[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Cover Up: Attack on the USS Liberty (Page 1 of 12)
Posted: 6/29/2006 5:05:39 PM EDT
| There is a show on the USS Liberty on the History International channel right now, started 9 PM ET. |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- State Department official calls attack an act of gross negligence 1-12-2004 BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Link WASHINGTON (AP) - Reviewing documents covering 36 years, amid a lack of consensus, a State Department official concluded Monday that Israel's attack on the U.S. spy ship Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War was an act of Israeli negligence. The United States also was negligent, the official maintained, for failing to notify Israel that the electronic intelligence-gathering ship was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast and for failing to withdraw the Liberty from the war zone. A daylong conference that studied fresh documents as well as the established record failed to produce a consensus for any of three views voiced most often: Israel intentionally attacked what it knew to be a ship of the U.S. Navy, the attack was accidental, or the attack resulted from faulty judgment. Thirty-four Americans were killed in the June 8, 1967, attack, and more than 170 were wounded. Israel long has maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation the Johnson administration did not challenge formally. Israel said its forces thought the Liberty was an Egyptian horse carrier, apologized to the United States and paid almost $13 million in compensation, some to victims or their families. Since the United States did not intercept the order to attack the ship with cannon fire and napalm, precise facts of the attack remain elusive, the State Department official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. He called the Israeli attack and the U.S. actions a classic example of Murphy's law: ``If anything can go wrong, it will.'' David Hatch, a technical director at the National Security Agency, said, ``The good news is that information long sought by researchers is now out, and the bad news is that it does not settle it.'' The occasion for the State Department conference was the release of historical documents about the 1967 war in which Israel defeated the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries in six days. Charles Smith, a professor at the University of Arizona, said in his presentation that Israel should have known the Liberty was an American ship. ``If they didn't know, they didn't try hard enough to find out,'' he said. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who has written about the incident, demanded further investigation ``instead of people getting up here and giving their opinions.'' ``There were cover-ups,'' Bamford said, citing a signed affidavit by retired Navy Capt. Ward Boston, who was a leader of a military investigation into the incident. Boston said in the affidavit in October that then-President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had told those heading the Navy's inquiry to ``conclude that the attack was a case of `mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.'' Boston, 80, who did not attend Monday's conference, said the Navy investigators were given only one week but still were able to amass ``a vast amount of evidence, including heartbreaking testimony from young survivors.'' Accusing Israel of a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and kill its crew, Boston said in a legal declaration in Coronado, Calif., that he was certain the Israel pilots knew the Liberty, which clearly displayed American flags and had markings in English instead of Arabic, was a U.S. Navy ship. Additionally, Boston said, ``Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded - a war crime.'' Jay Cristol, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge who has written about the incident, cited the finding of the Navy's inquiry as proof the attack was a mistake. ``There was no indication they had any knowledge they were attacking a U.S. ship,'' Cristol told the conference. If the attack were deliberate, its motivation remains uncertain. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a memorandum on June 8, 1997, the 30th anniversary of the attack, that Israel deliberately attacked to hide its intentions in the war. ``I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move,'' Moorer wrote. ``I believe (then-Israeli Defense Minister) Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information, the USS Liberty.'' Israel took the strategic Syrian territory and still holds it 37 years later. |
The USS Liberty was in international waters, yet the crew is to be blamed for being in a "war zone" 
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There. You can thank me later. |
I didn't know that fighting was prohibited in international waters. In fact, there are lots dead people on the bottom of the ocean halfway to nowhere whom I know for a fact perished both in international waters and in war zones, as a result of acts of war on what are quaintly termed the High Seas. You know, where warships sail! Like in the Persian Gulf or 100 miles off the coast of Africa whence we from time to launch missiles and planes to blow stuff up - or are our enemies prohibited from striking back because the carriers and frigates are in international waters, rather than a war zone? |
Israel and the US were not at war. |
It's true, reading is fundamental. Reason and comprehension, however, are essential. I am well aware that we were not at war. Nothing my post suggests that we were. The point is that the hilarious distinction you attempted to draw between "international waters" and "war zone" was, well, hilarious. Try again. |
Are these the 88s you're refering to? www.arlingtoncemetery.org/historical_information/casualties_uss_liberty.html |
I could be wrong but I think he meant you. By the way haven't you posted this exact topic before? |
That shows you just how little Admiral Moorer knew about what was actually occurring behind the scenes. The US knew precisely that Israel was about to attack Syria to obtain the Golan Heights. We have now-released diplomatic communiques that track the exchanges between the two nations. The US refused to permit a Security Council Emergency Meeting to consider a Cease Fire to occur UNTIL it was assured by the Israelis that they had captured as much of the Golan Heights as was necessary for their security. So, how can you be so mistaken, Admiral Moorer? Well, James Bamford was just as mistaken, as well, since that theory was used by him in his 1982 book, The Puzzle Palace, to explain the attack on the USS Liberty. After the release of the declassified diplomatic cables, he changed his theory in Body of Secrets in 2002, to Israel covering up 'mass murder of Egyptian POWs in the Sinai' as the motive for the attack. What happened to change his mind in those intervening 20 years? The release of the US-Israeli diplomatic exchanges in 1997. Simple. Eric The(PieceOfCake)Hun 
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure he meant "Sturmgewehr."
