And the Biden administration recently sent millions more.
In 2006, after a Hezbollah invasion, Israel launched a military campaign against the Islamic terrorist group. After a month of fighting, the Bush administration forced a ceasefire under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that required the disarmament of Hezbollah and its replacement by the Lebanese Army and a United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ force.
How can Hezbollah claim victory, President George W. Bush wondered, when they were “going to be replaced by a Lebanese Army and an international force?”
The answer was quite obvious. The Lebanese Army and UNIFIL didn’t replace Hezbollah, they were co-opted by it. And nearly two decades later, Hezbollah had far more firepower and attempted to launch its own version of Oct 7 until Israel neutered it with its pager operation.
And then the Biden administration negotiated another ‘ceasefire’ under which Hezbollah is supposed to be replaced by the Lebanese Army and a UN peacekeeping force. Just like Hezbollah, the LAF and UNIFIL were supposed to have done 18 years ago. But didn’t.
To disarm Hezbollah, the Lebanese Army would need permission from a cabinet that includes Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is not likely to authorize a government it controls to disarm it.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammad Afif responded by bragging that no one would be “able to sever the connection between the army” and the terror group which is “strong and solid and will remain so.” Sizable portions of the Lebanese Armed Forces are loyal to Hezbollah including officers trained by Hezbollah or in Syria so that by funding LAF, we’re funding Hezbollah.
And the United States not only made the mistake of falling for the same failed policy again, but since 2006, Americans have provided over $3 billion to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
That money was not used to disarm or replace Hezbollah. It was not used to bring peace to the region. Even the LAF and Hezbollah campaign against ISIS in 2017 ended with a ceasefire agreement between the Sunni and Shiite Islamic terror groups while the LAF looked away.
And the United States had to fight the ISIS terrorists because the LAF and Hezbollah wouldn’t.
During the same period in which the U.S. poured over $3 billion into the LAF, Hezbollah’s arsenal rose from 15,000 rockets to over 150,000. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that Hezbollah had “dramatically improved its military since 2006” and while much of that assistance had come from Iran, it is all too likely that American military training and weapons provided to the LAF also ended up directly or indirectly benefiting Hezbollah.
Israel’s 2024 conflict with Hezbollah conclusively demonstrated that UN Resolution 1701, the LAF and UNIFIL not only did not disarm the Islamic terror group, but covered up for it. Despite that, the Biden administration turned around and forced a nearly identical agreement on Israel.
What had not worked for the last 18 years was somehow going to work this time around.
After over $3 billion which did nothing but prop up Hezbollah’s front army, the Biden administration pulled money from military aid to Israel and diverted it to the LAF, reprogramming $95 million in security assistance from Egypt and $7.5 million in security aid to Israel to the LAF.
Last year, Rep. Greg Steube introduced the PAGER Act (Preventing Armed Groups from Engaging in Radicalism) to stop “sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to Lebanon when they are complicit in empowering a terrorist organization whose primary mission is to destroy America and Israel.”
“For two years I filed an amendment to the annual State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill to eliminate funding to the Lebanese Armed Forces, as the money goes to Hezbollah. Republicans and Democrats continue to vote it down,” Rep. Steube complained.
The State Department has spent nearly two decades selling the myth that empowering the LAF will weaken Hezbollah, but after $3 billion in spending, Hezbollah is more powerful than ever, while American taxpayers are stuck with financing its auxiliary force in the hopes of defeating it.
Hezbollah won’t disarm, nor will the LAF disarm it or prevent it from attacking Israel, because Lebanon’s entire balance of power depends on aiming Hezbollah’s weapons at Israel.
Under the 1989 Taif agreement, all of Lebanon’s militias were supposed to disarm and cede power to the LAF. That’s the basis for UN Resolution 1701 and the latest ceasefire deal. Hezbollah’s basis for an exemption from the Taif agreement is its campaign against Israel. By waging war against Israel, Hezbollah secures its legal right to run a separate army.
