My jaw hit the floor when I heard Biden say this:
Here’s what the president said when we said no. He insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, “Big mistake. Hamas will win. You’ll legitimize them.” What happened? Hamas won. When we kicked—along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know—if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”
Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.
Wha? Who? Kicked Hezb’allah out of where? Urged we send who into what? This is really an incredible gaffe – far more serious than anything Sarah Palin has ever said anywhere.
Let’s allow a “Foreign Policy Insider” quoted at The Corner, to try and untangle this web of lies, misstatements, and downright loony contentions:
Well, Hezbollah’s been there since the early 1980’s of course, blossoming throughout the 1990’s to become now over a third of the population of Lebanon with 2 cabinet members, a host of parliamentarians, and schools, clinics, and basically an entirely separate governance infrastructure in all of southern Lebanon and elsewhere. I suppose the throwing out of Hezbollah was the dismal and failed Israeli campaign of 2006 which dislodged nothing? Or was it Israeli’s occupation of Southern Lebanon from 1982 – 1999? Don’t remember an Obama position on NATO replacing Israeli occupation then. As for NATO going in after the 2006 debacle, well, I’m the one who rounded up 8,000 French and Italians and a few thousand other Euros to go into Southern Lebanon along with an assortment of others in August 2006 and while working that issue for about 40 straight days I don’t remember a peep from Biden or Obama about NATO - which wouldn’t be budged despite our intense pressure in Mons. So, we went straight to Rome and Paris. Que sera, sera.In any case, he was all bluff and bluster and too bad she didn’t have time during debate prep to get his very mixed record on foreign policy stuff, he’s as good as he is bad at foreign policy and that is just a comment on his mastery, not on his policy positions…which have been more bad than good.
Allow me to add a few things. First, Hezb’allah may have only two cabinet ministers but they control the entire opposition bloc of 11 ministers in the 30 seat government. They currently control 62 of the 128 member Lebanese Parliament. Now for the meat of Biden’s claims.
Of course, no one “threw Hezb’allah out of Lebanon.” They have been there all along as the expert above notes. The Lebanese people threw the Syrians out of Lebanon, with no help from liberal Democrats like Biden and Obama, but with a great big behind the scenes lift from France and the US. It was we who put the bug in King Abdullah’s ear to lobby the Syrians to get while the going was good as the French worked directly on Baby Assad. The combination worked wonderfully and the Syrians left in a hurry – after a couple of million Lebanese took to the streets in a breathtaking show of defiance to tyranny and love of freedom.
Joe Biden – or any rational human being on this planet anyway – never recommended that NATO be dispatched to “fill the vacuum.” It is a lie. If it had been proposed. Colin Powell would have been laughed out of the room – something we should do to Biden at this point because he compounded his gaffe by evidently believing that not having NATO as a buffer between Israel and Hezb’allah – an absolute impossibility mind you – led to the ascension of Hezb’allah in Lebanon as a political power.
Where has Biden been for the last 20 years – at least since the Taif Accords were signed in 1989 which gave Hezb’allah a free hand in the southern part of the country and then pressuring the Lebanese government to formally designate them as “the resistance” to Israel? Hezb’allah’s rise is directly related to Iran’s funding of their proxy to the tune of around $250 million a year.
It is unbelievable to me that no one – not one single story in the press that I’ve read about the debate last night (I haven’t read them all so there may be some analysis I’ve missed) – has seen fit to mention this monumental gaffe, this horible misstatement of history, misreading of the situation in Lebanon, and the out and out lie that he and Obama recommended NATO troops move in after Syria was kicked out. This gaffe should be the headline that comes out of the debate; “Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee is a Buffoon.” Instead, it slides by and Palin is called out for mispronouncing the name of our commanding general in Afghanistan.
Unbelievable.
UPDATE
Michael Totten – who has been to Lebanon several times and knows the people and politics as well as any journalist in America – writes in Commentary this morning:
What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.
Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.
Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.
It’s too bad debate moderator Gwen Ifill didn’t catch him and ask a follow up question: When did the United States and France kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon?
The answer? Never. And did Biden and Senator Barack Obama really say NATO troops should be sent into Lebanon? When did they say that? Why would they say that? They certainly didn’t say it because NATO needed to prevent Hezbollah from returning-since Hezbollah never went anywhere.
