Of the 34 killed, 24 were CT's. A high ratio,
not to mention a lucky shot by the Israeli's.



You probably did. There weren't many CT's around in '67, perhaps a few hundred..total.
There were less than 750 around when I
was one in '77-81.

In '67, they were only used on the 5 converted Liberty spy ships, a few subs, NSA, Pentagon, Naval Intelligence and on P3 Orion Aircraft. They were a highly specialized group of individuals. And if they were onboard they were usually hidden in the bowels of the ship and didn't have much contact with anyone.



We were tasked by just about everyone. NSA,
CIA, Navy, Pentagon, White House.



Sonarmen collected a different type of
intelligence. You went after ship/sub
sound signatures, etc. We went after
electronic signatures and signals.
We were easy to find though! On most ships,
(not subs) there are 2 hatches in each compartment, but not the CT Secure area...only 1... and it was the one with the big Marine guarding it, armed with his M-14/M-16. Rumor was that the Marine had 2 jobs. 1-Stop anyone
attempting to enter the compartment. 2-If under attack and danger of capture - wait for the CT's to complete their equipment/document destruction then kill them. Even if everything was destroyed, the CT's knew too much to be captured. Remember the Mayaquez (sp?). It was
a spy ship, filled with CT's too!



As they say, we were expendable. I was a CT from 1977-1981 and although we weren't
specifically told, we all knew that we were
expendable. I wish I had seen the show. The
USS Liberty was an ICON of the group. We all
knew what happened from talking with others in
the group, but even 10 years after the 'incident', it was so highly
classified that any discussion of it was
considered treason.

Much of this is no longer classified, and
many of the things that we were prohibited
from discussing are now common knowledge.
Up until Tom Clancey released Red October,
no one had ever heard of SOSUS, KH-11 Satellites, etc. When I was in, even the words
SOSUS and KH-11 were classified. Mentioning them
outside of a secure area would subject you to
immediate Courts Martial. My...how things have
changed.

I have to go to the History Channel website now
and see if the show is going to be rebroadcasted
soon!

Neil

Instant Karma, next time you might try to think out your response before just throwing some jibberish out there.  You refer to logic, yet your own response is amazingly lacking in it.  1.  You can't compare friendly fire incidents, in one nation's own forces, in a time of war - to a deliberate, peacetime attack, by another country, in international waters.  Try something else.  Also, just b/c they "quietly" took 18 Scuds during the Gulf War, you seem to think that absolves them of responsibility for anything, including those dead American sailors.  You know what, that type of thinking is just too stupid to even respond to.  Grow up.

Not supporting the present day gov't is NOT GOOD ENUF. The Israeisl responsible for this deliberate attack need to be brought to justice. Period.

YOU (in the psot above) tried to pass this off as a friendly fire accident. Are you trying to say the Israeli gov't is capable of evil, but this isn't such a case? Seldom has a MORE evil thing been done - deliberately attacking an "ally." (an alliance with a heavy (as they say) "one-way biotch."




In THIS VERY THREAD I've stated that I'm willing to consider the possibility that the US gov't was responsible for 9/11. Why can I make such a statement?

Cuz as I've pointed out in NUMEROUS other threads, our gov't ALREADY sacrificed 59,000 of our finest for a "fight-not-to-win" war in Mideast Asia.

I've stated I beleive Robert McNamara to be a traitor in THIS thread.

OH YES, teh US gov't is QUITE capable of evil.

My beef is that an AWFUL LOT of people on this board are MORE critical of their own gov't than they are of what obviously was a deliberate attack on a sovereign US ship by a foreign gov't. That to me smacks of disloyalty. I don't know what else to call it.

And BTW - thanks for re-posting my "14 points" which PROVE the deliberation of the attack - which as of yet NO ONE has addressed. [}:D] I don't blame them - it's pretty "damning" (in the legal sense)  stuff.

I've said I was out of this topic so I won't comment directly on the USS Liberty.

However as to McNamara, loathsome creature that he was and is, had he been charged with a crime punishable by death he would have been acquitted as Johnson either gave or counter-signed the order to recall those planes.  

Only Johnson, with the help of McNamara and many others could have ordered the cover-up and made it stick.

How many of us did Johnson and McNamara kill ??

Truly only GOD knows the answer.
-------------------------------------------------

kpe1308,
your opinions are well and succinctly stated.

Tom

Go to www.ussliberty.org and see! Short answer is that the US was collecting intelligence on the upcoming Israeli war. Israel didn't want anyone to know that it had initiated the attack, rather than the popular belief that Egypt had attacked them. The USS Liberty had the ability to collect and decode the Israeli messages, showing that Israel was not defending itself, but had initiated that war. Israel said it was an attack made in error, but according to the website, there was a US plane high above the Liberty that had the electronic proof that Israel purposefully attacked the Liberty and knew it was a US ship.



