first let me say that I have never heard about this case since about 2-3 years ago - and I find a bit strange that I have never seen it covered in any main-steam media or documentary, even if I don’t live in USA.
the official version is that it was an accident, but i find that very unlikely according to this article by by Eric S. Margolis
Eric Margolis is a fool. I have read some of his articles in the past and they are riddled with factual or historical inaccuracies that I suspect were intentional, in order to support his wild conspiracy theories.
Micheal B. Oren’s Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East gives a blow by blow account of the events according to Israeli radio transcripts and logs as well as eye witness acounts of pilots and crew, and it reads nothing like the acount you quoted. The aircraft that attacked the liberty were orignally en-route to attack Egyptian land forces, hence they carried weapons like napalm, which was not a very effective anti-ship weapon. They were re-routed after an Egyptian ship had shelled the Israeli coast and mistook the Liberty for the attacker. The Liberty had been identified previously as an American ship but a “refreshing” of the status board at the Israeli Command Center somehow erased this note. The PT boats that later arrived were actually first fired upon by the Liberty, due to a miscommunication among the American crew, and returned fire in the confusion.
Any theories about an intentional israeli attack are conspiracy theories without any evidece.
but he based his article on a book by intelligence expert James Bamford
and the captain and the crew on board says it was deliberate attack also (they have a homepage)
Who’s James Bamford? What are his qualifications? How respected is he in the intelligence field? And precisely what did Margolis use from his book to generate that article? Did he accurately use the information from that book, or has he manipulated it to give the results he wanted?
Are they claiming that the Israeli military deliberately targetted a ship they knew to be American, with the intent to kill Americans? Why? Do you have a link to their homepage?
Have you actually read the book by James Bamford? Are you certain that it actually says what Erid Margolis claims it says? Have you considered the possibility that Eric Margolis might be lying to you?
Assuming that you have read the book by James Bamford, I have a question for you. According to Margolis:
What page of Mr. Bamford’s book does this come from? Which member of Johnson’s staff made this particular claim? When did they make it? What was the precise wording of the claim?
The wikipedia article on the USS liberty incident has links to the captain’s home page.
Also, it seems most of Wikipedia’s accounts are take directly from Oren’s book, and it cites Oren as a major source.
I read a history of the NSA last year that had a chapter about this attack. The essence of the story was that the attack was deliberate and that the reason behind the attack was the Israeli concern that a massacre of captured Eqyptian POW’s would be discovered and reported.
Before you ask, no I do not have a cite and it will be a week or two before I can find the book as we just remodeled the damn living room and virtually all my books are buried in boxes. It might have been The Puzzle Palace but I’m just not sure as I have several different books about the NSA.
The story **sounded ** authentic and the various radio transmissions that the NSA anonymous sources cited **seemed ** to support the claim. And I think in recent years there has been general acceptance that during the Sinai War there were Israeli prisoners who died under suspicious circumstances.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=136053&page=2&pp=50&highlight=bamford
Hm. Both a link of mine to Bamford’s book, and some discussion of Oren’s debunking.
That help any?
The book was Body of Secrets, not the Puzzle Palace, Fir. Willing to bet it’s the same book you read. Check my above link.
Perhaps the most mysterious thing is not the attack, but the fact that lyndon Johnson immediately quashed any investigation into it. effectively, the survivors were told not to discuss it, the ship was repaired and renamed, and the officers were told not to makke statements. What that adds up to i don’t know-only that the USS Liberty was a spy ship. its task was to monitor communications, and report back to Washington. just what was intercepted and decoded probably will never be made public-the vast majority of the stuff is still classified.
It is a siyuation similar to the fate of the USS PUEBLO 9another spy ship) taken by the North koreans 9in international waters). Upon his release, the captain 9Cmdr. lloyd Bucher) returned to a not-so-grateful nation, as he faced a court martial. All information about that disgraceful incident has likewise been swept under a carpet somewhere.
Unless I miss my guess, every single US inquiry found there to be no malice and no volitional attack against a known American ship. Unless, of course, you want to believe that the Pentagon has been infiltrated by… The Zionists! (Dun Dun Dunnnnnn!!!)
I think you will find he has considerable credibility.
You might have solved your own “mystery” there.
Margolis’ account sounds like a typical conspiracy theorist’s conjectures. Beyond the notion that the Israelis would risk severely damaging their relationship with their main ally out of fear that some Egyptian prisoner deaths would be discovered, there’s this gem: “At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘Liberty’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located.” Somehow the Israelis not only knew the exact location of the “signals intelligence systems” on a U.S. spy ship, but they were able to score a direct hit on this supposedly key target on a moving vessel. Man, they must have been good.
And while Margolis suggests that this was the first occasion of glossing over an attack on a U.S. vessel by a country with which we were not at war, he apparently never heard of the Japanese attack on the U.S.S. Panay in 1937. And the evidence is far better in this instance that the Panay’s sinking was actually deliberate.
What inquiries (note plural)? There was only one I think.
I am surprised at the latitude being given to the Israelis here for this incident. No viewing of the course of events that day can be reasonably washed away by a mere “whoops”. Yes, it happens that allies mistakenly fire upon one another but the Israeli attack went on so long as to make it unbelievable that this was just an unfortunate incident. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks so either.
It may be claimed the above cite has an axe to grind but they do cite their sources and quotes. Take it FWIW.
I think I should retract that part of my last post. I do not know all of the inquiries made, official or otherwise, that were made. I was just going on the one Executive inquiry mentioned above. For all I know there were dozens others made by the CIA, NSA, DOD, Navy, etc…
Ok fine. Reading that link is sad as it looks like one of the most blatant coverups I have ever seen.
