why did Rep. Tom Lantos stick up for Gitmo?

[donsu]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Netherlands-Guantanamo.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Dutch Lawmakers Offended by Rep. Lantos


Dutch lawmakers who recently visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat.

The lawmakers said that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that ''Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.''

Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, was responding to arguments that the United States should shut down the prison, located on a U.S. naval base in Cuba, the lawmakers said. Mariko Peters, a member of the Dutch Green Party, who began the exchange with Lantos, said she took notes of the remarks.

-snip-

(here Lantos gives them a threat)

Before the Guantanamo exchange, the lawmakers had discussed a debate in the Netherlands about whether the country should maintain its 1,600 troops serving in NATO's Afghanistan operations.

''You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany,'' Lantos said, according to the Dutch lawmakers.

-snip-

It was not the first time that Lantos had offended European political circles. In May, he lashed out at the former leaders of France and Germany. His comments, which included calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a ''political prostitute,'' provoked a rebuke from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
-snip-
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does Lantos wear sheep's clothing?

[Malikshah]

1. Has for quite a while. Lantos is a Hawk and has always been so, especially when dealing with

the region of Middle East, the A/I Conflict, and Muslim Issues.

[truebrit71]

2. "you would now be a province of nazi Germany"...??

Hey, you ignorant fucking dildo, they WERE a province of Nazi Germany, but thanks to courageous Dutch freedom fighters, and the combined forces of Great Britain and the USA, they were freed...

Ignorant revisionist Yanks piss me off to no end..REGARDLESS of political affiliation...

[cali]

5. He's not a yank as you put it.

He's a Hungarian Jew, who as teenager was part of the resistance in that country.

Born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, Lantos was part of an anti-Nazi resistance movement during the German occupation of that country and sought refuge in a safe house established by Raoul Wallenberg. In 1981 Lantos sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

Lantos considers himself a secular Jew and is the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the House.<7> Upon immigrating to the United States, he attended the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. 1953).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lantos

[truebrit71]

6. So who is the "us" he is referring to...as a holocasut survivor it is abhorrent to see him...

...defend torture at Gitmo...

[cali]

7. I don't know

who the "us" is, and I agree that defense of torture is abhorrent. His stance on Israel, and the war on terror is pretty bad.

[truebrit71]

8. No kidding!

Yikes!

[Don Claybrook]

3. He doesn't wear sheep's clothing; he's very much in t he open

http://info.jpost.com/C001/Supplements/Shoah/hol_LantosList.html

"He's true blue and white," said one former AIPAC leader of Lantos, referring to his devotion to Israel. Lantos made his first trip to the Jewish state in 1956 and has been there nearly 60 times since.

[donsu]

4. ok, he is wearing Dem. clothing as disquise

nt

[ellenfl]

9. i don't believe that lantos was defending gitmo.

his statement was accurate, however. europe WAS NOT as outraged over the auschwitz (or dachau or treblinka or any of the other camps) as it is over gitmo. that does not mean gitmo should not be closed, which i believe is rep. lantos' position.

ellen fl

[donsu]

10. europe was outraged - europe was living it at the time

what makes you say they didn't care?

[cali]

11. No. Europe was not outraged. On that Lantos is correct

I am by no means supporting his having said it, or of his defense of Gitmo, but neither the U.S. or Europe was terribly concerned about the concentration camps.

[ellenfl]

12. because nothing was done while millions of jews,

gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally ill were eradicated. AFTER the war, there was some outcry, but not during. the u.s. was also complicit in its silence on the subject of the camps. perhaps that is why the u.s. is so keen on doing whatever israel wants now.

ellen fl