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CounterPunch
February
15, 2003
The Lies of Tom Lantos
The Bela Lugosi
of the House
By WAYNE MADSEN
He is a fake, a phony and a complete fraud. He
constantly stresses his victimhood: first as a Holocaust survivor
in Nazi-run Hungary and then as a refugee when the Communists
took power. He fancies himself as the leading human rights specialist
on Capitol Hill. In fact, this odious so-called Democrat is a
master of deception and propaganda and a wallower in corrupt
campaign money.
Meet California Congressman Tom Lantos.
The Gollum-like Lantos has launched his latest string of invectives
at France, Germany, and Belgium. He said "the failure of
these three states to honor their commitments is beneath contempt"
and that he is "particularly disgusted by the blind intransigence
and utter ingratitude" of America's three NATO allies.
Lantos, who represents California's 12th
District (San Mateo), has a history of just plain lying and intimidating
others in order to push his sordid agenda.
He once told Clinton White House security
chief Craig Livingstone, who  was testifying before a House committee
on the so-called "Travelgate" matter, that he should
think about committing suicide. Lantos, who sounds a lot like
Bela Lugosi, told the beleaguered aide, "At least Admiral
Boorda had the decency to commit suicide," a reprehensible
reference to the tragic suicide of the Chief of Naval Operations.
And who can forget the last time Lantos
shilled for a Bush war on Iraq? On October 10, 1990, Lantos,
who laughably chaired the Congressional Human Rights Caucus,
held a meeting during which a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who only
went by the name Nayirah told a sobbing hearing room that as
a volunteer for a Kuwait hospital she personally witnessed Iraqi
soldiers yank new born babies from their incubators, steal the
incubators, and leave the infants on the cold floors to die.
Lantos, it turns out, was in on a little scam he cooked up with
Citizens for a Free Kuwait and an entity Lantos chaired called
the Congressional Human Rights Foundation. In fact, both organizations
were rump entities set up by the public relations firm Hill and
Knowlton, the same company that is now shilling for the Saudis
to fend off all criticism of Osama bin Laden's true paymasters.
Lantos, the consummate prevaricator,
said that poor Nayirah's last name had to be kept confidential
or otherwise her family in Kuwait might face reprisals from Iraqi
occupiers. Nice try, but soon it was revealed that Nayirah's
actual last name was Al Sabah and that she was the daughter of
Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. But the disinformation
soon caught on. George H. W. Bush traveled around the country
condemning the Brute of Baghdad for throwing newborn babies on
to the floors of Kuwaiti hospitals. Support for Bush's war skyrocketed
as a result.
Now, as another President Bush hones
his plans to control Iraq through pro-consul and fellow Texan,
General Tommy Franks, Lantos is bleating forth more disinformation
about the "treacherous" French, Germans, and Belgians
for not jumping into Bush's lap in the same manner as Britain's
Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard.
Lantos' venomous brand of politics has
earned him scorn from many of his House colleagues, especially
those in the Congressional Black Caucus. Always quick to accuse
those who don't stand with Israel of being anti-Semitic, Lantos
is intolerant of African-American members who have accused the
international diamond industry of responsibility for a large
share of Africa's bloody civil wars and torment. Lantos has,
in some cases, made no secret of his disdain for people of color
who dare question his competency to lord over human rights issues
from his Capitol Hill perch. The relationship between Lantos
and Hill and Knowlton, the agents of past brutal dictatorships
in Indonesia and Turkey, makes Lantos's congressional monopoly
on human rights advocacy an outrageous fraud.
In 1992, high tech entrepreneur Glenn
Tenney challenged Lantos in the Democratic primary. Although
Lantos is well-known for his arrogance in Washington, Tenney
and his supporters pointed out that this haughtiness extended
to the constituents of the 12th District as well. But Lantos,
who is propped up partly with the infusion of campaign funds
from mob-controlled unions at San Francisco International Airport,
remained invulnerable to the challenge.
Although Lantos's biography says he is
the only Holocaust survivor to have ever served in Congress,
it glosses over the fact that his wife, also a Holocaust survivor,
and two daughters left the Jewish faith and are practicing Mormons.
And it is also a well-known fact that the Latter Day Saints Church
remains a prime backer of the Republican Party and George W.
Bush. Nonetheless, Lantos was quick to hurl his hackneyed anti-Semitism
charges at his two last challengers, Republican Michael Moloney,
who favored cutting off all U.S. aid to Israel and Libertarian
Maad Abu Ghazalah, a Palestinian refugee from the West Bank,
who called for a more even-handed American foreign policy in
the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
As eloquent Democrats like West Virginia
Senator Robert Byrd and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold call
into question Bush's Iraq adventure and his creeping totalitarianism
at home, Lantos, to coin a phrase, remains, as always, "beneath
contempt."
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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