Take out your enemies with covert military operations? Which Commandment is this?

LOL... I wrote about this very top on my blog today. Thou Shall Not Kill....what part of that is unclear?

I know someone else who speaks to God and who hears from God, and whom God told to kill in His name. But that person is Osama Bin Laden.

justin,

I thought you were referring to George W. Bush.

Anybody who is interested in Hugo Chavez or U.S. involvement in Venezuela should really check out the film, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

I saw it at Laurelhurst about a year ago, but I'm not sure where (or if) it's available now.

Robertson's whining will accomplish the exact opposite - just like the guy who said to the American public: "Don't go see 'The Last Temptation of Christ'."

Besides, most would-be American assasins don't know where Venezuela is...

LOL... I wrote about this very top on my blog today. Thou Shall Not Kill....what part of that is unclear?

The Bible has a footnote that explicitly allows such a killing when "thine enemy is perched atop a vast reserve of some black liquid substance that may yet be of tremendous use to mankind." So Pat's ok.

Maybe they could use an exploding cigar, like they planned with Castro.

Pat is the personification of why people around the world hate America

Anyone have a link to the other stupid things he has said? Didn't he blame 9/11 on gays?

I guess I could understand if Hugo Chavez was one of the Telly-Tubbies, but I think he gave that gig up.

I need some help here. A couple of posts down, the host sneers about the cost of the Iraq War. Robertson said assassinating Chavez might not be a bad deal because he's always complaining that we want to, and besides, it would be cheaper than fighting the increasingly inevitable war with the forces he and his buddy Castro are spreading all over South America.

So what's the problem, don't we all want to save money?

the host sneers about the cost of the Iraq War

Blog comments get on my nerves sometimes.

a religious zealot calls for the death of a world leader? if osama bin laden gets a talk show I give up - seriously.

if osama bin laden gets a talk show...

Didn't he have one on Al Jazeera? He used to be on all the time, before that Iraqi dude took his place. Must've had bad ratings.

The "exploding cigar" was brought to you by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, a "progressive."

Seems like RFK's brother had something to do with that Vietnam business, too. "Progressives" aren't what they used to be.

Neither are Christians.

Let's recap our Grand Old Party leaders, shall we?

Pat's just plain gone. I'm guessing an STD from a West Virginia single mother (Jessica Lynch's cousin?) seeking Divine Guidance by the inch.

Rush = drug freak.

Bill Bennett = gambling freak

Bill O'Reilly = solo sex freak

And these are the people LEADING the country away from moral ruin?

Where are my smokes? I need one right now!

"So what's the problem, don't we all want to save money?"

No problem with a supposedly devout Christian leader condoning killing? Pat seems to think it's a given we need to kill people, the only issue is how many and how much $. That sounds like a money-hungry psychopath, not Jesus. True Christians are pacifists. The Christo-fascist oxymoron makes my head explode; it's identical to Islamo-fascism.

Extending one of the earlier comments to its logical ends: Assuming we're all guilty to some extent in the oil game, via consumption or some more substantially vested interest (such as Robertson's massive third world resource extraction investments), the only real moral question is, "What keeps any true American from popping Robertson first?"

True Christians are pacifists.

Are they? I seem to remember some Crusaders who didn't mind taking the lance to a few Islamic invaders once upon a time. But not being a Christian, I'm not in a position to judge Pat Robertson's religiosity; I suppose you would say one man's religious zealot is another man's freedom fighter.

Sitting on your ass smoking pot while a Stalinist cult takes over Latin America isn't the kind of thing JFK would have done, I can tell you that.

"while a Stalinist cult takes over Latin America." Why? Because Chavez is beloved by his country's poor and doesn't roll over and show his belly to any corporations that want to run his country? Sounds like the makings of someone we'd consider a great populist leader in our country, but somehow it's threatening in another (at least, if we really mean it when we romanticize the underclass in the states). And that other country happens to have huge oil reserves. Hmmm... Only our military is waaaaay overextended, so I guess we'll just to bust out the bible-thumping brain trust to fight this one on rhetorical ground.

Al Franken, on KPOJ, the fourth-highest rated station in town (KXL is 13th and falling fast):

"Well, it seems Reverend Pat Robertson wants to kill someone... again."

Mercy. Compassion. Forgiveness.

Which Bible is Tubby Pat reading these days?

Or did someone slip a Koran in his nightstand?

Amanda, to say Chavez is a populist leader opposed only the corporations is like saying the Boston Strangler made great strides in population control.

