In Seymour Hersh's new article about how Syria could be the key to Middle East peace, he drops a bombshell about the Gaza offensive that sheds light one what was going on during that crisis right before Barack Obama's inaugration.
It seems Barack Obama had a bigger role than previously believed in getting Israel to back down and removing its troops from Gaza. And Dick Cheney? Well, he was being a dick.
The Obama transition team also helped persuade Israel to end the bombing of Gaza and to withdraw its ground troops before the Inauguration. According to the former senior intelligence official, who has access to sensitive information, "Cheney began getting messages from the Israelis about pressure from Obama" when he was President-elect. Cheney, who worked closely with the Israeli leadership in the lead-up to the Gaza war, portrayed Obama to the Israelis as a "pro-Palestinian," who would not support their efforts (and, in private, disparaged Obama, referring to him at one point as someone who would "never make it in the major leagues"). But the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of "smart bombs" and other high-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel. "It was Jones"—retired Marine General James Jones, at the time designated to be the President’s national-security adviser—"who came up with the solution and told Obama, ‘You just can’t tell the Israelis to get out.’ " (General Jones said that he could not verify this account; Cheney’s office declined to comment.)
This is pretty much blockbuster information and I wonder why this hasn't been brought up in major media outlets as a story about how one administration tried to undermined the future President of the United States and derail Middle Eastern Peace. It also places questions on how much involvement the Bush administration had in the Gaza offensive, or even if it was their idea in the first place.
So while reporters get into hissy fits about Robert Gibbs disrespecting the former Vice President, the question they should be asking is how was Dick Cheney treating Barack Obama and how he tried to goad Israel to keep going when everyone else wanted a peaceful solution to the crisis. How Cheney made the assertion that Barack Obama was "pro-palestinian" when it seems all Obama wanted to do was stop the bloodshed and find a solution, even if in the end it wasn't a perfect one.
Dick Cheney. If something bad is happening in the world he has something to do with it.