murdered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to keep his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
Robertson, of course, can lay claim to being an authority on religious extremism, if not on Christian love. So let's hear him out.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," he told viewers of the Christian Broadcast Network's 700 Club on Monday.
One of the lessons of the Iraq war has not been lost on Robertson. He has done a cost-benefit analysis and decided: "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 get it over with."
Chavez has cozied up to Cuba's Fidel Castro and harshly criticized President Bush, accusing the United States of plotting to overthrow his government and assassinate him.
The way Robertson sees it, "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."
Bush administration officials quickly distanced themselves from Robertson's lunacy.
"Our department doesn't do that kind of thing," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday. "It's against the law." (Not to mention one of the Ten Commandments.) And in the understatement of the day, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks "inappropriate."
Before calling for Chavez's assassination, Robertson apparently never bothered to ask himself this question: What would Jesus do?
[Last modified August 24, 2005, 01:15:20]
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