Pat Robertson

Like a lot of folks, I've been following the U.S. doctrine of assassination and torture (at least the public doctrine - we've had a long history of both in regard to covert, unacknowledged practices. I will recommend again perhaps the most stunning book on the topic, William Blum's Killing Hope.

As we all know by now, Pat Robertson recommended the assassination of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez. I've been watching with interest the rhetoric surrounding Chavez. In 2002, the U.S. arranged a coup that took him out for two days. Since then he has received spotty attention - just enough to keep his name in the news in case we need to go in and take the fifth largest oil reserves in the world from his country. This is hard to do because Chavez is extremely popular in Venezuela and S. America in general. He was democratically elected by a strong majority with international oversight of the elections. Jimmy Carter, among other, will vouch for it. Chavez also feeds its oil wealth back into the people through numerous social works programs (which reminds me again to tell everyone to buy your gas at Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan government.) Chavez recently offered the Dominican Republic and Cuba cheap gas. Moreover, he says he would like to offer discounted gasoline to American poor if there was some way of doing it. Now that's a hot potato for the Bush administration.

Chavez, anticipating another coup, has armed his people in the manner of Switzerland so that they may again take back the country from international rule. The Bush cronies have tried to pin a bunch of stuff on him to cast him as an evil madman in the War on Terror: he harbors Islamic extremists; he is supporting the "communist" FARC rebels in Colombia. Regarding the latter, he probably is. But then again Colombia is fighting its own war to take back the country from the plundering transnationals.

So I was both shocked by Pat Robertson's candid comments and shocked by the media vilification of him as a screwball ... at first. Then the pieces began to fit, and damage control began to do its work. Robertson's comments got Chavez's name in the news again, and we saw dozens of stories on "Who is this guy, Chavez?" Robertson was also set up in contrast to the "real U.S. government policy," which, of course, would never think to assassinate a foreign leader - unless, of course, it was absolutely necessary.

But in the end, Pat Robertson's comments have made the job of taking Chavez out much more difficult for our crypto-fascist corporate leadership. See this wonderful piece by Richard Kim in The Nation.