Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.” An official of a theological watchdog group on Tuesday criticized Robertson’s statement as “chilling.”
“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network’s “The 700 Club.”
“We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,” he continued. “It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela’s total exports.
Venezuela’s government has demanded in the past that the United States crack down on Cuban and Venezuelan “terrorists” in Florida who they say are conspiring against Chavez.
Robertson has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to “kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
UPDATE — Oops, my bad on the headline. Oh well.
The overwhelming majority of fatwas are on mundane matters (for examples see the archives linked below). Those declaring war or pronouncing death sentences are not at all representative, despite the attention they draw in English-language media. Such fatwas, however, have caught the attention of the western media and become widely renowned, especially among critics of Islam.
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