Israel and Lebanon agree on a US-brokerred deal to ceasefire

The Department of State on Wednesday announced that the United States has brokered a major ceasefire breakthrough between Israel and Lebanon.

One should pause at such a declaration. For decades the border between Israel and Lebanon has served as a theater of managed violence, where the ambitions of a distant theocracy in Tehran have been permitted to play out through the proxy army known as Hezbollah. Now, after negotiations that began on May 29 and culminated in a trilateral meeting held June 2-3, something resembling progress is claimed, but let's breathe.

“As a result of the U.S. led negotiations, Israel and Lebanon agreed to the implementation of a ceasefire,” the department said in a joint statement.

“Israel and Lebanon reaffirmed that they have no hostile intent toward one another and committed to continuing direct negotiations to build confidence, resolve all outstanding issues, and work toward a comprehensive agreement between the two countries.”

The conditions attached to this deal reveal its fragility and its realism. 

The agreement is conditional upon Hezbollah, that Iran-backed, Lebanon-based terrorist group, ceasing all attacks, withdrawing its fighters from southern Lebanon’s South Litani Sector, and preventing the re-emergence of non-state armed groups. Pilot zones are to be established under the exclusive control of the Lebanese Armed Forces. These measures, modest as they are, acknowledge a truth too often evaded in diplomatic circles: that Lebanon has for years been less a sovereign state than a hostage held by an Iranian militia.

“Hezbollah is not just an enemy of Israel and an enemy of America, but that it is an enemy of Lebanon,” officials said.

Here at last is language that refuses the usual equivocations. Hezbollah has bled Lebanon dry, turning a once-prosperous country into a launchpad for rockets and a pawn in regional conquest. Its disarmament and removal from the border are not optional extras in any serious peace process. They are the precondition for Lebanon’s own survival as anything other than a forward operating base for the Islamic Republic.

Both sides are scheduled to meet again during the week of June 22 to continue negotiations toward a comprehensive peace treaty. Any permanent agreement to end hostilities must be reached directly between the two governments and brokered by the U.S., the department added.Whether this fragile framework holds will depend on something rarely discussed in the polite language of State Department statements: the willingness of the West to enforce consequences when Iran and its proxies test the limits, as they inevitably will. 

Ceasefires between Israel and its neighbors have too often served only as pauses for rearmament. This one, if it is to mean anything, must mark the beginning of Hezbollah’s strategic defeat and the slow reclamation of Lebanese sovereignty. The stakes could scarcely be higher, for Israel’s security, for Lebanon’s future, and for the credibility of American diplomacy in a region that has learned to measure resolve by deeds rather than declarations.

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Blinken subpoenaed by House Foreign Affairs Committee

Secretary of State Antony Blinken keeps ducking requests to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee regarding the Biden-Harris screwup with the Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in the deaths of 13 US service personnel. So Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) issued a subpoena.

McCaul, in his letter says that he asked Blinken several times for a commitment to show up to the Committee, but he didn't, neither for the May 22, 2024 or August 12, 2024 hearings, which requested he confirm by August 19th that he would show up for the September 10, 2024 hearing. The letter included a warning to Blinken.

Crickets.

"This letter further indicated that should you choose 'not to appear voluntarily,' I would be obligated to proceed with compulsory process to compel your appearance. The Committee is holding this hearing because the Department of State was central to the Afghanistan withdrawal and served as the senior authority during the August non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO)," this September 3 letter pointed out. "As Secretary of State throughout the withdrawal and NEO, you were entrusted to lead these efforts and to secure the safe evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies. In testimony before the Committee, current and former State Department officials have confirmed that you served as the final decision-maker for the Department on the withdrawal and evacuation. You are therefore in a position to inform the Committee’s consideration of potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal, including potential reforms to the Department’s legislative authorization."

"Pursuant to your request for a telephone call and our subsequent discussion on August 19 – the response deadline – I informed you that the Committee’s report on the withdrawal will be released on September 9 and that you needed to appear at a hearing to address the findings set forth in the report. During this call, in the interest of the investigation, I agreed to provide you with additional time to finalize a scheduled date for your appearance, which you indicated would be “nail[ed] []down in the next week," McCaul wrote.

McCaul further reminded that there were additional attempts to secure assurances from Blinken regarding his appearance. These included communications from Committee Staff to the Department on August 26 and August 27. Another request was made as recently as August 30.

But who are we kidding? Blinken et al, are above the law because we allow it and the media covers for our top politicians. 

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More Clinton emails released, more classified among them

Big surprise, more of Hillary Clinton's emails, which really belong to we, the people, have been released by the State Department Saturday,  and of these, 84 have been marked "classified."

Of course this isn't a surprise. If Clinton had only one server, how did she send or receive classified information as Secretary of State? Classified information comes with the job.

