Joe Biden: Ignorant or lying about Lebanon

Keeping Up With Biden II — Does Anyone Remember When We "Kicked Hezbollah Out of Lebanon"? [Andy McCarthy] At the debate last night, Sen. Biden argued that (a) that we had "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon" and (b) he and Obama had suggested sending NATO troops to Lebanon to "fill the vacuum": Biden at Last Night’s Debate: 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. My question, or rather, questions: Is he on drugs? Exactly when did this kicking occur? Has anyone alerted Sheikh Nasrallah? And the NATO claim is just a riot. Obviously, there was no vacuum to fill since Hezbollah has only grown in strength in Lebanon since 1983, but has anyone seen something, anything, to support the claim that Biden or Obama wanted NATO in Lebanon — a proposal that would have been wildly controversial and would have made ballistic the hard Left voters they were then bending over backwards to attract? On the off chance Biden simply misspoke and was actually talking about kicking Syria out of Lebanon, (a) we didn't do that either — they've never stopped operating there, (b) Hezbollah was part of the Lebanese government well before demands for a Syrian pull-out began in 2005, (c) Biden's "fill the vacuum" whopper still makes no sense because Hezbollah retained military control of southern Lebanon regardless of Syria, and (d) again, where is the proof that Biden or Obama wanted NATO to replace Syria — which would have pitted it against Hezbollah and invited a reprise of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing?