OK everybody, calm down. Take a deep breath and count to ten. The Pat Robertson fiasco is nothing to get so upset about. If you really think about it, maybe there is a bit of truth in the remarks of Preacher Pat. It would be cheaper and save lives if the U.S. used assassination to eliminate someone every time that we got mad at them.
We should call this new approach to Foreign Relations our Bargain Basement Foreign Policy. OOP’s, this is not a new policy. This is the old policy that we have been following for many years. If assassination is the norm then why did so many seem shocked at Pat’s statement. Could it be that, as a nation, we have been in denial for a long time?
Here is the list of assassination attempts as compiled by historian William Blum.
1949 – Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader
1950s – CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany to be “put out of the way” in the event of a Soviet invasion
1950s – Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life
1950s, 1962 – Sukarno, President of Indonesia
1951 – Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea
1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran
1950s (mid) – Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader
1955 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India
1957 – Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt
1959, 1963, 1969 – Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia
1960 – Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq
1950s-70s – José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life
1961 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti
1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)
1961 – Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic
1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam
1960s-70s – Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life
1960s – Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba
1965 – Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader
1965-6 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France
1967 – Che Guevara, Cuban leader
1970 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile
1970 – Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile
1970s, 1981 – General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama
1972 – General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence
1975 – Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
1976 – Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica
1980-1986 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life
1982 – Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran
1983 – Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander
1983 – Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
1984 – The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate
1985 – Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)
1991 – Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq
1993 – Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia
1998, 2001-2 – Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant
1999 – Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia
2002 – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord
2003 – Saddam Hussein and his two sons
Of course the official explanation for all of these assassination attempts is that we didn’t really do it, the intelligence was wrong, my wife made me do it, the dog ate my homework, I don’t remember anything, it’s just a vicious Communist plot, it happened when the Democrats were in power, it happened when the Republicans were in power…
So maybe Preacher Pat did all of us a big favor. He should receive the praise of a grateful nation. His statements could chip away at the denial that most of us are wallowing in. Anyone with enough smarts to not have to call tech support when they want to use a stapler, should finally get it. We are a nation that has relied on assassination as an integral part of our foreign policy. Like it or not, that’s the way it is. Preacher Pat was right.
Rosemarie Jackowski dissent@sover.net