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Yes of course, how stupid of us not to remember. Fighting wars in international waters is prohibited by the Bubba Convention of 1876. 
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 That says it all. The date of this headline is June 8, 1967. The very morning of the attack on the USS Liberty, Israel had already won their war, lot, stock, and barrel. Why risk US retaliation over sinking a US vessel on the high seas? Eric The(NoHits,NoRuns,OneMajorError)Hun
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It is possible that by "you" he meant the collective spirit animating the "Deliberate Attack on the Liberty" and "Israelis are as Bad as RoPers, but have Better PR" entities that haunt the board. In that case, the answer would be "Yep." |
Excellent point. Even without this evidence, you have to wonder why Israel would attack a country that provides military aid and other aid that is essential to her survival. Does anyone really believe that Israel thinks they could survive without help from the US? Here is the table of US aid given to Israel since 1949. Can anyone give a rational answer why Israel would deliberately jeopardize this essential aid from the USA? |
Not to nitpick, but at the time of the attack, France was Israel's primary arms dealer, not the US. America didn't become the Sugar Daddy until 1973. |
So...you did not look at the table of aid that I posted. Look under the "military" column. U.S. Assistance to Israel (FY1949 - FY2006) |
How many years did you spend in the Navy? |
There is no rational answer other than it was a mistake. Of course there is the irrational they did because they evil are Jews... usually disguised as something else. |
Looks like I was off by two years; the checks started to flow in overdrive in 1971, not 1973. Maybe Israel was pissed that they only got 7 million USD in military aid in 1967? (As opposed to 545 million USD in 1971.) But the point remains that France was Israel's prime supplier of arms at the time. |
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At the AFEI conference for Net Centric Operations 2003 on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 at Tysons Corner in Vienna, VA, Honorable John Stenbit, Assistant Secretary for Defense C3I, indicated that the Israelis made a very clear threat that if the US did not move the USS Liberty within 24 hours, they would sink it. His exact quote was: "The Israeli's told us 24 hours before that we had a ship called the Liberty, and if we didn't move it they would sink it. Unfortunately, the ship was not moved and by the time the message arrived the ship was taking on water." Survivors and many key government officials including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Moorer say the attack was no accident. Two Israeli officers have come forward to admit that the attack was no accident. ISRAEL SAYS... they thought the ship was the Egyptian ship "El Quseir," which is a horse carrier one-fourth the size of the Liberty. OK. Here, put yourself in the pilot seat of the Israeli fighters or the Israeli motor torpedo boats... and let's take a look at the ship they saw. Look at the big satellite dish antenna on the fantail, look at the 10 foot high letters on the bow -- "GTR-5." Look at all the antennas. .... NOW take a look at the relative sizes and shapes of the two ships .... Is it the Egyptian "El Quseir?" Any 10 year-old boy in any country would know it was an American ship!  In James Bamford's book, "BODY OF SECRETS" which has a chapter on the Liberty, he discloses that NSA has audio tapes showing that the Israeli pilots were talking about seeing an American flag. The tapes were made by a NSA-operated EC-121 surveillance aircraft which was flying above the area at the time. |
 Firing on your own or allied ships is nothing unheard of in war, neither is attacking neutral ships by accident. |
So you didn't look at the "total" column either? In 1967 Israel got $23 million total in aid from the US. Why would Israel be pissed? They had been getting roughly $50-126 million a year from the US throughout the 60's. Why blowup a US ship that will gain you nothing, and risk $50+ million a year in aid? |
BULLSHIITE! Simply BULLSHIITE! So, the United States simply submitted to blackmail, didn't move the USS Liberty fast enough, whereupon Israel struck it good and proper..... ...and the US Navy stood helplessly by without lifting a single finger to protect their own? Jeepers but for a Navy fellow you really have to hate the US Navy to think all that! And I suppose that Commander McGonagle was simply a snivelling bastage who was told what to say at the Board of Inquiry? 'Just stick to the prepared script, Commander, and your pension is safe.' 'Hell, there may even be a Medal of Honor in it for you.' What Navy DID you serve in? Doesn't sound at all like the US Navy that my Uncle and cousins served in, at all.
Names, Sir. Names! We've been told over and over again by folks that some Israeli has come forward....it's still on Ennis' website....from 1992. And, yet, nothing. What happened? The Mossad got to him before the USS Liberty Memorial folks did?
Too bad he can't reproduce those transcripts, eh? Just like he can't produce the bodies of those 'thousands' of Egyptian POWs that the Israelis were butchering at El Arish...and which he claims to be the reason that the USS Liberty was attacked! What foolishness. Eric The(Serious)Hun
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What 'coverup'? The Israelis immediately admitted their mistake, and attempted to land the US Naval attache on board the USS Liberty shortly after the attack. What are you smoking, my man? What survivors did the Israelis 'mistreat'??? BULLSHIITE seems to be your menu this evening. Eric The(Amazed)Hun
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