I know there has been discussion on this board about the attack on the Liberty by Israel. There is a show tonight on The History Channel called "History Undercover, Cover Up: Attack on the USS Liberty" from 8-9 Eastern and 7-8 Central on June 18th. My VCR will be recording.
The Attack on the USS Liberty
by seawolf 33 Replies latest social current
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seawolf
hmm no one is interested in this?
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Satanus
There are endless documentaries on the holocaust (about 70, i think), yet crimes by the state of israel get flushed. Hmmmmm.
SS
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searchfothetruth
But you will be accused of being a 'conspiracy theorist' when you mention the fact that the US knew that Israel had attacked the ship.
It was only the skill of the captain that kept the boat afloat, it had a massive torpedo hole and thousands of bullet holes.
It was a typical operation, commit the atrocity and blame someone else, this then gives you the excuse to attack them......
I wonder where i've heard that before?
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Francois
This attack, a so-called "mistake" by Isreal, is one of the topics covered in a book called Body of Secrets which was written by the same guy who wrote another book about the NSA, National Security Agency, the title of which I don't remember.
I don't want to ruin the story for anyone, but I will go so far as to say that if the attack on the Liberty was a mistake, I'm the Pope of Rome.
The person responsible for the attack? Ariel Sharon, the current Isreali Prime Minister, who was a general in the Isreali Army at the time and engaged in the slaughter of Palestinian POWs at the very time the Liberty was just offshore from where the POWs were being held.
I expect that the book is vastly more detailed than the TV presentation. So if you want the real skinny with all the details and proof, buy the book.
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searchfothetruth
Exactly Francois.
Sharon was a terrorist who is now in power. He even stated once that he didn't care about world opinion. He would kill as many Palastinians as he could and then let them try him for war crimes.
If they are capable of this sort of behavior, then why does it come as shock to people when they are accused of even worse atrocities?
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ThiChi
Ahhhhh conspiracy theories. We really love them, don’t we?
Interesting Facts to consider:
1.Only Liberty crewmembers were interviewed. Not a single Israeli who was involved was interviewed. Interviews of numerous Israelis with first hand knowledge were available from the Thames TV program and the 20/20 program but not used.
2. The stories told by the survivors 34 years after the event were not checked against their prior sworn testimony given to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry a few days after the event. It varies widely from these stories.
3. Although there have been 10 official U.S. investigations, including 5 by congress and three official Israeli investigations, all of which concluded the event was a tragic mistake, and 7 U.S. presidents (Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton) have endorsed that position, not one of hundreds of available Americans was presented to state the official U.S. position.
4. In particular, the narrator, Arthur Kent, talks about actions by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, but McNamara was not interviewed nor was his testimony in a congressional investigation presented. Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations - United States Senate - Ninetieth Congress - First Session on S. 1872 - A Bill To Amend The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, As Amended, And For Other Purposes - June 12, July 14 and 26, 1967:
Secretary McNamara: But I have examined the record of the investigation, and I find no intent by the Israeli Government, and no intent by any representatives of the Israeli Government to attack a U.S. vessel.
4. All attacks are inherently deliberate. The question is: did the Israelis attack knowing that it was an American ship. Ten official U.S. investigations and three official Israeli investigations have all concluded that the attack was a tragic mistake or that there is no evidence to establish that it was not a tragic mistake. Seven U. S. Presidents, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush, and Clinton have all accepted the conclusion that the attack was a tragic mistake. Still, more than two dozen conspiracy theories, most of which like Mr. Bamford's conspiracy theory, are based on false or erroneous premises, and have been circulating for years. They all start from the assumption that all the above investigations were wrong or a deliberate cover up; that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship; and the only question is: "Why".
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ThiChi
An example of the factual mistakes made:
Bamford: "Israel fighters and torpedo boats assaulted the ship for more than an hour."
Fact: The air attack lasted about 12 minutes and was terminated as soon as the Israel Air Force determined the ship was not an Arab ship. While the Air Force was initiating rescue operations, the torpedo boats approached, stopped, and began signaling to the Liberty. The response of the Liberty was to begin shooting at the torpedo boats which thereupon began the torpedo attack. It lasted less than 15 minutes during which time the navy torpedo boats believed they were facing an enemy who initiated the shooting at them.
Bamford: The Israeli attackers used "cannon fire, rockets, heavy bombs, burning napalm and five torpedoes"
Fact: No rockets were fired at Liberty. No bombs, "heavy" or otherwise, were used. The attacking aircraft were not armed to attack a ship. Had they dropped the standard 500 pound iron bombs normally used against ship targets, the Liberty would very likely have been sunk in minutes. (During the battle of Midway in World War II, U.S. Navy dive bombers using standard 500 pound iron bombs sank three Japanese aircraft carriers in ten minutes.) Four napalm canisters [bombs] were dropped by the attacking aircraft. At least three and possibly all missed. The Liberty's doctor reported no treatment of any crew member for napalm burns.