I tried to chalk this one up as just the latest of Biden’s colorful gaffes. Did he mean to say “we kicked Syria out of Lebanon?” But that wouldn’t make any more sense. First of all, the Lebanese kicked Syria out of Lebanon. Not the United States, and not France. But he clearly meant to say Hezbollah, not Syria, because he correctly notes just a few sentences later that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s government. He wasn’t talking about Syria. He was talking about Hezbollah all the way through, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of his outlandish assertion.
Taking a second look at it, Michael may be right – that Biden is so clueless he actually meant Hezb’allah and not Syria. This coupled with his rather strange answer on Pakistan’s stability, that it is somehow within the power of the US president to affect what is happening on the ground in Pakistan beyond doing what the Bush Administration has been doing since 2001, calls into question the depth of Biden’s knowledge about any foreign policy issue.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
This blog post originally appeared in The American Thinker
10:28 am
I was hoping someone would write about this somewhere. When he said “When we kicked—along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon,...” all I could think was, what the hell are you talking about Biden?
I’ve been paying attention to that part of the world for quite some time now and I was totally confused by his response. It seemed to go against a great deal of what I’ve read.
I did some more looking this morning just to see what he was going on about. Either he spilled the beans on some secret operation, or he was totally confusing countries and issues.
I have no idea.
11:24 am
One little quibble: it wasn’t a gaffe, it was a lie (malice aforethought and all that). It’s the say-anything debate tactic. The only thing that stays in the voter’s mind is the sound bite, not the correction.
Of course Biden is probably the last person who should try to employ this tactic. Aside from his crank-stepping verbal flatulence, EVERYTHING else that spews out of his maw is so eminently forgettable as to be non-consequential.
12:40 pm
[...] Moran of Right Wing Nut House has followed the wars in Lebanon more closely than most bloggers, and Joe Biden’s assertion [...]
2:42 pm
For this gaffe alone, Biden should be removed from the Obama ticket AND the U.S. Senate!
3:27 pm
Look, I am a housewife in a red state between LA and AL, and even I KNEW this was hogwash! I looked at my husband and said asked him if he followed what Biden had just said; he had no clue. We are just your average Americans that attempt to have a general idea as to what is going on in the world. I was shocked the genius pundits who keep telling us that we should give up because McCain has lost, did not bring this blather forward and focus in on the insanity coming out of Biden’s mouth.
And just as an aside, when is someone going to call Obama and Biden on this mess about going after Bin Laden? I have just about had it with this mantra that WE, or Bush did not go after Bin Laden. They speak as if they know exactly where Bin Laden is. Joe said he was somewhere in, or near Pakistan. Well how in the world does he know this, and if he and Obama know where he is, then why are we not carpet bombing the area? It was Clinton and the Dems that knew where he was, and did not give him his one way ticket to blood thirsty terrorist heaven. This tone Biden and Obama have taken regarding Bin Laden also reflects a negative tone, or insinuates OUR military have perhaps done something wrong or were inadequate. I wish someone would call them on this implication.
Good article and way to go internet for doing what the MSMLSDS will not do!
3:41 pm
nice catch rick, great article, get it linked to pajamas or american thinker, spread the word everyone…
3:42 pm
I really think Biden and Obama live in a fantasy world sometimes and you can tell when they start talking exactly how bad it is. 57 states? The “bomb” dropped on Pearl Harbor? but you know, since this was BIDEN saying this and not a Republican, you can bet there won’t be any coverage on this. It’s just Biden being Biden! It’s part of his charm! He means well!
Maybe picking Biden was a good strategic move because he is the only Democrat alive that I know of who is more gaffe-prone than Obama. He sure makes his boss look smart!
3:43 pm
The part of the statement that caught my notice at the time was “He insisted on elections on the West Bank”. That would be the Gaza Strip wouldn’t it? Have there been any elections in the West Bank? Not that I remember, but I don’t have the encyclopedic knowledge that Biden has. After hearing the West Bank my mind turned to mush hearing the rest. Too bad Palin was not more aware of the gaffe – anyone else with even a few years more experience in FA would have reduced him to hamburger at that point.
By the way, I think she had a better grasp of what General what’s his name actually said that Biden did and if you watch Bidens face listening
to her answer he knew it.
Also, I’m tied of the line the Bush Admin caused the latest financial crisis. Maybe they didn’t do all they could, but this was far more than 8 years in the making.
3:52 pm
[...] in, but this one, Hezbollah has a firm foothold in Lebanon and will not be leaving anytime soon. Right Wing Nut House, Rick Moran, has a post that goes in more [...]
