However, getting a few numbers and facts wrong doesn’t even begin to compare to the biggest gaffe I have ever seen in my life, and it has gone completely ignored by the media.
I honestly could not believe my ears and almost choked on my popcorn when I heard Biden say this:
Gwen, no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion.
But you asked a question about whether or not this administration's policy had made sense or something to that effect. It has been an abject failure, this administration's policy.
In fairness to Secretary Rice, she's trying to turn it around now in the seventh or eighth year.
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.
Is he serious? We…and who kicked Hezbollah out of where??? Obama urged to send NATO to do what??? This is really a serious and important foreign policy gaffe. It is far more serious than anything Sarah Palin has said anytime anywhere!
Perhaps in the alternate universe Joe Biden lives in the U.S. and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, but back here on Earth it has never happened. Hezbollah has never been kicked out of Lebanon by anyone. Not the US, France, Israel or even the Lebanese.
The fact is Hezbollah has been in Lebanon since the early 1980’s. They have since grown to make up over a third of the population of Lebanon and have an entirely separate governance infrastructure in the southern part of the country. Hezbollah currently controls 62 of 128 seats in the Lebanese Parliament.
Although it would hardly make any more sense, but perhaps Biden was referring to when the Lebanese people kicked the Syrians out of Lebanon with behind the scenes work of France and the U.S. It was the U.S. who convinced King Abdullah to lobby the Syrians to get gone while the going was good while the French worked directly on Baby Assad. The Syrians left after a couple million Lebanese took to the street in a show of love for freedom and defiance to tyranny.
Even then Biden, Barack Obama or anyone on this planet did not push for NATO to “fill the vacuum” Anyone who would have put such a proposal on the table would have been laughed out of the room, but Biden seems to believe not having NATO to “fill the vaccum” led to Hezbollah’s rise to political power in Lebanon.
One has to ask where the hell has Biden been the last 20 years. It was the Taif Accords that were signed in 1989 that gave Hezbollah power in the southern part of the country. Hezbollah’s real rise to political power is directly related to Iran’s 250 million dollar a year funding of their proxy.
Either Biden is completely clueless on foreign policy, or he simply got caught up in a lie that went horribly wrong.
It is almost unbelievable to me that I was unable to find even a mention of this let alone a story from the mainstream media on this incredible gaffe, outlandish misstatement of history and outright lie that he and Obama called for NATO troops in Lebanon after Hezbollah was kicked out. Even if he meant Syria kicked out it’s still a lie. Where was fact check.org? I guess there magnifying glass missed this one. Why am I not surprised.
The headline of the debate should have been; “Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Seems Clueless on Foreign Policy.” Instead Biden gets a pass and Palin is heavily criticized for mispronouncing the name of our commanding general in Afghanistan.
Absolutely shameful reporting from the press.
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