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EDITORIAL
August 26, 2005
THE call by controversial preacher Pat
Robertson urging the United States Government to assassinate Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez has the Americans stunned. Of course, the maverick Venezuelan
leader is unlikely to win a popularity contest in the
Nonetheless, the chilling call by preacher Robertson is not easy to digest.
"If he (Chavez) thinks we are trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said matter-of-factly. He went on to reason: "It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. 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 strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job."
No wonder most
But there’s really no need to get worked
up over the views of a loose canon like Robertson. Not being associated with
any U.S. Government agencies or institutions, Robertson doesn’t really represent
and speak for
True, he claims to champion and speak for
the cause of the Religious Right. True, Robertson is a founder of the 2-million-member
Christian Coalition of
Yet he is known across
Apparently, the 75-year old preacher lives in a world of his own - far removed from the realities of our times. Obviously he doesn’t realize that, as a Catholic priest put it, we do not “live under the law of the jungle” any more. The preacher’s call needs to be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.
As it is,