In Richard Kim’s In Defense of Pat Robertson in the current issue of The Nation, he points out:
What’s all the fuss about? In my estimation, Robertson’s done us all a service in at least two regards. First, if there is a US plot to assassinate Chavez–as Chavez has long maintained–Robertson’s unwittingly scuttled it for the time being. “Our department doesn’t do that kind of thing,” Donald Rumsfeld insisted, noting that political assassinations are “against the law.” Now, legality hasn’t exactly been much of a barrier for this administration, but I’d like to think even the spooks at Langley are smart enough to realize that any “accidents” that might befall Chavez would be “untimely,” to say the least.
But more importantly, the gaffer’s coughed up a breath of fresh air on a wartime media disturbingly oblivious to US atrocities, and he should be commended at least for his honesty.
Instead of taking on the question of assassination directly–and assassination’s dark twin in extralegal violence, torture–the whole incident became an opportunity to paint Robertson as powerless and crazed, with illegal assassinations and covert ops depicted as nothing more than the deranged fantasies of an extremist snake-oil salesman. But in this instance, Robertson is no radical dreamer; his prescription is consistent with a long and documented record of covert US intervention in Latin America, and falls within the mainstream of public opinion on such matters. During the build-up to the Iraq War, half of all Americans supported the assassination of Saddam Hussein, and wherever you fall in that divide, Robertson is right about one thing–it sure would have cost less than $200 billion! Could nobody on the editorial board of the Times and Post recall CIA plots to assassinate Castro? Or CIA collusion in the overthrow of Salvadore Allende? Or how about the late, lamented Gary Webb, and his reports for the San Jose Mercury News that linked the CIA to a Contra-crack cocaine scheme? Wacky! Outlandish! Downright loopy! Sometimes, fact is stranger than both fiction and Pat Robertson.
Pat Robertson overstepped the bounds of decency by advocating the murder of another human being. He advocated the assassination of a foreign head of state, and Hugo Chavez has no history of committing atrocities or invading his neighbors. There is no obvious rationale, like human rights, other than serving our corporate interests. But when has that ever stopped us before?
While I agree that Robertson’s outburst may have provided an unintended benefit by making it more difficult for the govt. to implement a plan to whack Chavez, I seriously doubt that most of people not already opposed to the atrocities of torture and those who implement it are going to change their minds or become more thoughtful about such things based on the ravings of a lunatic like Robertson.
I do see one possible positive in this episode, and that is that whenever the insane nature of a wingnut becomes so obvious as this, I think it can have the effect of helping more people to realize that these crazies are not worthy of their allegiance.
The strongest shield protecting official criminality is the culture of pretend normality, which stipulates that anyone noticing evidence of a crime by a conservative in power must be in some way deranged: paranoid, wild, fixated on an ideology.
The posture of rectitude — religiosity, stiffness, inscrutable and bland language — is taken for a lack of criminal imagination within, while critical candor discloses feeling, doubt, and a personal sense of direction.
The country needs to refamiliarize itself with the unreflecting viciousness of the right-wing, which has done everything to deflect attention by attacking the mental soundness and motives of every party operating from reason and observation.
Having raced past the worse predictions of ridicule, the right-wing has few stage props left to prestidigitate by mocking their detractors.
This is the point where their criminal imagination wonders whether they should have to continue to worry about what other people think, or whether they could hold power regardless. We may have passed that point some time ago, which would imply that Robertson is expendable and his sloppy candor mildly helpful.
I think the powermad delusional psychopaths who’ve hijacked the government lost any real concern forother people’s perspectives back in the early 1980s. Their only concern about opposing opinions is how to subvert them, and their propaganda machine with it’s relentless repetition oflies has worked quite well for them.
Now, however, some of the wheels are coming off, but, in reality they’ve already created situations which insure their destructive agenda will continue regarless of whether they receive public approval or not.
They’ve guaranteed a genrations long environment of constant warfare. They’ve already looted the economy to such a degree that barring amiracle we will never see the good side of our domestic economy again. They’ve destroyed the atmosphere within which the US could be seen to be a positive influence in world affairs, and evenwhen we get a change of regime here, the militarization of the planet, the economic imbalances, the environmental negligence, all of this will ensure that america is viewed with great suspicion by the rest of the world for decades to come.
If the goals of the Bush regime ever had anything to do with peace and security in the world, then Robertson’s remarks would have been counterproductive for them. But I’ve always believed provoking instability and conflict was their goal, and in this context Robertson’s remarks suit their purposes for provocation even as they simultaneously express their minor displeasure with them.
As I’ve noted before, I’m a big fan of Chavez, and offical US hostility to him bothers me a great deal. US hostility to Castro, of whom I am not a big fan, also bothers me.
That said, I think being outraged by Robertson’s remarks is a bit much. Robertson is a private citizen, and more than that, a televangelist, a group famously known for their extravagant, donation-fueled lifestyles and kooky remarks. When Condi Rice makes ominous remarks about Chavez, that’s both outrageous and scary. When Pat Robertson says anything at all, well, that’s just some crazy TV preacher who probably wouldn’t have gotten very far if the much more extravagant kookiness of folks like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Oral Roberts hadn’t served as a distraction in his early days.
Secondly, I fail to see why assassination is regarded with such horror. Why is the government-sponsored murder of one guy the subject of outrage, illegal under most codes of law, but the government-sponsored murder of tens of thousands of civilians — or millions in our previous wars — by the US Air Force considered to be part of the normal conduct of war? Wouldn’t we have been better off if someone had put a bullet in Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini early on? Sure — at least as much better off as the world would have been if the CIA hadn’t arranged for the assassination of all those third world democratic leaders. Assassination is an instrument of policy, and arguably less repulsive than “honorable” tactics like open warfare.
What’s outrageous about the US attitude towards Venezuela is that it is based solely on some fairly petty commercial considerations. Chavez isn’t going to cut off the flow of oil to the US, at least without provocation. He is surely going to put a dent in the profits of Texas oil companies in which administration officials have a stake as shareholders. That the powers of the state should be subverted to serve the personal profits of administration figures is outrageous. But then again, still not as outrageous as the big Halliburton feeding frenzy in Iraq.
This whole thing seems a lot more calculated to me than the ravings of a wingnut. What’s really happened here? The whole nation has heard the story that Robertson thinks it’s okay to assassinate a dictator like Saddam. A communist dictator, preying on his people.
Now with all the fuss about the call for assassination, he backs off that part, the administration isn’t harmed, Robertson’s core group as stated in the article believes assassination of Saddam would’ve been okay, so he’s not hurt by it…
And while the focus stays on assassination, the claims of Chavez being a dangerous, communist dictator get firmly planted in the public consiousness and no one’s saying a peep about it.