{"id":11106,"date":"2013-09-12T01:29:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T08:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11106"},"modified":"2013-09-12T01:29:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T08:29:43","slug":"pseudo-christian-blood-diamonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/12\/pseudo-christian-blood-diamonds\/","title":{"rendered":"Pseudo-Christian Blood Diamonds"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the civil war in Rwanda, millions of Americans, made contributions to aid refugees from that conflict.  But most of the money that those caring people gave through one organization, Operation Blessing, ended up financing diamond mining instead.  The profits were then hidden away offshore to evade the lawful taxes due.  This was done by one of the most despicable Republicans alive.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"12Robertson\"A new documentary may be one of the highest-caliber shells fired across Pat Robertson’s bow in a long time.  Back in 1994, Robertson’s humanitarian organization, Operation Blessing, claimed to have raised scads of money to help thousands of Rwandan refugees who fled across the border to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  But according to Mission Congo<\/em><\/span>, slated to premiere tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, much of that money actually went to fund a diamond mining operation run by Robertson<\/a><\/font>.<\/font><\/p>\n

Mission Congo, by David Turner and Lara Zizic, opens at the Toronto film festival on Friday. It describes how claims about the scale of aid to Rwandan refugees were among a number of exaggerated or false assertions about the activities of Operation Blessing which pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in donations, much of it through Robertson’s televangelism. They include characterising [sic] a failed large-scale farming project as a huge success, and claims about providing schools and other infrastructure. <\/font><\/p>\n

But some of the most damaging criticism of Robertson comes from former aid workers at Operation Blessing, who describe how mercy flights to save refugees were diverted hundreds of miles from the crisis to deliver equipment to a diamond mining concession run by the televangelist<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n

Read more about the film at the festival Website<\/a><\/font>.  The allegations it makes would send a chill down the spine of any fair-minded viewer.  Officials with Doctors Without Borders told the filmmakers that Operation Blessing was more or less nonexistent in one of the hardest-hit towns, Goma–only one tent and seven doctors.  Then, several weeks later, even that minimal effort apparently stopped\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

I urge you to click through and read the rest of this article to learn how most of the operation was just a front for Robertson\u2019s diamond mining, how he ignored the plight of the refugees, how he cheated the millions who trusted him, and how he hid the money away.  No authentic Christian would behave in this way, but then, Robertson has nothing to do with Christianity.  He\u2019s a Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the civil war in Rwanda, millions of Americans, made contributions to aid refugees from that conflict.  But most of the money that those caring people gave through one organization, Operation Blessing, ended up financing diamond mining instead.  The profits were then hidden away offshore to evade the lawful taxes due.  This was done by […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}