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Famed evangelist targets Chavez again

Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition founder, said last week that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is negotiating with Iran for nuclear material and sent $1.2 million to terrorist Osama bin Laden. On Aug. 22, Robertson told viewers of "The 700 Club" program that the United States should kill Chavez to prevent the Latin American country from becoming a "launching pad" for extremism. The next day, the television evangelist said his comments were misinterpreted.

Though how saying someone should be "taken out" could be "misinterpreted" as meaning exactly what it means raises questions of it`s own. Relations between Venezuela, the world`s fifth-largest oil producer, and the United States have eroded since Chavez took office in February 1999. Last month, Chavez used a speech before the U.N. General Assembly and a news conference to attack the United States, saying, "It is a terrorist state. It is a government that violates all rules and behaves shamelessly" because of its actions in Iraq.

Chavez also called Mr. Robertson a terrorist, and his comments terrorism, and wondered aloud how public calls for the murder of a head of state can be tolerated by a government supposedly dedicated to fighting terrorism and religious extremism around the globe. Even as Mr. Chavez accuses the U.S. of being a terror state, there have been reported deals between Venezuela and known state-sponsor of terrorism Iran, leading many to assume the formation of some sort of anti-Washington axis in Latin America has begun, with the influence of the Iranians.