Note the Israeli responses. Reading elsewhere (I need to find the cite again) not a single reprimand (much less something more harsh) was handed out for this. It was a pretty spectacular screwup if that is all it was. Someone should have had their ass handed to them but not one IDF person was held accountable in the slightest that I am aware of.
Read the quotes from highly placed officials cited in my earlier post. None of them think this was an “oops” on Israel’s part.
Interesting that your link did not include The Moorer Commission report. From that link some tidbits:
First, you are trusting the site that claimed “the United States Congress has never investigated the attack,” when no fewer than six of the ten inquiries/investigations were conducted by Congress.
Moreoever, the fact that no punishments were handed out does not make it a coverup. How often do casualties resulting from friendly fire come to criminal charges? When the United States Military closes an inquiry stating the a friendly fire exchange was due to the fog of war, or what have you, is that a coverup? Is this evidence of a coverup?
If you are honestly suggesting that there was a “coverup”, then you are suggesting that the US Military, and US Congress, are in on it. That, and the our own spy planes which intercepted communications between Israeli pilots were… what, part of the conspiracy? Had their tapes doctored?
Failure to punish does not equal a coverup. They admitted culpability, simply not malice.
And yet, they admitted that they had fired on the Liberty, and that it was a massive mistake, no? Thus, how can it be a coverup? If one admits it to the world, it’s hardly being hushed up, is it?
Why didn’t they testify/have their ideas valued by all the investigations which took place? Again, are you suggesting that the Americans who investigated were in on the conspiracy and coverup?
[/quote]
No, it’s not interesting that it didn’t include that, as the Moorer “Comission” was a private and non-governmental entity.
Heck, even recently declassified tapes support the same story that’s been there all along: that the Liberty was mistaken to be an Egyptian vessel.
And, simply as an aside, you didn’t quote the most “interesting” claim that your cite makes:
Again, this is suggesting that Congress and the US Military are, somehow, in cahoots with The Zionists [sup]tm[/sup] in order to keep the truth away from the American public. It’s an intersting minor variation on the “Zinoists control our government!” meme, but not all that intersting.
The obvious answer is that the United States of America enjoys getting attacked by random countries.
The fact that it was an ally only makes us more suspect. Therefore we must obviously hate muslims more than jews. :rolleyes:
I am not saying there is some Zionist control of the government. Frankly I think it just boiled down to Realpolitik. Israel is an ally of ours and at that time and place our government did not want to inflame anti-Israeli sentiment in the US. No need for Zionist control…the US has a self interest in seeing Israel kept together and safe.
That aside you are ignoring much of what I quoted in my post. Note who made these accusations. They are not armchair sitting, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy types. They are across the board highly placed members of the American government who were involved at the time with this incident.
[ul]
[li]Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence[/li]
[li]Dean Rusk, Secretary of State [/li]
[li]Clark M. Clifford, Counsel to the President[/li]
[li]Paul C. Warnke, General Counsel for the Department of Defense[/li]
[li]Captain Ward Boston, chief Navy attorney for the 1967 U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry into the Israeli attack[/li]
[li]George Ball, Undersecretary of State[/li]
[li]Captain Merlin Staring, Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry (eventually became Judge Advocate General Of The Navy)[/li][/ul]
Not sure if the following were directly involved in the incident/original inquiry but still of note as being on record that the Israeli attack was more than a simple mistake:
[ul]
[li]Admiral Moorer was Chief of Naval Operations when this event occurred and went on to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff[/li]
[li]General Raymond G. Davis was Assistant Chief of Staff during this event and finished as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps[/li]
[li]Lieutenant General William Odom, NSA director[/li]
[li]Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, NSA director[/li]
[li]Marshal Carter, NSA director[/li]
[li]Oliver Kirby, NSA deputy director[/li]
[li]Major General John Morrison, NSA deputy director[/li]
[li]Ambassador Dwight Porter, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon in 1967[/li][/ul]
I find the above list of people fairly compelling. It’s be one thing if just one or two said this sort of thing but all of them? Check their bonafides…I have on some and many of these guys are highly decorated and respected individuals.
If the list of names does not impress you then debunk the course of events. Your link to the declassified tapes is not impressive. Here are two that disputes it:
And…
So we have your judge turned historian versus an Ambassador, ABC’s investigative producer, the navy and the NSA.
If nothing else use your own bullshit meter here and tell me nothing stinks.
The Israelis overflew the Liberty at least 8 times prior to the attack (and as shown above there is evidence that they identified the ship as American)
The Israelis, according to your link, identified the ship as an Egyptian cargo freighter. Remember 8 overflights and look at this picture of the ship. Note the antennae sprouting all over it not to mention a big satellite dish. Target recognition is trained to pilots and Israeli pilots are as good as they come. Not to mention that reconnaisance aircraft that overflew them are specifically meant to do just that. Add in the American flag and GTR-5 painted in big letters on the bow. They missed identified this how?
The attack spanned two hours. Not just one mistaken bomb but three jets, three torpedo boats and helicopters (although the helicopters loaded with armed troops did nothing as at that point the word was out and they thought the Sixth Fleet was responding). Gunfire, rockets, napalm, torpedoes…they beat the snot out of that ship.
The Israelis jammed all American emergency channels.
The torpedo boats at some point are reported to have been withing 50’ of the ship.
The Israelis shot the life rafts the crew threw overboard when the ship seemed lost (looked more like murder than war where you generally capture surviving seamen).
Once the ship got a call out the US Sixth Fleet launched planes in its defense. Robert McNamara recalled the strike. The fleet commander, thinking there may have been worry over the planes carrying nukes, launched a second sortie assuring no nukes were being carried. This was recalled as well by President Johnson.
After the incident the survivng crew was warned on pain of court martial or prison to not talk about the event.
None of that seems even the slightest bit odd to you? Stinks like hell to me.