Bamford: "Among those who never believed Israel's explanation are the survivors and the captain of the ship."
Fact: The captain of the ship, William L. McGonagle, testified under oath before the U.S. navy Court of Inquiry on June 13, 1967 "I realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack having been conducted in error." [emphasis added] [Court of Inquiry Record, p. 39] Bamford attributes rejection of the Israel explanation of mistaken identity to "The Survivors." This infers all the survivors. Again, this is not a true statement.
Bamford: "Among those who never believed Israel's explanation are ... Secretary of State, Dean Rusk and Chief of Naval Operations (and later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Admiral Thomas Moorer;"
Fact: Dean Rusk never accepted the Israeli explanation but when asked in an interview at Athens, Georgia on April 5, 1989 on what evidence he based his opinion, he conceded that he never read the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry findings, the CIA Report, or the Clark Clifford Report. When pressed further, he said, "I did not make a career of studying the evidence."
Admiral Moorer was Commander in Chief Atlantic on the day of the attack on the Liberty and became Chief of Naval Operations on August 1, 1967. In two interviews in Washington, D.C. on February 10, 1989 and May 3, 1990, he explained that the Liberty's identity could not be mistaken because she was the "Ugliest ship in the Navy" and was larger in size than the Egyptian ship for which she was mistaken. The CIA Report concludes the opposite, that the two ships could be mistaken. Ironically, the findings of the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry were approved by Moorer's office while he was the Chief of Naval Operations.
Bamford: [The Liberty] never fired a shot."
Fact: The evidence has been undisputed for more than three decades that when the torpedo boats approached, stopped, and began signaling, the Liberty began shooting at them. Captain McGonagle, the commanding officer, testified to this under oath at the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry and reconfirmed it in a videotaped press conference on board Liberty when the ship returned to the United States. He may be observed on videotape telling of the Liberty firing at the torpedo boats in the Thames TV documentary, Attack on the Liberty, aired on British television on January 27, 1987.
Bamford: Refers to Marvin Nowicki plus "another Hebrew linguist" who, he says, "is" confident that the Israeli attack was a deliberate attack.
Fact: Dr. Marvin Nowicki, the U.S. Navy Hebrew linguist on the NSA EC-121 aircraft who heard the Israeli Air Force pilots' radio transmissions and supervised their recording, told Mr. Bamford exactly the opposite, that is Nowicki is certain the attack was a mistake. In an e-mail letter dated March 3, 2000, a copy of which was provided to me by Nowicki and which will be published in full in my forthcoming book, Nowicki wrote to Bamford, "...we recorded most, if not all, of the attack. Further, our intercepts, never before made public, showed the attack to be an accident on the part of the Israelis." Dr. Nowicki's letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal published on May 16, 2001 unequivocally contradicts what Bamford attributes to him. Nowicki said in the Wall Street Journal letter: "My position, which is opposite of Mr. Bamford's, is the attack, ..., was a gross error." There are not one, but two other NSA connected Hebrew linguists that, according to Dr. Nowicki, have heard the tapes and share his - not Bamford's - alleged conclusions.
USS Liberty: Israel Did Not Intend to Bomb the Ship
By A. Jay Cristol
Mr. Cristol is the author of the forthcoming The Liberty Incident. -
searchfothetruth
ThiChi.
Watch the History channel program, you may learn something.
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ThiChi
Search:
It does not bother you that key witnesses where not interviewed? It does not bother you that the Survivors' remarks does not match their sworn testimony?
If you can just consider the facts, you may unlearn something.....
Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots) —to be cruising at 30 knots. Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels. The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai.
A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors.
Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty.
None of Israel's accusers has been able to explain adequately why Israel would have deliberately attacked an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides (five messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ship to remain at least 25 miles &151; the last four said 100 miles &151; off the Egyptian coast arrived after the attack was over) is a more probable explanation.
Accidents caused by “friendly fire” are common in wartime. In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicpoters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns south of Jenin on the West Bank.6
Retired Admiral, Shlomo Erell, who was Chief of the Navy in Israel in June 1967, told the Associated Press (June 5, 1977): “No one would ever have dreamt that an American ship would be there. Even the United States didn't know where its ship was. We were advised by the proper authorities that there was no American ship within 100 miles.”
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress on July 26, 1967: “It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.”
In 1987, McNamara repeated his belief that the attack was a mistake, telling a caller on the “Larry King Show” that he had seen nothing in the 20 years since to change his mind that there had been no “coverup.”Israel apologized for the tragedy and paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two government by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.