August 22, 2005: Christian Broadcaster Calls for Assassination of Venezuelan President

A protester holds a sign signifying his agreement with Pat Robertson’s call to assassinate Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. [Source: Foreign Policy Magazine]Right-wing Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, a former Republican candidate for president, tells his viewing audience that the US should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Robertson makes his statement on The 700 Club, the flagship broadcast of his Christian Broadcast Network. The US should assassinate Chavez to prevent Venezuela from becoming “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.” Robertson says: “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 [referring to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein]. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.… 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.” [Associated Press, 8/22/2005; Foreign Policy, 10/22/2010]