Posted on 10/27/2007 7:52:17 PM PDT by george76
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.
A Lantos aide said the lawmaker realizes 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. Lantos has not 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."
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," ...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This is indeed true but saying it was for sure not helpful for the cause. The politicians in Germany desperately waited for a chance to leave their old servant role playing in transatlantic relations behind and such guys like Lantos and Guantanamo gave them the cause and possibility to do it. Their verbalism was used as a example that America can be no friend of Europe and Gitmo and capital punishment was used as a example that Americans are somehow a strange and fundamentalist barbarian tribe. MSM at its best. The growing gap between America and Europe is the only but at the same time quite important "merit" of the Schroeder term. He will therefore find his place in history books as the chancellor that emancipated central Europe (we do not talk about Germany only) from America.
It is indeed a fact that America lost because of Schroeder and Chirac much of its influence in Europe. I doubt that its former position as a broadly accepted "leading nation" ever can be be achieved again.
This is something most Americans are not aware of. They still believe into their influence as a Superpower. The facts in Europe are much different. Of course Lantos is correct if he tells some Dutch parlamentarians that the Netherlands probably would be under different rule if there wouldn't have been the US (which is historically incorrect - the main burden for fighting down the nazis was carried by the Russians. The US had their share but it was only a part), but WWII was 60 years ago and is for sure irrelevant to young Dutch lawmakers. Such strong words might be popular among some American conservatives but he makes a clown of himself in Europe with that. Beside of this Europeans who are pro-America need some calmness to rebuild a littlebit of what has been smashed during the past 5 years or so. Lantos is backstabbing them (us) with his self-righteous hullabaloo.
Regards from good old Europe
A.B.
Tom Lantos is a nut and a loose cannon.
One never knows what he or his family may do in the states or around the world.
Tom Lantos is from old Europe. He had some troubles in his younger days there.
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