|
AMP Report - August 24, 2005
American Muslims condemn
'inciting and irresponsible rhetoric' of Robertson
American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organizations condemned remarks made by Televangelist Pat Robertson advocating the assassination of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.
While advocating assassination of President Chavez, Robertson also claimed that Venezuela is now "a launching pad for Communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent."
Speaking on the same program, Robertson said killing Chavez would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a "launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism," Robertson said. "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator."
In a statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: "True to form, Pat Robertson has crossed the line yet again. Not only has he advocated violating federal law and international treaties by calling for the assassination of a head of state, he somehow manages to show his clear hatred of Muslims by stating that somehow Islam is involved in the whole Venezuela issue.
"It is irresponsible that such comments are coming from someone who self-righteously claims to have a high religious position. American religious leaders should be a voice of moderation and peace, not a voice of hatred and violence. America's image is damaged by such inciting and irresponsible rhetoric, at a time when we are trying to demand that other countries challenge their own religious extremists. We call on all religious and political leaders to project true American values of tolerance and pluralism by condemning Robertson and his hate speech," the CAIR statement concluded.
In a statement the Executive Director of the Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation, Mahdi Bray described Roberston’s statement as outrageous, especially when “you factor in that Robertson is a close ally of this Administration."
"His groups have received federal funding from the president's faith-based initiatives and have carte blanche within the administration and the Republican Party," Bray said adding: "Maybe someone should remind the darling of the Christian Right about the Ten Commandments. About the one that says 'thou shall not kill'?"
"If that had been a Muslim cleric talking about killing a head of state, you would have never heard the end of it," said Bray. "The White House would have denounced it as terroristic, extremist, and incendiary or
provocative violent hate speech. The fact is that Reverend Robertson is an extremist and this administration embraces him."
Robertson has a long history of Islamophobic remarks. In 2002, he was quoted as saying that Islam "is not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy." As recently as May 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported him as saying that he would be wary of appointing Muslims to top positions in the U.S. government, including judgeships.
Robertson, who is 75, ran for president as a Republican in 1988. He has often used his show and the political advocacy group he founded, the Christian Coalition, to support President Bush.
Robertson's statement was denounced by both the State Department and by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In Caracas, he was criticized by the vice president of Venezuela, and in Havana by President Fidel Castro. President Chávez, who was visiting Havana when Roberton’s statement came. He shrugged off Mr. Robertson's comments but President Castro said of the Robertson remark, "I think only God can punish crimes of such magnitude."
Vice President José Vicente Rangel of Venezuela said: "This is a huge hypocrisy to maintain an antiterrorist line and at the same time have such terrorist statements as these made by Christian preacher Pat Robertson coming from the same country."
Rumsfeld dismissed Robertson's remark on assassination, saying: "Certainly it's against the law. Our department doesn't do that type of thing." He added, "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."
Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, called Robertson's comments "inappropriate." "This is not the policy of the United States government," McCormack said. "We do not share his views."
The Bush administration does share many of Robertson's views on other matters, such as stem cell research, and Robertson's largely conservative, evangelical audience overlaps with the core of Bush's political base.
About nine of 10 white evangelicals voted for Bush in the 2004 election - about as high as his support from any group of voters, according to exit polls. This group also supported Bush overwhelmingly in the 2000 election.
McCormack tiptoed around the question of whether the rest of the world might assume that Robertson speaks, if not directly for Bush, at least for a sizable share of the Republican Party. "I would think that people around the world would take the comments for what they are," McCormack said. "They're the expression of one citizen."
Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, supported Bush's re-election last year and said he believed Bush is blessed by God. Robertson also told viewers of his "700 Club" television program that God had told him Bush would win re-election in a "blowout."
Democrats called the Bush administration's response tepid, and said it lends credence to the notion that the White House doesn't want to offend some of its most loyal supporters.
"It seems they are shuffling their feet when they should be running away from what Pat Robertson said," Democratic political consultant Steve McMahon said. "That this president, who projects himself as brave and bold, doesn't want to stand up to his own right wing is ironic."
