Televangelist: Take Chavez Out

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

"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."

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"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."

Televangelist Pat Robertson suggests the U.S. assassinate the leftist Venezuelan president.

Dr. Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University's School of Divinity, tells CBS Radio News Pat Robertson's call for assassination was inappropriate.

In Caracas, pro-Chavez legislator Desire Santos Amaral accused Robertson of shedding his Christian values.
"This man cannot be a true Christian. He's a fascist," Santos said. "This is part of the policies of aggression from the right wing in the North against our revolution."

Santos said she thinks U.S.-Venezuelan relations could still improve but comments by "charlatans and fascists" like Robertson only get in the way.

"A part of the danger of this is that people will take him at his word and believe that he actually speaks with some kind of divine mandate," Dr. Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University's School of Divinity, told CBS Radio News. "It also feeds the idea that America ... has a particular kind of Christianity that is destructive and promotes war and assassination."

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."