Obama wants $100,000,000 of your tax money to fund the Lebanese Army which just this week made an unprovoked attack against our ally Israel, killing at least one officer.
Instead of funding the LAF it would be much more beneficial to the U.S. to fund and support the anti-Islamist forces in Lebanon.
How did Lebanon come to be so saturated with Islamic terrorist groups and jihadists?
Our own U.S. government has made at least three critical mistakes with regard to Lebanon.
First, when Israeli General Ariel Sharon had Arafat and his top PLO jihadist friends surrounded in West Beirut in 1982, the position of our government at that time should have been to assist Israel to completely destroy Arafat and the PLO terrorists.
The attitude of our U.S. government towards the PLO then, and now, should be no different than our attitude toward Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.
How did our U.S. government deal with it?
They sent U.S. State Dept. envoy Philip Habib to pressure Israel into allowing safe passage of Arafat and his terror pals out of their "surrounded" predicament from West Beirut to Tunisia.
In Tunisia Arafat and his ilk were able to regroup.
It was also due to pressure fom the U.S. that Arafat was allowed to return to Ramalla. Whereby the Fatah PLO began the plotting and carrying out of new terror attacks against Israeli civilians.
IMHO this will forever be a dark stain against the legacy of Ronald Reagan's administration.
For the most part Ronald Reagan was one of the best presidents this country ever had. At least with respect to dealing with the Soviets.
But in dealing with the Middle East and the PLO, Reagan and the State Dept. were just as clueless as "jihadi" Condi Rice and her misguided arm-twisting pressure on Israel. Not to mention that G.W. Bush did a u-turn on previous policy and called for the establishment of yet another Arab Muslim state. On Israel's land.
Of course President Bush's decision to recognize the Islamist grab of Kosovo should also be mentioned.
Our government's handling of the Arafat/PLO - Lebanon fiasco most definitely had the awful consequence of emboldening Islamic terrorists everywhere. Whether Fatah or Hizbullah. As well as being the catalyst for an increase in Muslim jihadist influx to Lebanon.
These jihadists move about from place to place in their "global jihad" against the infidel West. There have been Al-qaeda as well as "Palestinian" jihadists training with Moro Islamist groups in the Philippines.
This whole situation is not unlike how for many years law enforcement in this country were handicapped in dealing with the "Mafia", because they would not acknowledge or didn't know of it's existence.
They operated on the basis of "individual crimes" as opposed to dealing with a large-scale criminal organization.
The Obama Administration is deliberately choosing not to acknowledge a "global jihad" against the West.
The Bush Administration also was guilty of a "double-minded" foreign policy on Islamic terrorism. Wanting to pursue and go after jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, but funding to the tune of $ millions of dollars the Fatah "Palestinian Authority", even while terror attacks were carried out against innocent Israeli civilians by the same.
World leaders have embraced this utterly false narrative that the global "war against Islamic terror" is somehow not connected to or "separate" from the so-called "Arab/Israeli" conflict.
No, they are not different. They are the same. The Islamists demand for "Palestine" is merely a tactic they use to oppose Israel and perpetrate "jihad against the infidel".
Just as the Islamists demand for a chunk of the Philippines, which they refer to as "Bangsamoro", [meaning the "Muslim State"], is also part of the same global conflict with militant imperialistic Islam.
Secondly, we did not do all we could have done years ago to bolster and support the anti-jihad forces in Lebanon. Most notably the Lebanese Christian militia as a counter to the jihad groups.
After a Hizbullah suicide truck bomb killed over 200 U.S. Marines in 1983 , we pulled out. This sent and the wrong message and no doubt further emboldened the jihadists.
"The Marines were in Lebanon as part of an international peacekeeping force trying to stabilize the country, which had been torn by a civil war between Christians — with their ally Israel — and Muslims. "
Instead of being "peace keepers" we should have been fighting alongside of Israel and the Lebanese Christian forces.
Christian minorities disappearing in ME.
Islam's Global War Against Christianity-American Thinker
Why didn't we? Believe the answer has to do with oil.
Third, in 2006 during what has been refered to as the 2nd Lebanon War, our own U.S. Secretary of State, Condi Rice, was eager to agree to a premature UN-imposed cease-fire.
The consequences of that: Hizbullah now rearmed with 60,000 rockets and missiles.
The position of our government at that time, as well as in 1982, should have been to assist Israel in thoroughly destroying Hizbullah. Including joint military campaigns.
Need we discuss the Obama regime's appeasement overtures to Syria, a facilitator of both Hizbullah and Hamas in the region?
All that our U.S. government has done with regards to Lebanon over the past 30-40 years, has only resulted in the Islamic jihad terror groups getting stronger, and the anti-Islamist groups getting weaker.
Not to mention the funding with our tax dollars a current Lebanese government and army in which Hizbullah has thoroughly infiltrated.
Stupid. Absolutely stupid!