A FACTUAL discussion on the USS Liberty

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

MYTH..."DURING THE 1967 WAR, ISRAEL DELIBERATELY ATTACKED THE USS LIBERTY."

FACT...The Israeli attqack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midstof the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten OFFICIAL US investigations and 3 OFFICIAL Israeli inquiries have all CONCLUSIVELY ESTABLISHED THE ATTACK WAS A TRAGIC MISTAKE.

On June 8, 1967, the 4th day of the 6-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The US had announced that it had no Naval forceswithin hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the UN a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty , an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting , arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of US communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171.

Numerous mistakes were made by both the US and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported - incorrectly, as it turned out - to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and US) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The day the fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of US vessels. The 6th 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.

Once the Israelis were sure of what had happenned , they reported the incident to the US embassy in Tel Aviv and offerred to provide helicopters for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship.

NONE OF ISRAEL'S ACCUSERS CAN EXPLAIN WHY ISRAEL WOULD DELIBERATELY ATTACK AN AMERICAN SHIP AT A TIME WHEN THE US 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 Liberty to remain at least 25 miles - the last four said 100 miles - 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 US 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, 2 US Blackhawk helicopters with large US flags painted on their sides were shot down by US F-15s on a clear day in the "no-fly" zone of Iraq, killiing 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.

US SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT McNAMARA TOLD CONGRESS ON JULY 26, 1967: "IT WAS THE CONCLUSION OF THE INVESTIGATORY BODY, HEADED BY THE 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 US and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the US State Department. THE MATTER WAS OFFICIALLY CLOSED BETWEEN THE 2 GOVERNMENTS BY AN EXCHANGE OF DIPLOMATIC NOTES ON DECEMBER 17, 1987.

Myths and Facts...A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Mitchell G. Bard, 2001, pp. 90-93

MinnesotaSoxFan · August 30, 2004

Fearless Prediction...

This thread will be locked.

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

I'm gonna be cool this time. No name calling, no accusations.

I have the facts and resources to back my claims.

If this thread gets shut down, it will be the fault of other antagonists, not mine.

Peace. (or should I say, "Shalom"?)

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

Reason they attacked: Israel was slaughtering thousands of Egyptian POWs (the mass graves have been found ) A somewhat more likely scenario holds that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel's plan to breach the new cease-fire and invade into Syria to seize the Golan.

It has been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis. Of course, for this plan to work, the Liberty had to be destroyed and its crew killed. Also, it was to cover up the breaking of the cease fire and taking the Golan Heights.

There's another factor. The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had used town's mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the otherwise featureless desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp. On the very day the Liberty was attacked, the IDF was in the process of executing as many as 1,000 Palestinian and Egyptian POWs, a war crime that they surely wanted to conceal from prying eyes. According to Gabriel Bron, now an Israeli reporter, who witnessed part of the massacre as a soldier: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death."

According to accounts of people who were on the boat (and I'll believe them because, they were actually there and all have the same account even after all these years) The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours.

You mean to tell me in EIGHT trips they couldn't figure out that it was a US ship even with the huge new US flag on it? As for McNamera, he's complicit in the coverup: The Liberty's radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called "a buzzsaw sound." Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet's large aircraft carrier. Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty's aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. "Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately," he barked. McNamara's injunction was reiterated in saltier terms by Admiral David L. McDonald, the chief of Naval Operations: "You get those f***ing airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down." The planes turned around. And the attack on the Liberty continued. Plus, let's not forget that McNamera is a huge liar (looking at his lies about Vietnam as well)

After the attack ended, Ennes was approached by his friend Pat O'Malley, a junior officer, who had just sent a list of killed and wounded to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He got an immediate message back. "They said, 'Wounded in what action? Killed in what action?'," O'Malley told Ennes. "They said it wasn't an 'action,' it was an accident. I'd like for them to come out here and see the difference between an action and an accident. Stupid bastards."

