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US Evangelist Calls for Assasination of Venezuelan leader

From BreitBart.com; not familiar with the source, saw it on Drudge

Thought it might arouse a good flamewar.

linky

U.S. evangelist calls for assassination of Chavez
Aug 23 1:21 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader wanted to turn his country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

The founder of the Christian Coalition said during the Monday night television broadcast of his religious program, "The 700 Club," that Chavez, one the most vocal critics of President George W. Bush, was a "terrific danger" to the United States.

"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," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned Robertson's comments as "inappropriate" and said they were from a private citizen and did not represent the U.S. government position.

In Caracas, 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 coming from the same country."

"The ball is in the U.S. court now," Rangel told reporters.

The leftist Chavez has often accused the United States of plotting his overthrow or assassination. Alongside his ally Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana on Sunday, Chavez scoffed at the idea that he and Castro were destabilizing troublemakers in Latin America.

'CHEAPER THAN STARTING A WAR'

In his broadcast, Robertson 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."

A Robertson spokeswoman said he had no further comment at this point.

"Right now Dr. Robertson does not have a statement and he's not doing any media interviews," she said.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier to the United States.

This was the most recent example of Robertson's controversial remarks. Criticizing the State Department in he said "maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had called the remark "despicable."

Robertson once declared that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." He also suggested that activist judges were more of a threat to the United States than terrorists and disagreed with Bush's characterization of Islam as a religion of peace.

Robertson's "700 Club" reaches an average of 1 million American viewers daily, according to his Web site. He ran for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1988.