In a report on Robertson’s statement, the Washington Post pointed out that the United States was believed in the past to have been involved in the 1963 assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and attempts to assassinate Castro. President Gerald R. Ford put political assassination off-limits in an executive order in the mid-1970s.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for the Federal Communications Commission to investigate, just as it did when Janet Jackson's breast was exposed in the Super Bowl broadcast in 2004. "This is even more threatening to hemispheric stability than the flash of a breast on television during a ballgame," Rev. Jackson said.
One liberal watchdog group, Media Matters for America, sent a letter urging the ABC Family network to stop carrying Mr. Robertson's show. Another group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asked Mr. Bush to repudiate Mr. Robertson personally. (Source: media reports)
Here is text of Robertson’s statement:
“He ( President Hugo Chavez) 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 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 States -- this is in our sphere of influence. 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.”
AP - August 24, 2005
Pat Robertson apologizes after first claiming
he never used the word "assassination"
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. August 24, 2005 - Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized Wednesday for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, only hours after he denied saying Chavez should be killed.
"Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him."
Chavez, whose country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush. He accuses the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him.
On Monday's telecast of his Christian Broadcasting Network show "The 700 Club," Robertson had said: "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."
On Wednesday, he initially denied having called for Chavez to be killed and said The Associated Press had misinterpreted his remarks. "I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,'" Robertson said on his show. "'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."
He later issued the apology on his Web site….
The Canadian Islamic Congress - August 25, 2005
The Canadian Islamic Congress urges moderate
Christians to denounce extremists
The Canadian Islamic Congress has added its voice to a swelling North American denunciation of televangelist Pat Robertson's endorsement of assassination to eliminate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Calling Robertson's utterances "bloodthirsty, evil and an advocacy for terrorism," today's CIC statement called on moderate Christians to repudiate far right extremists "who abuse their religion as a blunt instrument to further their personal agendas and diminish all humans who do not think as they do."
During the Monday evening broadcast of his sectarian religious program, The 700 Club, Robertson said, "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." He also stated that assassinating Chavez -- who is currently a thorn in the side of the Bush administration -- would be "cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Robertson, a onetime presidential hopeful who still has close links to the White House, heads the rightwing fundamentalist Christian Coalition, which claims to have some 2 million members in the U.S.
Venezuelan vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel said, "This is a huge hypocrisy to maintain an anti-terrorist line and at the same time have such terrorist statements as these made by Christian preacher Pat Robertson..."
Despite Robertson's subsequent apology, the CIC echoed Rangel in reiterating that "evil is evil. Killing those who oppose you is against the teachings of both the Qur'an and the Bible... It is indeed 'huge hypocrisy' and alien to all people of sincere religious faith."
Kentucky Herald Leader editorial - August 26, 2005
Religious distortions
Don't judge Islam, Christianity by extremists
Few conservative political and religious leaders have condemned the Rev. Pat Robertson's call for assassinating Venezuela's leader to prevent him from using the country as a "launching pad for communistic infiltration and Muslim extremism."
The televangelist first denied saying it and then apologized. But an apology has never stopped conservative groups from demanding redress from anyone they consider guilty of hate speech.
The irony of Robertson's statement is that it occurred at a time when American Islamic groups are taking a strong stance against violence.
So far, more than 174 national organizations, mosques and Islamic centers have signed a religious edict or fatwa against terrorism -- something conservatives argue that they should do forcefully.
The July 28 statement by the Islamic religious council representing North America, says the Quran forbids violence targeting civilians and cooperating with anyone involved in it. Working with law enforcement to protect the lives of civilians is a religious and civic duty, the fatwa says.
One signee is the Council of American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties group that has a chapter in Lexington. On Saturday, the local chapter celebrated its first year at a dinner also attended by Jewish and Christian religious leaders.
The local group has worked to educate the media, law enforcement and schools about the Muslim faith. It is also planning community service projects with local churches.
The goal is to break down stereotypes that create distrust and breed hostilities.
In that light, CAIR condemned Robertson's comments: "America's image is damaged by such inciting and irresponsible rhetoric at a time when we are trying to demand that other countries challenge their own religious extremists."
The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, did condemn Robertson's comments. The Colorado pastor is worried that the comments would increase the danger for missionaries in Venezuela.