4:49 pm
[...] on October 3, 2008 Right Wing Nuthouse: AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY INSANE: THE MOTHER OF ALL BIDEN GAFFES Contentions: Joe Biden’s Alternate Universe Jammie Wearing Fool: ‘These Are Men With [...]
7:57 pm
Excellent article. There is so much to know about the region that I know there are a plethora of people who won’t know any different so links from other websites is going to help. Great Article!
Please correct me if I am wrong… am I the only one who noticed Biden referred to Bosnians as ‘Bosniacs’? Am I wrong here? I figure if I heard right, that was a gaffe. A Bosnian who is a maniac = Bosniac!
8:39 pm
Christy, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Look up the word Bosniak first before you start spewing BS.
8:44 pm
Yes, I remember asking myself what in the world he was talking about when Biden said US and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. I pay close attention to the news and knew I missed that historic event. What an idiot!
10:14 pm
I have been a Joe Biden fan willing to look past all his gaffes on areas that he has no expertise in – but this is foreign policy – His FORTE’ – and HE fricking turned INTO a gasbag and outright LIAR ! Boy, what a story !!
He confused Syria with Hezbollah, lied about Obama calling for a NATO presence in Lebanon ( huh ?? the same NATO which would have no part of the Iraqi invasion would now like to meditate in the Middle East ?? You can imagine the French, German, British forces competing with each other on who will send the MOST forces to the region !)
But his worst piece of gasbaggery was the “vaccum” that was left and regained supposedly by Hezbollah?
When exactly was Hezbollah kicked out of Lebanon ?? Are we now supposed to believe that the 2006 Israel attack “kicked them out” – but wait a minute France and the US kicked them out according to Biden !!
IMAGINE if Sarah Palin had said the same things that Biden did ! It would be FRONT PAGE NEWS !
I doubt if God exists.
11:19 pm
Don’t hold your breath until the democrat Lame Stream Media prints this lie. If they do they’ll say it is true. That’s why I sh** canned the LSM long ago. Never watch or read them and probably never will. I tell everyone the only truth at any LSM outlet is the comic strip and a lot of them are becoming suspect.
11:29 pm
Nice to see Joe Isuzu has found work again!
12:34 am
If he is saying that Hezbollah was able to regain ground, he’s also saying he believes the UN was totally useless here. It might be a first for a Democrat to say something bad about UN peacekeepers.
2:11 am
This could be a major problem for Joe Biden, except that nobody cares. Sarah Palin has sucked all the life out of the 2008 Vice-President Nominee category. The MSN (and nearly all blogs) ignored Obama’s pick before the debate, so why should they pay attention to him now?
8:31 am
[...] Moran added: Joe Biden – or any rational human being on this planet anyway – never recommended that NATO be [...]
9:18 am
An even bigger gaffe that Palin did not pick up on. Biden said the people who can’t pay their mortages should be able to have their interest rates reduced AND have their principles reduced
!
I owe the bank $100K @ 6.5%. So I go in and say, “I want $50K @ 2%. Biden wants the bank to say OK
???
Biden then said this would help the home owner AND the bank. So…, who will pay the difference??? Thats right, all you responsible people who pay your mortages on time, thats who.
The liberals think its fair for hard working, mainly white America to pay for deadbeat minority houses. ITS ONLY FAIR, JUST ASK OBAMA!
10:22 am
An amazing media condonation! How far will they go to push this man and his cohort into position OVER us? But how did our girl miss him leaving himself wide open? He should have been immediately nailed to the wall! (And they call it a ‘debate.’) I’d rather see the participants coming away with antimosity than a hug (or at least the hug an obvious cover up.) Between the gaffe and the ‘truth squads,’ God help us if this Defiant Duo is somehow elected!
10:25 am
Thank you RA. I literally just decided who to vote for because of what you said above.
10:26 am
ps Just in case anyone missed the ‘truth squads,’ cut and paste this link to your browser and hold your breath as you watch:
http://www.kmov.com/video/index.html?nvid=285793&shu=1
10:49 am
RA, Unfortunately, Joe Blowhard was just leaking something that was included in the massive bill passed yesterday. The bill actually DOES allow judges to reduce the size of the PRINCIPAL owed. Yes, you and I, as a reward for responsible borrowing and paying our bills on time, will shoulder this responsibility too.
And speaking of leaking… Isn’t Biden famous for leaking information? I’m sure his tendency to run off at the mouth will subside once he is first in line for the presidency.
7:02 am
[...] Moran of Right Wing Nut House has followed the wars in Lebanon more closely than most bloggers, and Joe Biden’s assertion [...]