Pelosi, Lantos may be interested in diplomatic trip to Iran
SFgate.com
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that sparked sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that they may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip – to open a dialogue with Iran.
The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.
“Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,” Lantos said. “Speaking for myself, I’m ready to go — and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.”
Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos — a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust — brought “great experience, knowledge and judgment” to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.
Pelosi was criticized by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the administration for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who the administration said has meddled in the politics and fomented violence in Iraq and Lebanon and is a state sponsor of terrorism.
The president also has tried to isolate Iran, saying its government, too, has aided attacks against Americans in Iraq and elsewhere while ramping up its efforts to build nuclear weapons.
Lantos said that for more than a decade, he has been trying to obtain a visa to visit Tehran with the help of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan — and to date neither he nor any other member of Congress has been successful.
“There was, of course, a shadow over all of it, Iran: Iran’s support of terrorist groups is something that must be stopped,” she said. “Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon is something that must not happen and we must stop them with the strongest of diplomatic measures.”
Lantos noted that “with the speaker’s support,” he has co-sponsored legislation in the House that calls for making available to all countries — including Iran — nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under international oversight by establishing a “nuclear fuel bank.”
“So if the Iranian president says that he is developing (nuclear material) for peaceful purposes, we are assisting him in that process,” said Lantos, who anticipated the legislation could pass as early as May.
Wild Thing’s comment……….
Time for her to be arrested and tried under the logan act. The way it was reported this afternoon…Lantos said that they wanted to go to Iran..but Iran had turned down their VISA request…but, if Iran changed their mind…that he and Nancy would go right away.
Isn’t Wolverine of the X-Men named Logan?
Time to dust off the talons and let her have it!
Logan act!
Let’s clean house!
Wolverine would really make it easy.
For over a decade this clown, Lantos, has been trying to go to Iran and even Clinton wouldn’t allow it.
Tom Lantos is a Holocaust survivor, a Jew from Hungary who along with a 100,000 other Hungarian Jews were rescued by Raoul Wallenberg. There was a made for TV movie, ‘Shoah’, about this resuce effort.
Tom Lantos is the only Holocaust survivor ever to be elected to congress.
He is a strong supporter of Israel and has broke with his progressive caucus ‘buddies’ , Pelosi and company to vote with Bush on Bills that support Israel.
Ahmadinejab,(or whatever) has made it plain he wants Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. That message from Tehran is not ambiguous it is clear and to the point.
So why in the hell does Lantos want anything to do with Iran except for the chance to bomb the Iranians back to the stoneage.
This guy is an enigma, and for that matter so are all Liberal Jews, they support the very regimes that want/or have tried to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Is he this naieve to believe that Iran is developing Nuclear power for peaceful purposes, ‘the Iranians have oil coming out of their ears’, as stated by Benjamin Natenyahu., ‘Why do they need Nuclear Power?’
What doesn’t Lantos understand. As Golda Meir once said, “We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative. ”
Of all people Tom Lantos should be the first one to know that appeasement accomplishes … Nothing. And Israel will be their first target.
Tom Lantos is a member of the CPC, as are most California representatives, including Pelosi. He isn’t an enigma he’s a Socialist. They have no compunction about the taking of millions of lives to further the cause of Socialism, there is no patriotism in the one world government scheme, that’s why they have no conscience about fraternizing and collaborating with the enemies of freedom. This batch of Comrads will sell out our sovereignty and security to the highest bidder for a fleeting taste of power. What’s worse are the sheep who elected them. I find the enigma being the Democrat rank and file who are in lockstep with the National Socialists who have hijacked their party and still do nothing to right the listing ship. With 40 years of sedition and treason, some of it amongst the highest ranking members of the Senate, there isn’t any will to prosecute ongoing acts of the same. That is to include the Republican leadership also, because they are awful silent on the subject.
The democraps are really feeling their oats after the last election. The seem to believe that there are no longer any rules, laws or boundries that apply to them. The soft spined Repubs will obviously do nothing to interfere with the dems free run.
Perhaps it may be a good thing as the really far out Leftists completely take over the Dem Party. Two years of Hippie/Socialist/Communist antics might frighten the fence straddlers to vote against the Dems in the next election. But only if the Stupid Party gets some dynamic leadership to offer an alternative.
BTW, Putin must love Lantos and Pelosi!!
Jack-Maybe I wasn’t clear, the Progressive Caucus is not unclear, when people like, Dennis ‘the Menace’ Kucinich, Barney Frank and Cahka Fattah populate this leftist socialist group, no that is not unclear that is very clear and what their agenda is.
What is an enigma is someone of Lantos background, with a direct to the Holocaust, and had seen, what went on there and fled with the help of a Swedish diplomat back to Hungary, and when that diplomat was taken by the Soviets and subquently killed because of his efforts. When in the end , he saw both extreme ideologies at work the Nazis and the Communists.
Yet he backs Israel, suppoosedly, and has voted for their support, but turns around and joins a left wing group of this nature, this low life group that first agenda is the destruction of the country that is virtually responsible for his freedom.
Now is a goddam enigma, like it or not.
Mark I meant nothing to impugn your comment, you were very clear. I, like you, don’t understand why someone whose family and ancestors have perished at the hands of despotic Socialists and other pogroms of Communist servitude are still wanting to consort with those very same ideologies. Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928. He was 16 years of age when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. He certainly was old enough to remember and at 77 is old enough to know his adopted country paid a very high price defeating Hitler, perhaps he has forgotten that Adolph was a Socialist who’s agenda was killing off the Jews. Your last statement says it all.
Jack-thanks for the reply. I have been all over the world and the only people who really disparage and hate this country are the home-grown socialists variety. Why it is, to me is another ball of confusion.
I met, while at school, a man who was in the Hungarian Army in 1956, He was a conservative and very much for this country. This was in 1969, and on campus there were all these anti-American groups, SDS and so on, that had sprung up during the war and in the quad during the day they would set up their little tables and push all their Communist propaganda, little booklets by Marx and Engles.
Eddie my Hungarian friend was not impressed. During a break, one day, we were walking through the quad, and he stopped at one of the tables. Eddie told one of the ‘Hippies’ running the stand, ‘I had to read Marx and Engles in High School’, that got their attention… ‘You did ?’ Eddie said, ‘yes, and that was in 1954, and then when the revolution came, I was in the Army and we turned our guns on those Sons of Bitches and tried to kill as many as we could. You have no idea what you are talking about.’
With that I thought for sure, this is it we are going to get the crap beat out of us,(we were the only ones with short hair) because when he got going he had gathered a crowd, when he finished they left discouraged I don’t think he changed any minds but I learned there are many Eddies in the world, who would die for the chance to be an American.
This was my point in the Lantos post.
This is what is so confusing when I hear these American born communist running down our country and trying to defeat it at every turn,… To me I can’t understand why and boil over with anger… Also to me I believe what Merle Haggard said, “when you’re running down my Country Hoss, you walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.”
I what Pelosi has done with her hair. (CUTE PIC)
Logan Act all the way… Oh, right, never mind, she’s a Dem, remember, they don’t pay for their crimes. They get re-elected.