Remember the USS Liberty
That Jay Leno quiz thing — it's amazing how little people seem to know. Now, I'd hope most of you are familiar with this, but just in case not here's the short story: On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, a spy ship, was cruising in international waters off the coast of the Gaza strip. It was the fourth day of the Arab-Israeli war, now known as the "six day war" (only recently from declassified U.S. government documents attributed pretty much unequivocally to Israeli aggression). That morning, the Liberty was somewhat interested in intercepts indicating that the Israelis were busy massacring a large number of Egyptian prisoners of war. Also, intercepts indicating the Israelis planned an offensive to take the Golan heights. After being buzzed in the morning a few times by Israeli planes — no big deal, the Liberty was flying an unusually large U.S. flag and knew it was in no danger of being misidentified — in the early afternoon the Liberty came under sustained attack (approximately 75 minutes) by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Thirty four U.S. servicemen died, one hundred and seventy four were wounded. The ship almost sank. President Johnson belayed an order to send carrier aircraft to assist; nevertheless, the Liberty did not sink (a miracle) and made it back to port. The government of Israel excused itself by claiming mistaken identity. The U.S. Congress never investigated. The U.S. government ordered surviving crew to keep their mouths shut.
To this day nobody knows exactly what the government of Israel hoped to accomplish by deliberately — under the cover of deception — attempting to sink a U.S. warship. Perhaps to push Washington into a conflict with Egypt. Perhaps to cover their tracks regarding the prisoner massacre or plans to attack the Golan heights. Who knows? What is clear, abundantly clear, is that it was a conscious, deliberate act. A number of former directors of the NSA are on record as believing that, as are a large number of former very senior military officers and, for what it's worth, all the surviving crew. I believe the evidence to be irrefutable.
If you're interested in the Liberty story, please visit the main memorial site, which also links to a large number of related sites. You can also purchase memorabilia, if you're so inclined. I have, for example, a USS Liberty bumper sticker on my Jeep, and occasionally I wear a USS Liberty ball cap. Anyhow, the 40th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is worth remembering.
Posted by George Kenney on June 5, 2007 3:48 AM 
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From "The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People"; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [SC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-15648-0; p. 259
“ . . . . When an American ship, the USS Liberty, was accidentally damaged in the conflict, President Johnson graciously accepted the immediate apology of the government of Israel. Despite some American casualties, the United States and Israel remained firm friends. Our sources say that there is more to the story than that, much more. The U.S. and British governments, while pretending to be on Israel’s side, were giving all of Israel’s secrets to the Arabs. In many ways, it was the Western spies who indirectly started the war. In this chapter we examine the following allegations: Western intelligence informed the Arabs that Israel would not have a nuclear defense shield finished in 1967, thus leaving a window of opportunity for attack; Realizing the danger of a massed Arab attack, the Israelis informed the United States of their intention to launch a preemptive strike, which the CIA promptly betrayed to the Arabs; U.S. intelligence attempted to curry favor with the Arab oil producers by giving the precise details of Israel’s order of battle to the Arabs during the war; Israeli intelligence discovered the American betrayal and attacked the U.S. ship, the Liberty, which was gathering electronic information on Israeli troop movements and sending it to British intelligence, which in turn relayed it to the Arabs; both the American and Israeli governments agreed to suppress the truth about the Liberty incident from the public.”
The Israelis could have easily sunk the ship, but what they wanted to do was take out the data transmission capabilities with minimum casualties. Loftus' book details that as well.
Posted by: Pandabonium | June 6, 2007 8:11 AM
Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled being on a conference line after President Johnson recalled Naval ships that wanted to respond to the attack. Moorer heard Johnson say he “wanted that God-damned ship going to the bottom!”. [R. Gentile]
Isreal was not alone since Johnson was actively part of the plot and cover-up. Reminds me of the cover-up of the dancing israelis story on 9/11. Israel and the US seem to be closely intertwined during false-flag operations.
May I suggest George, that add the following labels on your cap:
Lavon Affair
USS Main
Gulf of Tonkin
Pearl Harbour
Operation Northwoods
Waco
Oklahoma City Bombing
and of course, 9/11
You might need a bigger cap :)
Posted by: Kevin M. | June 6, 2007 8:29 AM
@Pandabonium:
So using napalm on the deck and machine-gunning the lifeboats is what you call ensuring "minimum casualties"?
No, this was probably a -failed- joint effort between Israel/US/(maybe UK) to instigate a 'justified' war against Egypt.
Posted by: Kevin M. | June 6, 2007 10:44 AM
Kevin M.:
Yes, I do. Though the plan failed in that regard.
I do not defend the acts of any government — Israel and the US included. I am only interested in learning what happened.
According to Loftus/Aarons, who interviewed many people in intelligence, military, and civilian positions of the various countries involved, the Israeli intent was to limit casualties to 10% of the crew. As 38 died and 171 were wounded they failed in that, but the death toll could have been 297 had they really wanted to sink her.
They could have used bombs to instantly sink the Liberty with all hands. What they did was carefully planned to disable the intelligence gathering and data transmission capabilities.
1st, they strafed to get the crew below decks. Then they dropped napalm (have you ever heard of another instance of napalm being dropped on a ship?) in order to burn up the antennas and radar dishes (aluminum burns when napalmed). When enough time had passed to be reasonably sure that watertight doors were closed, they they fired one torpedo into the electronic intelligence center below decks in hold number 3.
Again, I don't condone the attack. I also don't condone what the US was doing, but clearly the Israelis were not intent on sinking the ship.
Posted by: Pandabonium | June 6, 2007 6:48 PM
Pandabonium,
The account you cite makes little sense. Perhaps the most obvious is that Egypt was caught totally unawares and lost nearly their entire air fighting capability as it sat on the ground. They made other stupendous blunders as well that flies in the face of them receiving good intel from the US. The war was essentially won by lunchtime of the first day.
Check out these podcasts by the BBC:
Six Days that Changed the Middle East
Loftus, btw, comes with his own baggage.
Posted by: ww | June 11, 2007 11:50 AM