Calling Chavez, Venezuelan President, a "terrific danger" to the US, Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, said on Monday on his TV show The 700 Club, that it was the duty of the US to stop Chavez from making Venezuela a "launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism".
Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of US President George Bush, accusing the US of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him.
US officials have called the accusations ridiculous, Aljazeera reports.
"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," Robertson was quoted as saying by Aljazeera.
"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Robertson's comments Monday were the latest in a string of controversial remarks in recent years by the religious broadcaster and founder of the Christian Coalition.
Last October, during the heat of the presidential race, Robertson told CNN that during a meeting with President Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq, the president told him he did not believe there would be casualties. The White House strongly denied the claim.
In May, during an ABC interview, Robertson ignited a firestorm with his response to a question about whether activist judges were more of a threat to America than terrorists.
"If they look over the course of 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," he said.
Defending his remarks in a letter to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Robertson insisted he was not being cavalier about the 9/11 attacks. But he also refused to apologize, saying Supreme Court rulings on abortion, religious expression in the public square, pornography and same-sex marriage "are all of themselves graver dangers in the decades to come than the terrorists which our great nation has defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq."
In October 2003, Robertson, criticizing the State Department during an interview on "The 700 Club," said "maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up," referring to the nickname for the department's headquarters in Washington.
Pravda.ru reported earlier, that inhis fourth visit to Cuba in nine months, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held his six-hour call-in show in Cuba alongside Fidel Castro and blasted ''U.S. imperialism'' as the greatest global threat.
Photo by CNN.
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