Since the Liberty was an intelligence ship, the Pentagon naturally refused to take ownership and responsibility for it being there (just like they do with CIA agents that get wasted) "The Liberty contributed decisively toward its identification as an enemy ship," the IDF report concluded. This was a blatant falsehood, since the Israelis had identified the Liberty at least six hours prior to the attack on the ship.

Even though the Pentagon knew better, it gave credence to the Israeli account by saying that perhaps the Liberty's flag had lain limp on the flagpole in a windless sea. The Pentagon also suggested that the attack might have lasted less than 20 minutes.

After the initial battery of misinformation, the Pentagon imposed a news blackout on the Liberty disaster until after the completion of a Court of Inquiry investigation.

The inquiry was headed by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Kidd didn't have a free hand. He'd been instructed by Vice-Admiral McCain to limit the damage to the Pentagon and to protect the reputation of Israel.

The Kidd interviewed the crew on June 14 and 15. The questioning was extremely circumscribed. According to Ennes, the investigators "asked nothing that might be embarrassing to Israeland testimony that tended to embarrass Israel was covered with a 'Top Secret' label, if it was accepted at all."

Ennes notes that even testimony by the Liberty's communications officers about the jamming of the ship's radios was classified as "Top Secret." The reason? It proved that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship. "Here was strong evidence that the attack was planned in advance and that our ship's identity was known to the attackers (for it its practically impossible to jam the radio of a stranger), but this information was hushed up and no conclusions were drawn from it," Ennes writes.

The investigators buried intercepts of conversations between IDF pilots identifying the ship as flying an American flag.

It also refused to accept evidence about the IDF's use of napalm during the attacks and choose not to hear testimony regarding the duration of the attacks and the fact that the US Navy failed to send planes to defend the ship.

"No one came to help us," said Dr. Richard F. Kiepfer, the Liberty's physician. "We were promised help, but no help came. The Russians arrived before our own ships did. We asked for an escort before we ever came to the war zone and we were turned down."

None of this made its way into the 700-page Court of Inquiry report, which was completed within a couple of weeks and sent to Admiral McCain in London for review.

McCain approved the report over the objections of Captain Merlin Staring, the Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry, who found the report to be flawed, incomplete and contrary to the evidence.

More proof has recently come to light from the Israeli side. A few years after Attack on the Liberty was originally published, Ennes got a call from Evan Toni, an Israeli pilot. Toni told Ennes that he had just read his book and wanted to tell him his story. Toni said that he was the pilot in the first Israeli Mirage fighter to reach the Liberty. He immediately recognized the ship to be a US Navy vessel. He radioed Israeli air command with this information and asked for instructions. Toni said he was ordered to "attack." He refused and flew back to the air base at Ashdod. When he arrived he was summarily arrested for disobeying orders.

I believe there's one word for this, pwn3d. :usa

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

Oh, I forgot to add: the reason for the coverup was that many military weapons firms and the Pentagon wanted to sell weapons to Israel but were banned with the weapons embargo. At the time of the Liberty attack, if the overwhelming evidence that it was a purposeful attack on a US ship, the odds of getting the embargo lifted and allowing weapons to be sold to Israel would be slim and none (and slim just left town). So, they hushed it up. In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying $600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft.

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

Apu...you have a great future in fiction writing. You write extremely well, but never let the facts get in the way of what you write.

Try citing some actual sources to back up your bulls***; it will make you much more credible.

Steff · August 30, 2004

I'm gonna be cool this time. No name calling, no accusations.

I have the facts and resources to back my claims.

If this thread gets shut down, it will be the fault of other antagonists, not mine.

Peace. (or should I say, "Shalom"?)

:ph34r:

:lol:

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

No name calling, Steff.

Not from me.

rolleyeyes.gif

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

I4E, first hand accounts from testimonies on the official survivors' web page along with articles that I posted in the locked thread are where I derived all this evidence from. So, you've seen the evidence (assuming you read it)

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

And I quoted you that there were at least 10 US inquiries that exonerated Israel from any wrong doing re. the Liberty.

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

I don't know how official the inquiries are when they deny the people who were actually on the boat the ability to testify. When even IDF pilots are saying that they ID'ed the boat as American and bombed it anyway, there's enough damning evidence to show that Israel attacked it on purpose.

