140. AMERICAN FATWAH, CONTINUED

From the Archives

(August 2005) So I received an e-mail message from Democracy for America this morning. Instead of calling for an FCC investigation or the filing of criminal charges against Pat Robertson, Democracy for America wants to place a “Thou Shalt Not Kill” ad in Pat’s local newspaper. How effective of them.

I signed their petition, but wrote this:

The FCC fined CBS $550,000 for accidentally airing Janet Jackson's silicone breast during the Superbowl. Call for the FCC to fine Robertson’s so-called Christian Broadcasting Network for using federally licensed airwaves to call for terrorist homicide.

Call for criminal charges to be filed against him for his fatwah.

Insist that he be prosecuted for calling for the murder of a democratically elected head of state.

See US Code, Title 18, Sec 1116: “whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished” and Sec 878, which makes it a crime to “knowingly and willingly threaten” to commit this crime.

Our government is obligated under international law to prevent and punish acts of terrorism against foreign heads of state when they are conceived of or planned on our soil. See the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, which makes it a crime to commit a “murder, kidnapping, or other attack upon on the liberty of an internationally protected person” [including] a “threat to commit any such attack.”

See also The OAS Convention to Prevent and Punish Acts of Terrorism Taking the Form of Crimes against Persons and Related Extortion That Are of International Significance, of which the US is a signatory. Art 8a obliges “the contracting states undertake to cooperate among themselves by taking all the measures that they may consider effective, under their own laws, and especially those established in this convention, to prevent and punish acts of terrorism, especially kidnaping [sic], murder, and other assaults against the life or physical integrity of those persons to whom the state has the duty according to international law to give special protection, as well as extortion in connection with those crimes.” This convention includes foreign heads of state as internationally protected persons.

Obviously, I didn’t do all that research myself but got most of it from Deborah James’s article on ALTERNET.

Democracy for America did make a good point though when they wrote in their plea for funds that

Robertson's fatwah, calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela—in the name of keeping access to a "huge pool of oil," among other excuses—exposed the warped values of many religious radicals with the ear of the president of the United States. From efforts to squelch the teaching of sound science in our schools, to the "Justice Sunday" rallies trying to impose religion on the courts, to the quixotic jihad against SpongeBob SquarePants, fundamentalist power grabs make the news and have a huge impact. But they don't have the teachings of any religion we know of—and they don't have us.

Infuckingdeed y’all.

137. AMERICAN FATWAH

From the Archives

(August 2005) I’m in my favorite café having a latte and shaking my head at the latest that idiot Pat Robertson has done to get in the news. You’ll remember that, in 1998, he said that God was hitting Florida with hurricanes because of gay days at Disney (note that queers, not Disney, organized this event). Then he condemned the United Nations for trying to make one world government. And now he is making terrorist statements on TV, telling his loyal Christianists—while no doubt adding that God insists that they should send Pat more money—that the US should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," he said on the PTL Club (1 million + viewers). "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. 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."

Perhaps someone should tell Pat that he uses too many you knows. (Couldn’t his god cure that?) And I guess he’s only a literalist when it comes to making homophobic statements about what the Bible says, since he obviously missed the “Thou shalt not kill” commandment.

Interestingly, the White House has had little to say about this, perhaps because they’re beholden to the Religious Right and Chavez is such an outspoken critic of the shrub that would be king.

This did prompt the following line in Yahoo’s story: "[Robertson’s statements] reveal that religious fundamentalism is one of the great problems facing humanity in these times."

BEST OF SPAM SUBJECT LINES: dont you think its dumb? (Well yeah yes I do)