Pat Robertson

Frank Turk has asked me and a few others to comment on Robertson’s remarks of a few days ago. Let’s begin with what appears to be the full text of his remarks:

***QUOTE***

ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

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. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. 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.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200508220006

***END-QUOTE***

This is quite a mixed bag.

If Chavez were indeed a “terrific danger” to the US, then I’d agree with Robertson, although we could still differ over the mechanism. I also agree that it makes more sense to off the guy giving the orders than the guy taking the orders. But is that the only choice?

The larger problem is with all of the unargued assumptions buried in his call to arms.

The fact that Latin America lies within our “sphere of influence” doesn’t, of itself, supply the moral warrant to assassinate Chavez.

If Chavez has, in fact, destroyed the Venezuelan economy, that’s an internal affair.

To my knowledge, we don’t buy our oil directly from Venezuela. Rather, that’s bought and sold on the world market.

As to the potential spread of Marxism, the current situation is totally different from it was during the heyday of the Cold War.

As to a launching-pad for Al-Qaeda, I’d like to see him lay out the evidence. There may be reason to destabilize the Chavez regime.