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

I don't know how official the inquiries are when they deny the people who were actually on the boat the ability to testify. When even IDF pilots are saying that they ID'ed the boat as American and bombed it anyway, there's enough damning evidence to show that Israel attacked it on purpose.

Wrong again, Apu.

Doesn't it get boring for you to always be wrong?

Let's look at this logically, (if your limited brain can handle it!)...IF, in 1967, the US was Israel's ONLY friend/supporter in the world, what would Israel have to gain by deliberatley attacking an American vessel? How could it have possibly benefitted Israel to alienate its ONLY ally?

Think about it. THINK!!!

kapkomet · August 30, 2004

Wrong again, Apu.

Doesn't it get boring for you to always be wrong?

Let's look at this logically, (if your limited brain can handle it!)...IF, in 1967, the US was Israel's ONLY friend/supporter in the world, what would Israel have to gain by deliberatley attacking an American vessel? How could it have possibly benefitted Israel to alienate its ONLY ally?

Think about it. THINK!!!

Could it be if Isreal attacked then the US wouldn't have been able to sell billions and billions and billions and billions (you get the point) of dollars of equipment to someone who attacked us? Money talks...

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

They had to gain the fact that nobody would find out about their mass slaughter of Egyptian POWs and that nobody would find out about their plan to f*** the cease fire and invade the Golan Heights.

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/mass_graves/

http://www.time.com/time/international/199...middleeast.html

But I'm sure Time and CNN are anti-Semitic as well.

An intelligence ship could have found out both of those. And telling me I have a limited brain, good to know that you're keeping your promise of no insults.

As for the investigations exonerating it as an accident.

1. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry: The senior legal adviser to the Court of Inquiry reflected that, in his entire career, he has never seen court of inquiry appointing letters with such limited authority, or an investigation made in such haste. The court's hearings began before the Liberty even arrived in Malta, and the report was completed just 10 days after the attack. The court commented on this haste in the official record: "The Court of Inquiry experienced no unusual difficulties incident to conducting the subject proceedings except for the necessity of investigating such a major naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame."

Due in part to the required haste and the limitations imposed on the scope of the court's inquiries ("It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation"), the court concluded that "available evidence combines to indicate...[that the attack was] a case of mistaken identity."

How, one might ask, could one inquire into all of the circumstances without hearing from the attacking nation? In fact, the court did neither. According to Captain Ward Boston, chief legal counsel to the Court of Inquiry, the court found that the attack was deliberate, but reported falsely that it was not because they were directed by the president of the United States and the secretary of defense to report falsely. So the findings are fraudulent. Yet these fraudulent findings were the basis for several other reports that followed.

2. Israeli government investigations: The Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports of 1967 were not investigations. Both were elements of an Israeli process to determine whether anyone in Israel should be tried for a crime. That the attack itself was an accident was a given. Both hearings officers determined that no one in Israel did anything wrong, and that the USS Liberty was partly responsible, for a number of contrived reasons, such as "failure to fly a flag" and "trying to hide" - which the Navy Court of Inquiry found to be untrue.

3. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Report of June 1967: This was an inquiry into the mishandling of several messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation into the attack. It did not exonerate Israel, because it did not in any way consider the question of culpability.

4. CIA report of June 13, 1967: This interim report, completed five days after the attack, reported "our best judgment [is] that the attack...was a mistake." No investigation was conducted, and no first-hand evidence was collected. Then-CIA Director Richard Helms later reported in his autobiography that the still-classified final CIA report found that the attack was planned and deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol.

5. Clark Clifford report of July 18, 1967: Clark Clifford was directed by Lyndon Johnson to review the Court of Inquiry report and the interim CIA report and "not to make an independent inquiry." His was merely a summary of other fallacious reports, not an "investigation" as alleged by Mr. Cristol. The report reached no conclusions and did not exonerate Israel, as Mr. Cristol also claimed. On the contrary, Clifford wrote later that he regarded the attack as deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol.