(4) 50 Cal. Machine Guns and some .45 handguns.
Perhaps a few M-14/M-16 too.



They knew it was a US ship, and it was flying the US Flag.



Simple...The Israel wanted to coverup what they where doing. The outcome of the attack was that the Israeli could convince everyone that they were the defenders, not the agressor. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm not anti Israel or anti Palestine. My argument is
with the Johnson Administration and the
Senate/House, who actively participated in the coverup of the killing of 34 Americans.

I would suggest that you check out the www.ussliberty.org website that someone else had posted. I haven't been through it completely...yet. But I know what I was told when I was a CT in '77-81. Yes, time will change facts, and hearsay is pretty unreliable, but the website seems to confirm much or what I was told. I believe that the ship was purposely attacked. The reasons may never be known, but it was not an accident.

Yeah, there's an unbiased source.  Tinfoil hats on extra tight!!  Double layer of tinfoil.  This is the purest BS.

More unsubstantiated BS.  Pull that tinfoil hat down over your eyes.  Eyeholes won't do any good, you're only using you're imagination.  See the last line of mine just above this

What the Israelis were doing was defending their land from the Egyptians.  There is no basis whatever to suggest that they attacked the Egyptians.  You're really off the edge of sanity.

PaoloAR15 - Excellent points you made in your post (way back up there).  I don't see how anyone could think anything else then the conclusions which you draw.

SB

This whole incident was played and replayed during the early 80's by that great publication Spotlight and Liberty Lobby...interesting research into these boys if youve a mind.. Timmy McVeigh was very fond of The Spotlight
As is the Unification Church and Rev Moon and His publications..
But those are other stories.. Given the recent turn of events in Israel vs Arafat et al Its interesting that just as suicide bombers are dictating international policy that this incident now finds itself lots of airplay..
Well here is Israel's side of the story.
[url]http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/liberty.html[/url]

At least you read the posts.

OK, you JUST crossed the line, pal.

That website was CREATED by Jim Ennes and Joe Meadors, survivors of the attack, and is supported by the USS Liberty Veterans Association.

Are you calling them liars??? Are you more knowledgeable than they???? Are you calling them "tinfoil hat" people???

THEY WERE THERE. YOU WERE NOT.

You dishonor their service, and the memory of the men who died.

Unbeleivable.

[url]www.ussliberty.org[/url] is a site that was started and is maintained by a couple of survivors of the attack (Jim Ennes and Joe Meadors).  I put more credibility in the information posted there than anything regarding the attack posted here.  Why don't you go look at the site before throwing around accusations about tinfoil hats, etc.?

During the show, a crewman stated a small US flag was flying prior to the air attack, which got shot down during the first attack.  He then raised a 4x larger parade flag, which stayed the remaining duration.  

I just finished reading every word of every link on www.ussliberty.org.  Sorry guys, I'm fara, far, far from convinced. They say the US Gov't and the Navy refused to invstigate, yet there were ten sepeaate investigation.  

They talk about Israeli executions of Egyptian POW's on land near the Liberty's location.  Right.

I could go on & on.  They may have died courageously, but being on the receiving end of bullets & torpedoes does not give one insight to the minds of the other side.

Sorry, guys.  This doesn't do it.  They're angry about being shot at and their buddys being killed.  They're angry that none of the many investigations didn't make their attackers into permanant enemies of the United States.  Their anger doesn't make them right.

I checked out the site. But there are 2
statements that are made that don't make sense.

"The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked".

The USS Liberty was a WW2 converted Liberty Ship. There is no way that it could be confused for a gun platform. No turrets, no guns at all.
How could they think it was shelling them?



The max speed of the USS Liberty was about 20 knots, probably about 18. A big difference between that and the 28 knots (40%) the Israeli reported.

Neil

Read Jim Ennes' book, Assault on the Liberty. Read the his website, www.liberty.org. Do a search and read what the pro-Israel websites have to say on the subject. Consider middle east news at the time and throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. You'll come to the conclusion that Israel is an enemy of the United States with respect to intelligence and the military. They are good political and economic friends (I guess).

The Liberty was an intelligence ship, just like the USS Pueblo. It was a threat to Israel's plans to engage Syria. It was a general threat in that important information regarding the military capabilities of all countries involved would become available to the US and out of Israel's control. So that is a good reason to destroy the ship. If the ship were to sink with no survivors, the incident could be blamed on Egypt -- another advantage for Israel (would further solidify the ally relationship).

