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Foreign Policy by the GOP's Religious Conscience Says Send Squads in to Take Out Heads of State! |
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Compiled By GayToday
"A religious leader is recommending the killing
of world leaders, and justifying it with a
cost-benefit analysis? Now I've heard everything."
"I know it sounds somewhat Machiavellian and evil, to think that you could send a squad in to take out somebody like Osama bin Laden, or to take out the head of North Korea," Robertson said. "But isn't better to do something like that, to take out Milosevic, to take out Saddam Hussein, rather than to spend billions and billions of dollars on a war that harms innocent civilians and destroys the infrastructure of a country? It would just seem so much more practical to have that flexibility...." Robertson's critics view this is another example of Robertson's remarkably unusual theories. "As a Christian, Pat should ask himself, what would Jesus do?" said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "In my Bible, Jesus never said anything about assassinating heads of state. Forget schools and courthouses, maybe we should post the Ten Commandments in Robertson's office." Robertson added that he sees no inconsistency between his Christian beliefs and his desire to see the U.S. kill leaders he doesn't like.
In addition to his assassination recommendations, Robertson also called for military strikes against North Korea to destroy nuclear installations the TV preacher says exist there. Despite his bizarre views, Robertson is a major political figure in American life. As part of the Christian Coalition's "Victory 21" project, Robertson plans to distribute 70 million Republican's voter guides in the 2000 elections. "I wonder if support for assassinating world leaders will be a question on the next round of Coalition voter guides," Lynn added. "A religious leader is recommending the killing of world leaders, and justifying it with a cost-benefit analysis? Now I've heard everything." Transcripts of the Segment: 700 Club August 9, 1999
It would just seem so much more practical to have that flexibility, number one. And number two when you're dealing with a rogue nation that is driven to the brink and possesses deadly thermo-nuclear weapons with long range missiles, the thing to do is a pre-emptive strike to take them out right now. And, they say it's war. I don't think we should be engaged in a political war, we ought to be engaged in a first strike war against them to get it out of the way. They're not going to retaliate. They don't have the power to do it. So this would eliminate from the world. This is what the Israelis did with Saddam Hussein and they spared themselves later a nuclear confrontation. And it was a very wise move that Menachem Begin meant, uh, made to send a few fighter planes, fighter bombers, over Iraq to bomb a nuclear installation. And it kept Israel safe. We need to do the same thing with North Korea. Co-Host: But Pat... Robertson: What? Co-Host: How can we as Christians justify going out and specifically killing a leader of a country in order for the sake of world peace, as Christians? Robertson: I don't see anything wrong with a judicial sentence. We're going to talk about Charles Manson later on, this is the anniversary of his brutal killings. He's locked up in jail forever. But I wouldn't have shed a tear if we'd have executed him, if he'd have been electrocuted. And I think these people are vicious killers. Milosevic, for example, violated all the norms of civilized conduct and he engaged in the mass murder of many people. Co-Host: So they've already done actions that are worthy of that kind of... Robertson: ...that are worthy of execution. Kim Jong Il is the same thing. He starved his people. There's a dreadful famine. They have killed numerous people over there, and the idea that you would take one of them, you know, dispatch him, is not the most horrible thing in the world, Christian or otherwise. I mean, which a, there's such a thing as balancing the good versus the evil and the evil that he can bring about. Imagine a nuclear bomb in San Francisco; or Anchorage, Alaska or Los Angeles. That would destroy the lives of maybe as many as a million people versus taking one evil man out of the picture. I just think it's the intelligent thing to do and I don't see anything un-Christian about it. |