If Hezbollah really stopped attacking Israel or if the Lebanese government secured the border, Hezbollah would lose its legal basis for having an army. Then either the Lebanese government would have to disarm Hezbollah or admit that the Taif agreement was a charade that turned over Lebanon to Hezbollah, and to its backers in Tehran. And Hezbollah would have to admit that the real purpose of its military is to dominate Lebanon’s Christians for the Shiites.
Everyone in Lebanon knows all of these things are true, but no one can say them out loud.
Allowing Hezbollah to control the border and attack Israel is the price for keeping the Hezbollah puppet regime in power in Beirut. It allows the various players in the government, including Hezbollah and its Christian Dhimmi puppets, to pretend that Hezbollah doesn’t rule Lebanon.
Actually disarming Hezbollah would lead to another civil war. One that without Israeli military intervention, the terrorist group would win, and that would officially turn Lebanon into another Iran, Syria or Iraq: a nation ruled by Shiite clerics and their terrorist militias. Eventually that day will come, but maintaining the illusion that Hezbollah is an anti-Israel “resistance” movement allows the other factions to delay the moment of truth for a few more years.
Regular wars with Israel are part of the price that they pay for this arrangement.
The $3 billion dollars that America squandered on the LAF, like the even larger sums wasted on arming and training the Iraqi military, didn’t counter Shiite Islamic rule, it enabled it.
Rep. Steube’s PAGER Act would cut off further funds to the LAF until the “Lebanese Armed Forces ceases coordination and support with Hezbollah” and the “Lebanese Armed Forces cease coordination and support with Iran”.
If the LAF is really a counterweight to Hezbollah, then why oppose the bill?
The only reason for opposing the PAGER Act is because the politicians know quite well that the LAF coordinates with Hezbollah, and are content to keep sending money based on the promise that if we arm the Lebanese military enough, it will one day be ready to take on Hezbollah.
That day has not come for 18 years. It will not come. Ever.
The LAF is perpetually short of money, renting out its helicopters for sightseeing tours and delaying payments to soldiers, forcing us to step in and write more checks, because it’s a corrupt organization of toy soldiers who do almost no actual fighting, and are there to shield the terrorists. Lebanon’s government is a Hezbollah puppet regime. The LAF is a puppet army.
It’s time to take away the shield, the excuses and stop sending more money to terrorists.
somehistory says
More and more layers of evil. It is rather depressing to keep learning about how terrorists get some of our hard-earned money….lots of it.
And we have to be so careful about our budgets, and hold back spending on things we need.
Why are those in charge, so stupid? If they had to take the money directly from their wallets, or put it on their bank cards, would they give so much of it away?
Raymond Bullock says
Take the instant gratification (deeply political and stupid) road and pay 10 times the price later. The enemy just keeps on going and everyone else loses. Didn’t Hitler teach the world anything?
somehistory says
Raymond, people only learn from firsthand experience when they are too stubborn to learn from the experience of others. The current crop weren’t around for hitler, nor were they in the place where he could get at them.
Only a few Holocaust survivors are still alive, and the younger crowd refuse to heed their warnings.
Hudders. says
Mockery after mockery. Betrayal after betrayal.
Time will continue to reveal the depths of the Biden/Obama administration betrayals of the free world, as well as of course the betrayals of the US.
Those involved in funding known murderering, rapist, terrorist death cult animals, should in fact be considered on a par with those evil animals & thus dealt with the same.
One day justice will cath up with the jihadist eneblers.
The sooner the better I say.
‘God is not mocked.’ Galatians 6:7
somehistory says
Hudders, that Day is soon to be upon mankind.
Hudders. says
Amen @SH.. of that we can be certain.
Ps: Some of your recent posts have been on fire my friend. keep going!
somehistory says
Thank you very much, Hudders.
Jean Gordon says
Not stupid. They’re evil.
When they chant “Death to America! Death to Israel!”, they’re really saying
“Death to Western Judeo-Christian civiization!”
