Pat Robertson and His Business Buddies

[Jara sang]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5339-2001Nov9


Pat Robertson and His Business Buddies
Saturday, November 10, 2001

Eventually, Taylor made his way to Libya, where he hooked up with the Great Jamahiriyah, Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Taylor wasn't just passing through.

In Libya, Taylor and future West African rebel leaders -- Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh and Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore -- received military and terrorist training that prepared them to launch attacks on their governments. Shaped by Gadhafi, Taylor went after Doe in 1989, Sankoh led his Revolutionary United Front against Sierra Leone, and Compaore fought his way to power in Burkina Faso. Seven years, and 500,000 broken and destroyed lives later, Taylor's now president. He's still up to no good.

His government and Compaore's have been charged with running guns into and smuggling diamonds out of Sierra Leone. An alleged al Qaeda connection has even surfaced.

It seems that Pat has had relationships with a lot of dictators that are responsible for destabilizing entire regions. Charles Taylor of Liberia and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. So why all the disdain for Chavez? Maybe Chavez snubbed him in a deal. If the prerequisite for assassination is creating regional instability as Robertson claims Chavez is doing, why did Pat Robertson have no problem with the two African dictators that he was in business... Oh wait never mind. I think I figured it out.

[Jara sang]

1. kick

:kick:

[me b zola]

2. What proper neo-con would be without ties to terrorist?

Time to rip the mask away. All of these so-called religious leaders who push the neo-con agenda are nothing more than neo-thugs themselves.

A little off topic, the "news" reported today that shrub is going to get back to pushing his domestic agenda. Among the things mentioned that shrub was going to be pushing are his faith based initiatives. :puke:

[theHandpuppet]

3. Yes, all of these dirty dealings and hypocrisy... Remember these?

This history needs to be revisited, especially by the press (but of course they won't). File these away, folks, for they might come in handy for an email or two!

Here are some previous ramblings from Rev Robertson; I think you will find his statements regarding Charles Taylor to be especially hypocritical in light of his call for the assassination of Chavez:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/11/national/main562915.shtml

July 11, 2003

(CBS) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson accused President Bush of “undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels” by asking Liberian President Charles Taylor, recently indicted for war crimes, to step down.

“How dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, 'You've got to step down,'" Robertson said Monday on “The 700 Club,” broadcast from his Christian Broadcasting Network.

“It's one thing to say, we will give you money if you step down and we will give you troops if you step down, but just to order him to step down? He doesn't work for us.”

Robertson, a Bush supporter who has financial interests in Liberia, said he believes the State Department has “mismanaged the situation in nation after nation after nation” in Africa.

MORE....

From http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat_quotes/pat_gold.htm (a site with many interesting links)

"So why is Pat Robertson such a big fan of Liberia's President Charles Taylor? What you won't hear much about on Robertson's shows is the fact that he has a huge financial interest in Liberia. Under Taylor's regime in 1999, Robertson negotiated an $8 million investment in a gold mining venture. A new government may or may not honor Robertson's claims - if they don't, he'll be out an awful lot of cash."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5339-2001Nov9¬Found=true

(excerpt)
Before Taylor, Robertson was in cahoots with the late brutal and rapacious dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, alias the "President of Kleptocracy." Mobutu gave Robertson's privately formed African Development Co. concessions to hunt for diamonds and gold in Zaire in the '90s. That venture, alas, went bust.

Undeterred, Robertson has formed a for-profit Internet portal, Global Business Development Network, that's out to make big bucks in that great bastion of liberty, religious freedom and land of forced abortions, the People's Republic of China.

Mobutu. Beijing. Robertson should be right at home with Charles Taylor.

Bless the ol' reverend's heart.


From http://www.skeptictank.org/robem2.htm

On Robertsons' dirty dealings in Zaire

OFFICIALS MUM ON ROBERTSON DIAMOND MINE OPERATION PROBE

A yearlong investigation of televangelist Pat Robertson's activities in Africa is now over, but state officials are sitting on the final report pending a review by attorneys, reports the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. The probe focused on possible inappropriate activities involving Robertson's Operation Blessing outreach, and a private corporation he operated known as the African Development Co. Based in Zaire, the firm was established by Robertson during the rule of the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The two men established close ties, and Mobutu wined and dined Robertson during one visit to the country; ADC also received vast forestry and mineral concessions, but the diamond mining operation eventually went bankrupt. Mobutu, after a quarter-century of iron fisted rule, died last year in exile from cancer. He left Zaire bankrupt and impoverished, and since 1994 had even been considered persona non grata in the United States.

In April, 1997 two pilots who worked for Operation Blessing charged that planes linked to Robertson and his ministry flew mostly to haul equipment for ADC's private diamond operation. Robert Hinkle, the chief pilot told reporter Bill Sizemore that of about 40 flights within Zaire during the half-year period he was there, "Only one or at most two" were related to the humanitarian mission of Operation Blessing. The rest were "mining-related."

"We got over there and we had 'Operation Blessing' painted on the tails of the airplanes, Hinkle told the Virginian-Pilot, "but we were doing no humanitarian relief at all. We were just supplying the miners and flying the dredges from Kinshasa out to Tdshikapa."

MORE...

[theHandpuppet]

4. Kicking because...

... the media in this country have such short memories. We should remind them that such outragrous statements are nothing new for Rev Pat!

[crikkett]

6. have time to make/update a demopedia entry?

or Wikipedia?
:shrug:
might help

[crikkett]

5. kick

:kick:

[pitohui]

7. robertson a collaborator w. terror

i hope his hateful threats bring renewed attention to his evil deeds in africa

dude belongs on trial in the hague