Resolution to Remove United States Armed Forces From Lebanon

Floor Speech

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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to order of the House of June 29, 2026, I call up the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 108) directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Lebanon, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this resolution. However, I will say that I am very glad to hear the debate offered by my colleague, Ranking Member Meeks. He spoke about Hezbollah. We went through an entire debate several weeks ago where the opposition refused to mention that Hezbollah even existed, so I am glad to hear Ranking Member Meeks bring that up.

Hezbollah specifically targeting civilians with their every action, that is their MO. Israel specifically targeting terrorists, that is what is going on here.

Now, as it relates to this piece of legislation, we have done this exercise before, and I am glad to hear the ranking member acknowledge that the United States is not engaged in any hostilities in Lebanon against Hezbollah. The U.S. is not at war in Lebanon. The U.S. is not engaged in hostilities in Lebanon. There are not U.S. combat forces conducting operations or engaged in hostilities in Lebanon.

They are training the Lebanese Armed Forces. Why are they training them? Because there are at least 40,000, probably more, Hezbollah terrorists spread across the south of Lebanon that are actively engaged in targeting Israel and have been doing so for many years. Israel is over there doing a good job working to wipe those terrorists out right now, but this resolution is impossible to implement. Even if it passed, could the author explain to me which forces would be removed? If we don't have combat forces there, what forces are being removed? That is a very commonsense question. I don't think we will get an answer to it, Mr. Speaker.

I will say something else that I am glad about in today's debate: The really stupid mistake that was made in the last attempt to do this was removed, where the author was seeking to remove the marines from our embassies, from the gates, from the front doors. I am glad that that was removed from this one, thankfully.

This resolution still is not any less ridiculous than the last one. Again, the U.S. is not at war in Lebanon.

Since we are here, let's address something today that this resolution fails to mention and what the author of this bill I think wants to avoid.

Hezbollah is one of the world's most capable and dangerous terrorist organizations. They have killed hundreds of Americans, which makes it interesting to me that my colleague, who opened the remarks saying that it is not in our national interest to address them, they have killed hundreds of Americans. That is a pretty damn big national interest to me.

As a U.S. servicemember, as an American, as somebody with teenagers that will hopefully put on a uniform in defense of this country at some point, I would say it is in our national interest. But, again, they are one of the world's most capable, dangerous terrorist organizations who have killed hundreds of Americans and attacked U.S. diplomatic and military personnel over and over again.

I am not sure why my colleagues don't want to talk about that, and especially, again, the author of this bill last time failed to even mention the word ``Hezbollah'' or refused to mention the word ``Hezbollah'' because this resolution is a win for terrorists. That is what it is.

If you are trying to decide who should have control of Lebanon, who should it belong to, should Lebanon belong to the Lebanese or should Lebanon belong to the terrorists, this resolution is a win for Lebanon to belong to terrorists.

Let's also be clear that Hezbollah is the one holdout that is standing in the way of peace between Israel and Lebanon.

The Lebanese Government wants the fighting to stop. Israel wants the fighting to stop. Who is it that wants the fighting to continue? That would be the one entity that is supported by this resolution, and that is Hezbollah.

This is not about U.S. Forces. As was acknowledged already by my colleague, the ranking member, there are no U.S. Forces engaged in hostilities, and we all know that. Again, there are no forces fighting in Lebanon.

This resolution is to undermine our national security. It is to embolden Hezbollah, which it absolutely does. Just its presence on the floor here, just its mere being brought up here emboldens Hezbollah and other terrorists, and all for the sake of political messaging.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill. It is just as ridiculous--well, it is not quite as ridiculous this time as it was last time, given that it did finally remove that we wouldn't have to take our marines out of the embassy. It is not quite as ridiculous, but it is still significantly ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker, as we look at the attacks that go on, where is it that all of these Hezbollah terrorists--where is it that they hide? Where is it that they choose to encamp themselves? In the middle of civilians, on purpose.

There is no desire at any point for any one civilian casualty in any circumstance. I have seen it play out on the battlefields that I was a part of. ``Regrettable'' is not a strong enough word. It is well beyond regrettable every single time that anybody trying to live their life becomes a victim of a catastrophic attack because of what they are adjacent to: the terrorists that are surrounding their community.

But that is exactly what Hezbollah does by design: embed themselves into schools, embed themselves into places of worship, embed themselves into the bedrock of any community that they can go forcefully take over.

That is the way that they operate with purpose and operate specifically to create civilian casualties everywhere--civilian casualties around them and civilian casualties around where they launch their attacks. That is their MO.

Mr. Speaker, as I look at Hezbollah, I look at, again, what are our interests? We have labeled them and have designated them a foreign terrorist organization. That has gone on since, I want to say, the mid- 1990s that they were designated a foreign terrorist organization.