The Obama-Biden crowd know this, it being exactly what they want.
Besides, it’s OUR money they’re giving to murderers, not theirs.
somehistory says
Sorry, but you have mixed up the two groups, calling them all “they.”
They…both groups in your comment…. are also stupid, because to do evil, means they are stupid.
“Besides” you missed the whole point of my post about the ***money**** and to whom it belongs.
And, please refrain from shouting. Thank you.
Cynthia says
Doing the same thing wrong and never learning from it is the definition of insanity to paraphrase Einstein. But worse than that is doing it maliciously with intent.
I need to believe that Rubio and Trump know better than that. If they continue to kick the can down the road, it’s because they want their term with no war. This is shortsighted for our future and deadly for Christians and Jews in the region.
somehistory says
“Trump’s executive order “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid” pauses foreign aid for 90 days. “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values. They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries,” says the order in an apparent nod to the Biden-Harris administration’s bountiful aid to Ukraine in its military struggle against Russia.”
https://washingtonstand.com/news/all-the-executive-orders-trump-signed-on-day-one
gravenimage says
The U.S. Sent Over $3 Billion to Hezbollah’s ‘Army’
……………………………………
Biden had less excuse than Bush fpr falling for this claptrap.
Kudos to Representative Greg Steube for taking steps to put a stop to American taxpayers having their money used to fund Jihad terror against our close ally Israel.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
If it has been sent in cash, can we just bomb whichever depots the cash is in, and just burn them? It’ll reduce the number of 💵 in circulation, which will help tackle inflation. Same for any 💵 possessed by Iran
࿗Infidel࿘ says
One of the few things Congress does well is come out w/ those catchy acronyms, like STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge), EL CHAPO (Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order), and now this PAGER Act. If only they were as brilliant when it came to cutting spending
Yogi Bear, on behalf of the Park Ranger says
Recently someone wrote something about the moment a war starts. He argued that there can be a period in which one state (A) is at war with the other (B), while the other (B) is not at war with A. As examples he gave the invasion by Germany of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940 and Pearl Harbour. Another example could be Gaza, which is an independent state and to this day is still governed by a government which must needs consider itself at war with the US, the Great Satan. Thus there can be a state of war without agreement on this point between the warring parties.
This person argued that paying these mohamedan organisations immens amounts of money, can thus be qualified as aiding and abetting the enemy and thus as treason.
In case of hizb’ollah the only argument against this line of reasoning that I can think of is the fact that Lebanon is not governed by hizb’ollah, although its government is very strongly influence by this bag of bilge water.
jerry glenn says
USA surges in the international Islamopandering derby.
Walter Sieruk says
Now after those most savage brutal cruel Muslim terrorist attacks by Hezbollah viciously lunching some 400 missiles into Israel with murderous intent is for a large part the fault of that
Despicable treacherous villain, Joe Biden for lifting sanctions ,held against Iran which provide that hostile Islamic state with tens of ten billion dollars.. For that “mullah regime” now has the funds provide missiles to Hezbollah, that treacherous villain, Joe Biden. All American should be glad and relieved know that Biden is now literally and officially a “has been.”
Walter Sieruk says
Those vicious tyrants of that “mullah regime “ of Iran has the ability to, and did, launch many murderous and destructive ballistic into the State of Israel with that malicious and deadly Islamic goal of killing her peaceful citizens.
One major factor that has the power to this evil is ,largely, because of Joe Biden , who strived to get the economic sections lifted that had been justly enacted , the President Trump and his administration, against that aggressive and hostile Islamic regime of Iran with the funds so that it now provides Hezbollah with those missiles .
Joe Biden has the blood of many innocent people on his treacherous and wicked hands.
Biden is guilty as sin.
Dr K says
Why was that old cunt Biden sending $$$ to the enemy?!
Should be charged with treason that fuckhead !
Sharia Is Shit-Don’t Put Up With It