The Department of State released a total of 551 pages of emails because they had to--there was a court order--and it had nothing to do with Clinton's lie that she wanted to release them. It took a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to have them released.

Hillary has called the FBI investigation a "security review." The FBI only does criminal investigations--they don't do security reviews. 

Hillary's lips moved again.


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Hillary is Not Judgment-Proof

It has become very clear that at least some of the deaths at Benghazi could have been prevented and that the Obama administration was directly involved in covering up the facts that pointed to their incompetence.  Specifically, Hillary Clinton the Former

Secretary of State, did nothing to come to the aid of the consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed by Islamic terrorists belonging to Ansar al-Sharia, an arm of al Qaeda. 

Victoria Nuland, the Department of State spokesperson, was instrumental in removing all references to Ansar al-Sharia, al Qaeda, and basically all aspects of the truth regarding what really happened last September 11th.  

The Boston Marathon jihadist bombing on April 15th, in Jay Carney's way of thinking may have been "fairly long ago," and the administration would like to see that buried along with Benghazi, but it hasn't gone away. Terrorist One, the older brother of the pair, was killed and no cemetery in Massachusetts wanted to allow his body to be buried on their grounds. But it was learned that an Islamic cemetery in Virginia has opened its arms to the dead carcass and provided him with an Islamic funeral, complete with the al-Fahtihah, a prayer prescribed to be said 17 times a day that denounces the Jews and Christian infidels. The people in that Virginia community were not told of the burial and only today was it mentioned on Fox News after the story appeared yesterday on Pamela Geller's: AtlasShrugs.com. 

Now we've learned of another misstep in this administration, but this time it's with the IRS. Seems like our least liked arm of government has been going after not-for-profit organizations with names like "Tea Party," or "Patriot." They've been asking questions about managment's connections things of a more personal nature. It seems that the companies singled out by the IRS, even though they initially denied doing that in the first place, are those that have supported conservatives. Many liberals are just as upset as conservatives as this constitutes an abuse of power by an organization that is supposed to be nonpartisan, but some liberals are yelling "foul," and say the right is being political. Funny, but they never said anything foul about the left when

they went after Nixon for exactly the same thing.

But back to Benghazi. Former Vice President, Dick Chaney told lawmakers on Thursday, "I think Hillary (Clinton) should be subpoenaed if necessary."The good news is that Republicans will continue to press for answers because contrary to what Hillary said, it actually does matter how our four Americans were killed. It not only matters to the family, the mothers who are having a sad Mothers Day today, but it matters to us and our understanding of how something as terrible as this happened and what can we do to prevent a recurrence.

Hillary lied at least 3 times. First when she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "we didn't have a clear picture" about the actual facts on the attack, when in fact, Gregory Hicks, the second in command at the U.S. Mission in Libya, testified on Wednesday that he informed Clinton the night of September 11th and 12th of exactly what took place at the compound. 

Next, she lied to the Senate when she said that  she herself saw what Chairman Mullen and Ambassador Pickering referred to as timely and exceptional coordination--there was no hesitation, no delays in decision-making, and no orders to stand down from Washington or the military." But the Benghazi hearing revealed that  help was denied twice--by the State Department's Foreign Emergency Support Team and when Lt. Col. Gibson was ordered to stand down.

Third, when Clinton told the Senate that she did not see any diplomatic cables from Libya asking for more security. "I didn't see those requests," she said. "They didn't come to me. I didn't approve them. I didn't deny them." However, Gen. Dempsey had told the Senate in February that it seemed improbable that she did not see the cables, saying, "I would call myself surprised that she didn't."

One thing that seems quite clear to me is the need for Mrs. Clinton to be subpoenaed for this hearing. I would also like to see Leon Panetta testify too and prove what he said when he arrogantly told us that when the danger is unclear we do not deploy help when American lives are at risk. That's precisely what we do. We do not wait until the danger subsides--we act, we fight, we extract our people--even when they're dead. That's what the military does, and Panetta should know that as Secretary of Defense. Maybe they should have simply made him Secretary of the Secretary of Defense and put a military person in that position; say someone like Alan West. He would have known what to do. But enough said about Panetta; let's get back to Hillary.

Clinton's role in the Benghazi debacle is unclear because she wasn't interviewed by the State Department's Accountability Review Board, and they made great efforts to blame those at the bottom while protecting those at the top. And the media would never hold her responsible for anything that might affect her run for office in 2016--in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see them applauding when she enters the room.

What's obvious is that there are those on the left who would hold Hillary Clinton blameless under all circumstances--not because she actually is blameless, but because she, like Obama, is a rock star politician. I can only hope that the Benghazi whistleblowers will cast a shadow of real doubt on this administration, but somehow I think they're laughing at the country because they believe they'll get away with their incompetency.

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