There's a nice piece about the Chavista movement in the Weekly Standard; here's a little bit:

There is now incontrovertible evidence, for instance, that Chávez has financed, harbored, and supplied weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's narcoterrorists. Last December, high-ranking FARC terrorist Rodrigo Granda was arrested in Caracas. Granda had been living in baronial splendor under the protection--and at the expense--of the Chávez government. Bounty hunters kidnapped Granda and drove him to Colombia, where he is now imprisoned and awaiting trial. Days after the arrest, El Salvador president Antonio Saca announced plans to investigate ties between Chávez and his country's FMLN terrorist organization. In Nicaragua, Chávez has funded Daniel Ortega's Sandinista party; in Bolivia, he funds Evo Morales, the leader of the coca-growers' movement.

But Chávez's ambitions extend beyond the Americas. He has signed treaties for "technological cooperation" with the dictators of Libya, Iran, and Syria. He has numerous business interests in those countries, and has publicly described the terror-sponsors who rule them as his "partners" and "friends." The feeling is mutual. Iran and Libya have hundreds of millions invested in Venezuela. Significantly, Chávez was the only foreign leader to visit Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war. During his visit he embraced Saddam and called him "brother."

Neocon lies, right?

The problem with the neocons isn’t that they lie. It’s that their approach to foreign policy problems, doesn’t work. It would be one thing if they lied us into something smart, but they lied us into something stupid. And I could say I was happy about it, but then I’d be lying.

Don't I recall a certain Neocon shaking the hand of Saddam and calling him friend? I guess we have "strategic partnerships" and Chavez has "scumbag friends." Potato/potato. If I was feeling threatened by the US-- and the previous attempt to oust him was at least given some tacit political ok on our end--- I'd align myself with whomever was available, too. I don't doubt Chavez has his own self-serving power designs, but tossing stones from our glass house makes us look ridiculous.

I think the greatest thing about Robertson's recent display of ignorance is that he claims Chavez wants to export both communism AND radical Islam. Yeah-- those two diametrically opposed groups get along famously!

Don't I recall a certain Neocon shaking the hand of Saddam and calling him friend?

My, my, we certainly are predictable, aren't we? It's not like I haven't heard that one at least 10,000 times before.

Don't you have any new material?

1:15 PM, 8-24-2005. Breaking news on CNN.COM says Robertson has apologized.

That's the trouble with these Christians, they just don't want to stay the course.

The CNN article is priceless, especially Chavy's response to Robertson from, of all places, Havana.

C'mon, Dick, Chavez has been painted into a corner by our unwillingness to recognize him as a legitimate leader from the very beginning, much as we've done with our Latin American foreign policy reaching back to Wilson. I wonder how much Castro, for example, is someone created by our own misguided foreign policy in Latin America. Our own foreign policy is largely to blame for the existence of FARC (yay for pushing coca out of Peru--but oops, the law of unintended consequences wrought heck to pay in other countries)--and ticking FARC off would be one of the stupider things any leader in that neighborhood could do.

And why do you consider it an old saw for someone to point out that our own leaders once embraced Hussein? Perhaps if we really looked at how the politics of expediency wrought unintended consequences, we would learn to make better choices about with whom we align ourselves (Noriega, anyone?).

I'm not saying Chavez is a choir boy, but I am skeptical of just how bad he is--our country has consistently lied and covered up its doings in Latin America, and appears to have an overwhelming incentive (oil) to continue that practice.

"Dick?"

Sorry about the over-familiarity. You can retaliate by calling me "Mandy" (*wince*).

People don't generally call me "Dick", even close personal friends.

Your point about choosing allies from expedience is certainly valid, as the unintended consequences of Jimmy Carter's cozying-up to Saddam to fight a proxy war against the Iranian mullahs have shown. But every time our nation's leaders try and do something a bit different - from Clinton's military actions in Bosnia and Kosovo to Bush's attempts to install democratic regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq - nobody wants to cut them any slack. That's annoying.

I don't for a minute believe that Castro and Chavez were candidates for sainthood until the US came along with its big stick. Che named his boy "Vladimir" when Batista was still in power.

Incidentally, Rummy is a traditional con, not a neocon.

"My, my, we certainly are predictable, aren't we? It's not like I haven't heard that one at least 10,000 times before. Don't you have any new material?"

Who needs it when you can't respond to the old material?

"Incidentally, Rummy is a traditional con, not a neocon."

