The Robertson Fatwa

That distinguished theologian, Marion Gordon Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, prayer-away of hurricanes, scourge of capitalism-destroying lesbian witches and winner of the Zionist Organisation of America's State of Israel Friendship Award, has apparently declared his very own fatwa of death against the leader of an independent sovereign nation.

I say "apparently" because he has since denied calling for Chavez' assassination; there are, after all, more ways than one to take out a force of evil, and the Reverend would not be unhappy were US special forces to utilise some more civilised and subtle technique, such as kidnapping. Robertson's actual words appear to have been "if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it"; but one should not be too hasty. If the long and miserable history of Christianity shows anything, it is that the student should be careful of taking the Lord's commandments out of context. Where would all those Christian soldiers be if the Sixth Commandment were not qualified?

Chavez, despite sitting on "a huge pool of oil", has, according to the Reverend, "destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent." Chavez is going to use a destroyed economy as a launching pad for his fiendish Marxist-Muslim coalition. He is "a terrific danger". The United States "can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced". Among them, presumably, is the Bush Doctrine - the one about tax cuts for the super-rich and launching wars of capitalist extremism and corporate infiltration all over the globe. Not only is Chavez "a dangerous enemy to our south"; it appears that, much worse, he has yet to learn the rudiments of doctrinal copyright.

Robertson's fellow Christian, the gentleman whose name adorns said Bush Doctrine, is on vacation in time of self-declared war as one might expect, so the Secretary of Defence stepped in quickly to assure the world that his department "doesn't do that kind of thing" because "It's against the law". The secular arm in the United States has become a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud, it seems. Since when was law a substitute for faith? The correct faith, of course. Nevertheless, Rumsfeld's response does go some way towards refuting the declaration by Bob Edgar, chairman of America's National Council of Churches, that "It defies logic that this so-called evangelist is using his media power not to win people to faith but to encourage them to support the murder of a foreign leader." Not only has it long been known that faith is perfectly compatible with murder as long as the murder is that of a soulless child of Satan, e.g. a foreign leader; but Robertson's tirade has provided the Bush administration with a service beyond price. With his godly government facing low and ever-falling approval ratings, with the ongoing disaster in the Middle East and with Cindy Sheehan threatening the presidential holiday home, Pat Robertson has done the selfless Christian thing and given the Bush administration a speech beside which the Bush administration can seem sane and law-abiding in comparison.