Tom Lantos
Thomas Peter "Tom" Lantos (1928-2008, born Budapest, Hungary as Lantos Tamás Péter) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1981, representing California's 12th congressional district. He was the chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs. [1] [2]
Contents
Comment and criticism
Paul George, director of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, said about Lantos, “Lantos isn’t just a Democrat who voted for the Iraq war, he was one of its co-authors… Lantos has never met a war he didn’t like. His unblinking defense of Israeli policy gives him tunnel vision with the rest of the Middle East.”[3]
Iraq
Tom Lantos’ record goes back to the ‘91 Gulf War when he played a key role in the Human Rights Caucus (HRC) – a front for Hill & Knowlton, the PR firm the Kuwaiti government had hired – where a girl named Nayirah gave false testimony about Iraqi soldiers removing Kuwaiti babies from incubators and leaving them on the floor. This story was subsequently picked up by Amnesty International (though it retracted the story after the war) and subsequently propagated by the congress, Kuwaiti expats and other proponents of war. The harrowing testimony of Nayirah — purportedly a nurse at the hospital but in reality the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah – played a critical role in getting congressional support for the war (The Kuwaitis donated $50,000 as thanks to HRC). [4]
Palestine
According to The Jerusalem Post, he represents Israel in countries with which it has no diplomatic relations. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Operation Defensive Shield, Sharon’s war of terror on the Palestinians. [5]
Iran
As far back as 2006 he was gunning for war with Iran. He wrote an article, “Now or Never to Prevent a Nuclear-Armed Iran.”[6]
Lebanon
Lantos said in Israel, at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, on August 27, 2006, that he would block aid promised by President George W. Bush to Lebanon and free the funds only when Beirut agreed to the deployment of international troops on the border with Syria. He was meeting at the time with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.[7]
Lantos played a key role in building Democratic support for the Patriot Act and was one of Hillary Clinton’s prominent supporters. While he derived some of his prestige from being a holocaust survivor, according to Jeffrey Blankfort, “His ‘history’ as a holocaust survivor has evolved over the years and it is only in recent years that he has claimed to have been a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in Hungary which conflicts with his earlier story that he was given a Swedish passport and a safe place to live by Raoul Wallenberg”. [8]
Affiliations
Resources
- Morris Amitay, My friend, Tom Lantos, Jerusalem Post, 14 February, 2008.
- Thomas Dine, Tom Lantos's liberal anti-authoritarianism, Jerusalem Post, 16 February, 2008.
Notes
- ↑ 'Tom Lantos Profile', Guardian Unlimited website, accessed 2 April, 2009.
- ↑ 'About Tom', web.archive.org/Congressman Tom Lantos website, accessed 2 April, 2009.
- ↑ Paul George, Hawk Slated to Chair International Relations, Institute for Public Accuracy website, 14 November, 2006, accessed 13 Jan 2010
- ↑ 'How the public relations industry sold the Gulf War to the US, the mother of all clients', geocities.com, accessed 2 April, 2009.
- ↑ 'Meet The F*ckers', Fanonite.org, 17 March, 2007. (Accessed 2 April, 2009)
- ↑ Now or Never to Prevent a Nuclear-Armed Iran, The Huffington Post, 20 January, 2006. (Accessed 13 Jan 2010)
- ↑ 'Guests: Tom Lantos', Charlie rose website, accessed 2 April, 2009.
- ↑ 'Meet The F*ckers', Fanonite.org, 17 March, 2007. (Accessed 2 April, 2009)
- ↑ 'House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, AIPAC Policy Conference 2007', AIPAC website, 12 March, 2007. (Accessed 2 April, 2009)
- ↑ Ron Kampeas, 'Remembering Tom Lantos', FJC website, 13 February, 2008. (Accessed 2 April, 2009)