Lets assume that the two-hour attack which followed the morning recon flights by Israeli jets was indeed a mistake. What you are saying is that the Israeli military is so incompetent that they believed that a listening ship was a piece of junk Egyption freighter half the size (some say 1/4 but that's in displacement -- the length is about 1/2). Is it possible that the same military that succesfully engaged three well funded militaries and defeated them in a week can't properly identify sea going targets?

I worked in intelligence for many years -- two years in the Eastern Mediterranean. Security briefings warned us of the efficiency of Israeli intelligence officers. Of course we were told to watch out for Eastern Block IOs, and Arabs were considered to be a physical threat. But Israelis were singled out as a special intelligence threat.

Consider this incident that you won't hear about because nothing bad happened. There was period of time when a system that my group operated had intermittant trouble with its datalink (we're talking intelligence gathering and transmitting equipment). Nothing to be too concerned about, things break and have to be fixed. This could not be fixed by swapping parts. Turned out that an Israeli ship was jamming the datalink. A couple of fighters were launched from a British Air Force base as a show of force and it was demanded that the ship stop jamming the signal or risk being attacked. The jamming stopped. Why would Israel jam a US intelligence operation's datalink? So that the US won't have intelligence information on Israel and other middle east countries. Israel can't be sure what the US will do with that information.

Consider the case of Jonathan Pollard (no detail here, lots of information elsewhere).

Consider the case of the recent Israeli spy-ring operating inside the US. That's the story about a number of Israeli nationals in the US illegally, contractors compromising law enforcement wiretaps, and ties to Mossad. Read the mainstream news about the subject, not the conspiracy theory websites. Then read the pro-Israel websites about the subject. The denials at the pro-Israel sites practically confirm the situation.

Israel - with freinds like that...

-RJ

*smirk* yeah, I can see that I’m just too dense to see any logic.

Garandman

One of my earliest memories is watching the nightly news count the number of days the US embassy personnel had been held hostage in Iran. Later, I got to see photographs of several citizens and servicemen that were kidnapped, tortured and killed. Then I watched as several nations boasted about the Marine Barracks bombing in Lebanon.

Then two friends were murdered in the Saudi bombing – the USS Cole – the embassies – another couple of kidnappings – 9/11

God there are SO many indignities my nation has endured at the hands of these people... That catalog of crimes doesn’t even begin to touch the actual reality.

Are the Israelis blameless? NO
The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend... but ¿ Now plug the Liberty into that equation

Just remember, ANYONE who disagrees with Israels official story is ANTI SEMETIC and probably a NAZI. This of course includes the Jewish members of the USS LIberty.

People keep asking for an exlanation of "Why" Israel "would" attack a US vessel, when the question should be why DID Israel attack a US vessel. And don't give me any crap about mistaken identity/terrible accident.

They did it. PERIOD. And rather than explain why, simply denied it and continue to do so.

OOPS! We "accidentally" nuked Jerusalem. Now maybe those stupid people living in the stone age can quit having a holy war over who God really gave it to. Don't worry though, it was an accident and the check is in the mail.

Only two kinds of people try and make excuses for the USS LIberty incident.

1. Jews of any nationality who put the interests of Israel ahead of any other country. Including their own if they happen to profess to be a US citizen.

Disclaimer: Not ALL Jews are like this so you "Steyr is anti semetic" assholes can save your breath. I usually only need disclaimers when talking to Democrats.

2. Christians who have been taught "These are the chosen people" and "Isreal is the Holy Land", etc. Their religious beliefs hinge upon the notion that Israel can do no wrong.

Disclaimer: Not ALL Christians fall for that line of crap.

adding some links



[url=http://www.beirut-memorial.org/]link[/url]
[url=http://www.bartleby.com/65/ir/Iranhost.html]link[/url]
[url=http://www.geocities.com/goddess001_98/vet/vet.html]link[/url]
[url=http://www.asil.org/insights/insigh74.htm]link[/url]
[url=http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/06/leb0626.htm]link[/url]
[url=http://www.simplytaty.com/broadenpages/terrorism.htm]link[/url]
[url=http://www.saja.org/pearl.html]link[/url]
[url=http://www.animusrex.com/wtc1.php]link[/url]
[url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/csr/powering/hirsh3/frmain.htm]link[/url]
[url=http://www.farmington.k12.mn.us/3ap70s/OPEC.html]link[/url]
[url=http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/wbuckley.htm]link[/url]
[url=http://www.terrorismvictims.org/terrorists/yasser-arafat.html]link[/url]

I could go on but I’m sick to my stomach right now.

