Senator Biden: 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. The fact of the matter is, the policy of this administration has been an abject failure. (transcript from the VP debate on October 2, 2008)
OK, some of you might have read my little article about Joe Biden before he became the Democratic VP nominee. You might ask why I showed so much enthusiasm for his selection as running mate by Senator Obama. Well, that opinion was specifically about his support of diplomacy when it comes to Iran, it did not mean that the guy never gaffs.
Today I like to talk about the gaff he made during the debate and no one has picked on it. Perhaps because Governor Palin offered so much more fun material that there was no need to take on Senator O’Biden (as Palin called him that night). First when I heard the sentence about we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I did not believe my ears. Now that I have the transcripts from NYT, there is no reason to think that I missed something.
Note that, this was in response to a question about Bush’s administration policy with regards to Israel. In other words he is talking about a time span between 2000 and 2008. So where did this claim that “WE kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon” comes from? When did we do that?
The only event that Hezbollah was involved in, in the recent years, was in July 2006 when not WE, but Israel attacked Hezbollah camps in Southern Lebanon, and was not able to defeat them with IDF crossing the border into Lebanon re-occupying Lebanese land, and even after 20 some days of bombarding Lebanese infrastructure. US supported Israel by threatening to use its veto power in blocking UN Security Council attempt to call for cease-fire. We all know that at the end it was Israel that was kicked out of Lebanon, and not Hezbollah who reside in Southern Lebanon and have no other place to go. Biden, however, was partially accurate in saying that France and Israel were interested at the end, to deploy NATO forces to replace UN Peace keepers. Whether Biden and Obama were suggesting the same line, I have no idea. But for sure UN was not happy with the proposal and situation in Northern Israel under Hezbollah’s Katiusha raids was so critical that everybody decided to take their ball and go home.
So I can only say O’Joe, Pelleez!!! If you are going to start rewriting the history look back what the strategy of “reality making” has brought us in the past eight years. As the philosopher George Santayana said a century ago “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