"Pat doesn't speak for evangelicals any more than Dr. Phil speaks for mental-health professionals," Haggard told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
How odd. That's precisely the point Muslim groups try to make about extremists who distort Islam.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/12480532.htm
August 24 2005
Why Pat Robertson isn't treated as a terrorist
by John Chuckman
… Pat regularly mixes the tax-free benefits of religion with the promotion of nasty politics. He has run for President, started quasi-religious organizations to promote his political ambitions, and freely offers his uninformed advice on national and world affairs…..
Pat recently announced on national television that America should murder the elected leader of another country, President Chavez of Venezuela. Previously Pat restricted himself to insulting the religion of a billion people, Islam, or insulting the victims of natural disasters in the United States. After a hurricane in which old men, women, and children died, Pat blamed the victims for their fate by claiming God was punishing America's immorality. His latest effort breaks new ground, being, by any meaningful definition, public advocacy of terror.
Why won't Pat Robertson be treated as a terrorist? Believe me, if you said what he said about any of America's current leaders, you would be arrested quickly under the Patriot Act and locked away. Why will Pat Robertson's broadcasting empire not be classified as an organization supporting terrorist activities? Perfectly legitimate organizations in other parts of the world have been declared outlaw in the United States for having less direct association with terrorist hate-speech. Several bloodthirsty-sounding Muslim clerics, completely unrepresentative of their faith, have been jailed recently for speech closely resembling Robertson's.
At the very least, Robertson should be charged under hate-speech laws. But such laws are weak in the United States, and many Americans fear the idea of hate-speech laws. So radio and television broadcasters continue spewing hate and dishonest claims in the exalted name of free speech.
We really do know why Pat Robertson won't be treated as a terrorist. It's for the same reason Bush's former Attorney General of the United States could tell a group of decent, honest, hard-working American Muslims that they should count themselves lucky they weren't being treated the way Japanese Americans were during World War II. It's for the same reason that Bush protects a mass murderer named Luis Posada Carriles from extradition and trial. It's for the same reason that American troops have made a horror of the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis. It's for the same reason a distraught mother who lost her son in Iraq is vilified by Right Wing savages. It's the same reason why the morally-contemptible Bush is President.
The reason is the worship of power and greed. While it's true that a great deal of America's history has to do with worshipping power and greed, never in my memory has it been so openly expressed, so contemptuously embraced as it is today. It is a sad to reflect in my twilight years that almost everything I was taught as a boy has proved to be wrong. I don't mean subjects like math or English. I mean values. Most of the evidence of my adult life tends to support the opposite of every moral lesson of my youth, certainly as they apply to the land of my birth, a place where power and greed now trump everything…..
Religion, politics, journalism, and even academics serve the American worship of power and greed….
John Chuckman, a free-lance writer, is a retired chief economist for Texaco Canada.
http://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/082405-why_pat_robertson_is.php
August 24 2005
Reverend Robertson was just trying
to save taxpayer money
by Stan Moore
Reverend Pat Robertson hates war. Wars are expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Those are funds that could be used more profitably. And why go to war with a country whose leader you despise when you can save money by just assassinating that leader instead? Let's say it costs a million dollars to send in a trained team to assassinate the foreign leader. You could save the taxpayer one billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million dollars just by assassinating that man instead of going to war to get rid of him.
Pat Robertson's thinking has a sort of logic, and since he is a man of God, his words must be taken seriously….
Yes, God sometimes works in mysterious ways, of which fact the presidency of George W. Bush is ample evidence. Hugo Chavez is a strong-armed dictator who is giving too much money and medical care to the poor! God does not put up with that sort of behavior. Chavez is giving land to the peasants and distributing oil wealth to the needy.
The God of George W. Bush hates such "commies" and George W. is listening and watching for an opportunity to put the Venezuelan poor back in their place, just like the Nigerian poor and the Louisiana poor and the poor of Iraq, who are not qualified to benefit from oil money.
So, when Pat Robertson talks about political assassinations, he is just being practical and pragmatic and godly all at the same time….
Stan Moore of San Geronimo, CA, is a member of several falconry and ornithological clubs and organizations.
|