Note to Instant_Karma -

Those are excellent links, by the way.

I thought at first you were pulling our collective leg!

Gotta run - not supposed to be here!

Shhhhhhh!

Eric The(Transitory)Hun[>]:)]

And why are you not supposed to be here ???

Neil,
the CT's on subs operated out of the radio room - one hatch.
Being on subs we were far far more delicate.  The Marine carried a .45 instead of the M-14/M16 !

Same rumor as to the Marine's final orders.

Due to the layout and the confined area of the sub, many smaller compartments only had a single hatch, including the Radio Rm. On a surface ship it was generally easier to configure the compartments with 2 doors on the majority of compartments. I didn't want to get into a pissing contest with someone if I mis-spoke.

On a surface ship the Marines had the space to handle the M14/M16. Hard to do that on a sub! And you could probably penatrate a lot more sensitive equipment on a sub than on the surface. But you know them grunts...the bigger the gun the better! [:D]

Neil

Neil,
on a considerably lighter note, I made one patrol with a Marine who stands out.

We had submerged the boat, pulled a few drills and everything had quietened down as we began transit to the ops area.  Anyway, the Marine was in the first group to have dinner.  When the mess cook came by and asked him how he wanted his steak cooked and how many he wanted I thought the boy was gonna cry !!

He came onboard at about 180 and left 70 days or so later pushing 200.

Post from 5subslr5 -

'Cause I promised that I wouldn't participate, and I live up to some of my promises.

Besides, I have nothing new to contribute!

Eric The(I'veSaidMyPiece)Hun[>]:)]

Well said, Eric!

DaMan

I've only picked on the periphery myself.

Glad to see that at least two former Navy CT's are on this board.  Those guys did a lot of good work with virtually never a mention.  Tom Clancy brought some attention to the function of Sub Sonarmen but even Clancy left the CT's alone.  Probably on the advice of someone in the intelligence community.

Since so much has already been said in this post, there is a rate "CT" but actually several categories of CT's.

On the USS Liberty, these guys would have been pulling in every radio signal for miles - lots of miles - around, analyzing every radar transmission and identifying type radar and source and more (Everything would have been recorded.  Everything.).  But maybe  most important they would have been capable of translating the regions languages and would have been giving near real-time intelligence to the ship's captain as well as probably transmitting much of the data once the attack began.

Also they would have been capable of direct communications with everything from individual fighter aircraft to the moon.

Johnson and McNamara.  What a duo.

Post from DaMan -

Thank you. I would also say that no one else has anything new to contribute either.

Right? And at least I'm honest about it![:D]

Eric The(HonestAsTheDayIsLong)Hun[>]:)]

The facts are KNOWN!

DaMan

Post from DaMan -

[u]Some[/u] facts are known. The facts that [u]are[/u] known lend themselves to several quite different and contradictory theories.

[u]That[/u] is simply being honest.

And we [u]should[/u] value honesty above all else.

Don't you agree?

Eric The(Wise)Hun[>]:)]

And Jonathan Pollard is also innocent!

DaMan

PS- Don't know where I heard that!  HONESTLY! [:P]

Post from DaMan -

That's quite odd. I would have thought that you thought that he was guilty. He pleaded guilty to certain charges before his case came to trial.

I assume that in connection with his plea arrangement with the US Attorney's Office, they would not have offered Pollard any deal unless he admitted his guilt to at least one charge.

If someone declares themselves to be guilty in an American Court of Law, I would think it very likely indeed that they [u]were[/u] guilty.

Eric The(WhyWouldYouThinkOtherwise?)Hun[>]:)]

Oh, Pollard was GUILTY!  No question about that!

Glad you finally agree, Eric!

DaMan

Now let's get back to the "USS Liberty" topic!  DaMan

Post from DaMan -

Then why did you say he wasn't?

No, glad to see [u]you[/u] finally agree, I never thought he was anything but guilty!

When you say 'let's' I hope you're referring to yourself and the mouse in your pocket, for I am not getting 'back' to anything.

You and your mouse can discuss the USS Liberty all you want.

Maybe that mouse has something 'new' to contribute to the discussion, 'cause no one else has. [:D]

Eric The(EasilyDistracted)Hun[>]:)]

Well, thank-you, Eric!

We even have YOUR permission to continue on topic?  This is great!

DaMan

Post from DaMan -

You're mighty welcome. You may continue this discussion until it sets a record for the longest USS Liberty thread in AR15.com history.

But I warn you, IIRC, the record is [b]10[/b] pages, so you still have a quite a way to go.

Eric The(Perky)Hun[>]:)]

Eric has ADD!      [8)]