6. and 7. Two Senate Investigations: The Committee on Foreign Relations meeting of 1967 and Senate Armed Services Committee meeting of 1968 were hearings on unrelated matters which clearly skeptical members used to castigate representatives of the administration under oath before them. Typical questions were, "Why can't we get the truth about this?" They were not "investigations" at all, but budget hearings, and reported no conclusions concerning the attack. They did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol.

8. House Appropriations Committee meeting of April and May 1968: This was a budget committee meeting which explored the issue of lost messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation and reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol.

9. House Armed Services Committee Review of Communications, May 1971: Liberty communications were discussed along with other communications failures. The committee reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol.

10. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1979/1981: Mr. Cristol claims that the committee investigated the attack and exonerated Israel, yet he has been unable to provide minutes, a report or other evidence of such an investigation. Rules of the select committee require that any committee investigation be followed by a report. There is no evidence that any investigation was undertaken. More importantly, there is no published committee report of such an investigation; ergo, there was no such investigation.

11. National Security Agency Report, 1981: Upon the publication in 1980 of Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes, the National Security Agency completed a detailed account of the attack. The report drew no conclusions, although its authors did note that the deputy director dismissed the Israeli excuse (the Yerushalmi report) as "a nice whitewash." The report did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol.

12. State of Israel - Israel Defense Force History Department report of June 1982: This Israeli government report was a reaction to a published report by Sen. Adlai Stevenson III that he believed the attack to be deliberate and hoped to provide a forum for survivors to tell their story. It was primarily a summary of the Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports. The Stevenson forum, which was the impetus for the report, was never held. The report supports the official Israeli position that the attack was a tragic accident. It also blames USS Liberty, in part, for the attack.

13. House Armed Services Committee investigation of 1991/1992: Though cited by Mr. Cristol as an investigation which exonerates Israel, the U.S. government reports no record of such an investigation. Cristol claims that the investigation resulted from a letter to Rep. Nicholas Mavroules from Joe Meadors, then-president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, seeking Mavroules' support. Instead of responding to Liberty veterans, however, Congressman Mavroules referred the matter to Mr. Cristol for advice. Survivors heard nothing further. Meadors' letter was never answered. The U.S. government reports that there has been no such investigation.

Summary

Mr. Cristol alleges that there were "thirteen investigations, all of which exonorated Israel." This allegation is completely false.

"Thirteen." Putting aside all other issues, there were not "thirteen" investigations (or whatever you wish to call them). Two of the "thirteen" were complete fabrications - they never happened.

"Investigations." Of the remaining eleven documents referenced by Cristol, at best, three could be argued to have been investigations. The other eight were nothing more than compilations of existing reports. Of those three, two (the Yerushalmi Report and the Ram Ron Report) were Israeli investigations to determine whether the Israeli Chief Military Prosecutor's indictments of a number of Israeli military personnel for criminal negligence should be upheld. The third (the Joint Chiefs of Staff Report) was an investigation, but it only inquired into the facts of the message routing system and did not undertake any "investigation" of the attack.

"Exonorated Israel." Not surprisingly, the two Israeli reports (or if you prefer "investigations") not only exonorated Israel, but affirmatively found that no Israeli military personnel did even the slightest thing negligently or improperly.

Those U.S. reports which even offered an opinion uniformly stated that there was not sufficient evidence at the time of the report (in most cases mid-June 1967) to establish that the attack was not a mistake. This is hardlly an exonoration of Israel. Nonetheless, Cristol continues to spin the Big Lie that there have been "thirteen investigations, all of which have exonorated Israel."

Readers should judge all of his work by the quality of his research on this subject. No matter what one might conclude concerning the others, two of the alleged investigations are simply lies - they never happened.

CrimsonWeltall · August 30, 2004

Let's look at this logically, (if your limited brain can handle it!)...IF, in 1967, the US was Israel's ONLY friend/supporter in the world, what would Israel have to gain by deliberatley attacking an American vessel? How could it have possibly benefitted Israel to alienate its ONLY ally?

Think about it. THINK!!!

His post gave an explanation for that.

Read about it. READ!!!

It has been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis.