Sorry, comrade, but he's officially signed onto the neocon agenda, so he's earned his neo. There is nothing conservative about nation building.

...you can't respond to the old material...

Don't flatter yourself.

"Don't flatter yourself."

Uhh...but you didn't. And still haven't. Maybe I should have used "won't" instead of "can't." I apologize for making that assumption. We used a scumbag as a political tool when it was convenient-- Chavez can't do the same? You can't bitch about somebody else's transgressions when you're commiting them yourself. Its called hypocrisy-- look it up.

Gentlemen, if this exchange is going to deteriorate, please do it by e-mail. Thanks.

"There is nothing conservative about nation building."

While I comlpetely agree with you, I simply ask that you refrain from using the Orwellian term "nation building". Its called colonialism. Nation building makes it sound like something its really not. You dont build nations by oppressing the people, destroying the infrastructure, and usurping the natural resources. You do that to colonies, not nations that you are "building".

For more on Orwellian Speak, check out my latest post at http:bulldogpolitics.blogspot.com

Destroying infrastructure wasn't actually a part of any colonial strategy on this planet. Colonies were markets and sources of raw materials, and the ability to move stuff around was essential. And the term "usurp" generally applies to some sort of military action against governments, not the act of buying or selling commodities.

If you're thinking of the Coalition's actions in Iraq, I think the more appropriate expression is "regime change", but that may not be in your dictionary.

Defintion:

Usurp: To take over or occupy without right

You don't know what the heck you are talking about. There is no requirement of military action to use the word "usurp" (Damn this is an annoying discussion to be having, but I'll bite).

We are usurping the oil from the Iraqi people. Get it. President Bush is usurping your intelligence everytime he invokes 9/11 and the word freedom. Get it?

Sorry charlie, I'm usually not so fickle, but your post was just wrong and the way you went about making it (as if you knew what you were actually talking about) just made me a tad more pungent than normal.

Oh wait, now you will tell me that "pungent" is typically only used when referring to chinese food containing shrimp.

If Ronald Reagan, the second laziest president in US history, hadn't traded ARMS FOR HOSTAGES with Iran (w/ Rummy as pizza boy), this TRILLION-DOLLAR war would have never happened.

What ever happened to Ronnie, anyway?

We know Rummy is a complete freakin failure, hair gel and all.

Bulldog, I completely agree with your stance on the absurdly used term "nation building". I, do, though like to throw it back at Bush apologists since W claimed in his first election that he'd have nothing to do with such matters.

I have to put James Polk on that list of lazy presidents. After only three months he took the longest vacation in presidnetial history and never returned. Now THATS lazy.

President Polk never went mountain biking FOR A MONTH while American GIs got their faces, arms and legs blown off by teenaged Baathists in Iraq.

And now, we're closing the ONLY hospital that treats the wounded -- Walter Reed.

WHAT A SURPRISE!

Bulldog, you're regurgitating the same charges about the oil that your side has been emitting for three years now, and they're obviously impervious to any empirical correction. If I thought you were interested in getting to the truth, I'd suggest you go take a look at the Iraqi constitution (the part that declares the oil to be property of the Iraqi people) and at the palaces Saddam built with proceeds of the Oil for "Food" program so ably administered by the UN. But you're not, so I won't.

I will simply note that you have no comment on the infrastructure business. That's a wise move, rhetorically speaking, because you can see you made a huge gaffe there, given that the terrorists are out to destroy the infrastructure and the US is out to improve it.

Sid, you're quite a card, aren't you? Walter Reed is simply being moved to newer facility in Bethesda, one with better hair gel, apparently.

Argon, regime change in Iraq, for the 1000th time, has been official US policy since Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. You can look it up.

That's gonna be about it for me on this comment thread, as I suspect our host is growing impatient with the indecorous conduct displayed by the hippies.

Ciao.

Ciao?

Last time I heard that, Ginsberg was howling on the floor in Haight-Asbury. Late '65.

Ciao?

How cute.

Meanwhile, back to crazy evangelists, Fred Phelps (just a hop, skip & jump crazier than Pat Robertson) is picketing military funerals of those who were killed in Iraq, saying that God is getting even with the USA for harboring homosexuals. Oh yeah, he's also claiming on his new site, http://www.godhatessweden.com/, that the King of Sweden is gay.

It's gotten so wacky on the right that the director of the antigay Illinois Family Institute has now wondered publicly if Phelps isn't actually a "gay plant" to discredit the right.