There’s very little that Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos and I agree on, but Mr. Lantos deserves heaps of praise for standing up to Dutch politicians who came to Guantanamo Bay to tell us what we are required to do with it. Don Surber has the story:
The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a L’Intifada like France suffered in 2005.
Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”
To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”
He also said: “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.”
Good for him.
The Socialist Harry van Bommel said: “The comments killed the debate. It was insulting and counterproductive.”
Excuse me, there is no debate. There never was.
America is not European. Americans by and large do not care what the Dutch think or the French or the Germans or the Belgians. We’ll listen to them, but if they are going to go tell us we “have to” do this or we “have to” do that, they can put a sock in it.
Which is what Congressman Lantos essentially told the Dutch politicians to do, and good for him. Don and Michelle Malkin are both predicting Lantos will eventually apologize, which he may do, but I hope he doesn’t. He didn’t say anything to these politicians that was untrue or unreasonable.