Steff · August 30, 2004

Wrong again, Apu.

Doesn't it get boring for you to always be wrong?

Let's look at this logically, (if your limited brain can handle it!)...

QUOTE (israel4ever @ Aug 30 2004, 08:07 AM)

I'm gonna be cool this time. No name calling, no accusations.

I have the facts and resources to back my claims.

If this thread gets shut down, it will be the fault of other antagonists, not mine.

Peace. (or should I say, "Shalom"?)

rolleyeyes.gif

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

I'm done.

I give you historical facts, you counter with opinion.

I thought you were educated; an educated person can differentiate between fact and opinion...you obviously cannot.

I am done trying to convince you; you are too set in your (bigoted) "thinking" to be swayed therefrom.

Keep living your hate-filled life; just keep it (and your inane opinions) away from me.

southsider2k5 · August 30, 2004

I'm done.

I give you historical facts, you counter with opinion.

I thought you were educated; an educated person can differentiate between fact and opinion...you obviously cannot.

I am done trying to convince you; you are too set in your (bigoted) "thinking" to be swayed therefrom.

Keep living your hate-filled life; just keep it (and your inane opinions) away from me.

The one thing I will never understand is how your information is "facts" and how anything that contradicts that is lies? How do you know that you aren't the one being lied too? Apu has his stuff just as sited, if not more than anything you post.

kapkomet · August 30, 2004

I4E, "facts" are only "facts" if you choose to believe them, and it's sad, really. I wish you could see other sides of it and realize that there are always more then one side to a story. You have described a factual document about what the story was by the goernments involved. Apu stated things from the people that were there. They are both "factual", it's what you choose to believe.

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

I4E, "facts" are only "facts" if you choose to believe them, and it's sad, really. I wish you could see other sides of it and realize that there are always more then one side to a story. You have described a factual document about what the story was by the goernments involved. Apu stated things from the people that were there. They are both "factual", it's what you choose to believe.

Both governments involved "closed the case" based on the information I provided. If that isn't enough, I don't know what else I can do to prove it to you. Israel AND the US were satisfied by the findings of the 10 OFFICIAL US INVESTIGATIONS AND THE 3 OFFICIAL ISRAELI INQUIRIES, but, Apu isn't satisfied, so...let's believe Apu! :headshake

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

Did you see the refutation I posted about the investigations? There were plenty of holes in them and in fact, 2 never took place.

israel4ever · August 30, 2004

Did you see the refutation I posted about the investigations? There were plenty of holes in them and in fact, 2 never took place.

(Re. the 23 insults) Truth hurts, doesn't it?

I'd rather rely on the fact that the governments of ISRAEL AND THE US HAVE AGREED THAT THE ATTACK WAS NOT DELIBERATE!!! Your opinion is meaningless and insignificant (as is your existance).

Leave me the f*** alone!

southsider2k5 · August 30, 2004

(Re. the 23 insults) Truth hurts, doesn't it?

I'd rather rely on the fact that the governments of ISRAEL AND THE US HAVE AGREED THAT THE ATTACK WAS NOT DELIBERATE!!! Your opinion is meaningless and insignificant (as is your existance).

Leave me the f*** alone!

Hey Izzy, make sure you read and understand this.

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...=0entry444940

LowerCaseRepublican · August 30, 2004

(Re. the 23 insults) Truth hurts, doesn't it?

I'd rather rely on the fact that the governments of ISRAEL AND THE US HAVE AGREED THAT THE ATTACK WAS NOT DELIBERATE!!! Your opinion is meaningless and insignificant (as is your existance).

Leave me the f*** alone!

They can rely on that because it's putting money in their pockets.

. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry: The senior legal adviser to the Court of Inquiry reflected that, in his entire career, he has never seen court of inquiry appointing letters with such limited authority, or an investigation made in such haste. The court's hearings began before the Liberty even arrived in Malta, and the report was completed just 10 days after the attack. The court commented on this haste in the official record: "The Court of Inquiry experienced no unusual difficulties incident to conducting the subject proceedings except for the necessity of investigating such a major naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame."