Hey, I've been saying that about Ted 
Kennedy for more years than I care to recall!
Posted on 10/27/2007 4:46:03 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON - Dutch lawmakers who visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week 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 Peter, a member of the Dutch Green Party, who began the exchange with Lantos, said she took notes of the remarks.
A Lantos aide said he realizes that the Guantanamo facility does harm to the reputation of the United States and has praised judges who ruled in favor of extending legal rights to prisoners. He has not, however, suggested that the prison be closed.
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.
"The comments killed the debate," said Harry van Bommel, a member of the Socialist Party. "It was insulting and counterproductive."
A Lantos spokeswoman said Lantos was not available and had no comment.
The Dutch government soon will announce whether its troops will stay in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, where they recently have begun an anti-Taliban offensive backed by British and Afghan forces. Lantos has praised the Netherlands' contribution to the Afghan mission.
"It was a diplomatically strange situation," Peters said. "The mere suggestion that the United States could be compared with Nazi Germany is so flawed."
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.
The lawmakers, from the Dutch House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee, were invited to visit Guantanamo and Washington by the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Roland Arnall. The lawmakers also met senior Bush administration officials, including Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.
Members of the delegation said they were given an extensive tour of the Guantanamo Bay prison, which has been heavily criticized by human rights groups.
Some of the lawmakers said that while they found the physical conditions of the prison acceptable, they remain concerned that prisoners were not being given proper legal treatment.
Most of the delegation called for the closing of Guantanamo.
"We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror," Peters said.
But at least one member disagreed.
"Let's not forget we are in a state of war — not only the United States but also my country — with Islamic terrorists," said the far right Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders. "I think we could only learn from Guantanamo."
A number of the members said that the United States should consult international institutions and other countries to answer some of the difficult quandaries about closing the facility.
"We need to work out an international deal on the future of Guantanamo Bay," said Hans van Baalen, of the Liberals, who led the delegation.
LMAO. Little Desi Butler of the disgusting AP did a fairly straight forward job of reporting (unusual for AP), using almost no pejorative or adulatory adjectives to describe the various speakers or their parties and gave direct quotes from them.
But he just couldn't help himself, he HAD TO slip the shiv into the only one in the group with a sense of reality and the courage to say what needed to be said.
BTW far right in a European sense means someone who thinks they have a right to exist and (horror of horrors) defend themselves from direct attack.
Maybe you should tell us, Hansie boy, why WE need to work out anything with a bunch of pisant pussies who can't wait to lay down and spread for anybody who wants to kill every single stinkin' one of you (and us).
You may not see yourselves as fit to live, and you may be right. You know yourselves better than we do. But WE are fit to live, we know it, and we intend to do so no matter how you whimper, whine, and demand.
I was about to say you had confused Lantos with his imo psychotic colleague Pete Stark (raving mad) also from the Bay Area, but then I realized the American soldier you were referring to was General Petraeus--and you are totally right.
I believe he's fairly young, but being a Dem, especially a wayyyy left radical one, ages you very quickly, e.g. Nancy Pelosi, Babwa Boxxa, Helen Thomas, etc.
You can simply imagine these Dutch lefties standing there...and here this old Jew looks them in the eye...and gives them a upper cut that they really couldn’t take. They couldn’t even come back with a defense...which says alot.
Lantos may be a nut...but for one day...he probably clobbered Dutch elitists more than any American in the past 25 years. Luckily we have no more bases there...otherwise, we’d be asked to leave.
Because of this particular quote of him i can imagine you think Hans van Baalen is some kind of crazy left member of parliament, but he is actually one of the most pro atlantic members there is in the Netherlands. The Liberal party in Holland is something different then “liberals” in the US.
He has also been on the US site on most important issues like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and he want the Dutch troops in Afghanistan to stay.
It's that sense of "Nationalism" that our socialists display...
Well done on the research, kabar.
I now have to can my own comment in post 47!
AP needs to fire Desmond Butler for incorrectly saying that Lantos had
not called for the closure of Gitmo (which is a slander/libel in Democratic
circles!).
And AP should hire you to do fact-checking and background research!
Here’s a repeat link posting of your good find on Lantos et al calling
for closure of Gitmo...well before the appearance of the lead article:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17486.html
I'm not fan of Lantos, but this is exactly right.
So many of these European socialists pretend that Club Gitmo is some kind of death camp, when its conditions are actually better than our own citizens get when they are incarcerated.
And, as I seem to recall, some of the terrorists are there because their own countries don't want them back.
Great cartoon, now a copy resides on the hard drive of my computer!
Hey, Tom Lantos has been insulting the American Public for years, so why shouldn’t the Dutch shoulder a little of his load—
Born Feb. 1, 1928.
Hey, I've been saying that about Ted Kennedy for more years than I care to recall!
Desmond Butler didn't say that. He relayed the words of a Lantos aide.
Well, Ted has learned to do without a liver so he may live forever.
Yes, but to take it out on the Dutch was a bit much. No other people did more to help rescue and protect Jews during the Nazi occupation than did the Dutch. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Frenchmen gleefully turned in their Jewish neighbors to the SS so they could take their land.
Tom Lantos is very very good sometimes. You must have missed it. This isn’t his first time by any means
As a Jew, I agree with you totally. He is a despicable prick. He is NOWHERE in the fight against Islamofascism, which is like Nazism times ten.
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