More than 60 countries across the globe, including the EU, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, have all designated Hezbollah as part of a terrorist organization. They are a scourge. They are a direct arm of Iran, directly funded by Iran, receiving targets from Iran, and receiving benefits from Iran when they hit targets that Iran tells them to hit.

Everything that can be done and the work that Israel is doing to destroy this scourge is something that we should be supporting through the training of the LAF and supporting through our intelligence resources that are being offered.

This bill is meant to drive a stake between allies. It is meant to drive a wedge between allies. It is not meant to drive a stake into the hearts of our enemies, into the hearts of terrorists. That is the unfortunate part about it. It is meant to hurt our allies. It is not meant to hurt terrorists. That is beyond regrettable on this floor.

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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to unpack right there. I think I would start with this: The word ``genocidal'' was used. I would remind the floor that there was only one person on this floor right now who has been reprimanded for calling for genocide. That person is walking out as we speak. That person didn't want the transcript of that allowed into the Record last time. It was the person that was just speaking.

Maybe that is not the best person--or maybe that is a good person to give us definitions on genocide, but I don't think she has read them.

What kind of ethnic cleansing takes place from a country, a leadership, or a military that warns people to get out? That doesn't sound like ethnic cleansing: Get out. Get out if you are a civilian. Get out of this area. There are attacks coming to kill terrorists.

That is not what ethnic cleansing looks like. That is not a genocidal attack, as was the accusation.

Clearly, the individual has no real interest in debate because the individual left. I think, as much as we heard conversation about civilians, there was not one mention of the actual targeted civilian population, Israelis. That is the targeted civilian population, day in, day out, by Hezbollah. There was no mention of that.

Again, the gentlewoman does not seek to have a debate about her own resolution, which is an odd thing, to not want to debate your own resolution.

I would have asked the individual over there if she supports the Lebanon-United States-Israel framework for peace that is going on right now.

As was mentioned, I believe that, in the remarks that she gave, she doesn't support the Lebanese Government. I am not trying to put words in her mouth. I am trying to recall everything that was stated.

If she is not supporting the Lebanese Government, maybe she doesn't support the framework for peace, and she wants people to fight. Maybe she wants people to fight instead of peace. I am trying to unpack a lot of what was put there.

In the end, I think the most significant reason to vote against this resolution is a couple of the following: Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. They are directly targeting civilians constantly in Israel. It is their day-to-day way of life. There are probably at least 40,000 of them, as we speak, in the south of Lebanon.

There are not U.S. forces engaged in hostilities in Lebanon, but the resolution demands that we remove all U.S. forces from hostilities in Lebanon. It is an impossible thing to do. The ranking member has acknowledged there are no U.S. forces engaged in hostilities in Lebanon.

Again, it is important to support our ally in their combat operations against this foreign terrorist organization that was responsible for killing 63 people, 17 Americans, in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut. The Marine barracks bombing, which killed 241 U.S. servicemembers, was, again, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks against the United States of America prior to 9/11.

In the TWA Flight 847 hijacking, Hezbollah terrorists hijacked the aircraft and brutally tortured and murdered a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Stethem. In hostage campaigns, Hezbollah would continually take hostages over and over again. There are too many stories of that to list.

Repeatedly targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, diplomatic facilities, and commercial aviation, that is the M.O. of Hezbollah. Since October 2023, Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets, missiles, drones, and anti-tank missiles into Israel, which is holding the largest American population anywhere in the Middle East. Those are attacks against Americans indiscriminately, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to evacuate the area, and many have been killed.

Hezbollah deliberately targets not only military objectives, but civilians, diplomatic facilities, aviation, population centers, malls, cafes, buses, anyplace that they can target. Where there is an innocent civilian, that is their goal as a place to target, not military targets, but innocent civilian targets. Again, this is juxtaposed to Israel, which is conducting operations against terrorists specifically who hide among civilians, very unfortunately, but whom they give a warning to over and over again to try to get any civilians exposed to any danger out of that danger zone.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we can talk more about this, but I will let the ranking member speak about what he wants. I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, as we speak, we have the best chance for peace between Israel, Lebanon, and the United States of America that has existed in decades. There is a framework in place that has been met between Israel, Lebanon, and the United States of America. The one holdout is Hezbollah.

This resolution does absolutely nothing to help garner that peace. This resolution only seeks to embolden Hezbollah. That is the only thing that it does because, again, as was pointed out by my colleague-- and I appreciate him saying this very firmly; he was very clear about this--there are no U.S. forces engaged in hostilities.

Do we train Lebanese armed forces? Yes, we do. Do we provide intelligence? Yes, we do. We don't have forces engaged there, but we are working for a peace that has evaded the world for decades, and we are closer than ever.

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage a ``no'' vote against this resolution because, again, it is simply undermining the peace process and really, actually serves no purpose because it asks that we remove forces that are not present.

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