Bamford’s book is pretty well debunked in Michael Oren’s article at The New Republic.
Bamford takes quotes out of context and uses them to insinuate that Israel knew the ship it was attacking was American. The person who gave those quotes to Bamford, Marvin E. Nowicki, has come out against him publically. From Oren’s article
Bamford also claims that Gabi Bron witnessed the massacre of Egyptian soldiers (the reason he claims the Liberty was attacked was to cover up the massacare). However when Oren contacted Bron the following is made clear:
Again Bamford takes quotes out of context using press clippings about Aryeh Yitzhaki which claimed that Yitzhaki was not allowed to release a report about massacres. Again after Yitzhaki was contacted by Oren (and I need to add Bamford never actually talked to or contacted either Bron or Yitzhaki) he said
“Do not attribute to deviousness what can be better explained by incompetence.”
I’m not sure what value is gained by trying to invent elaborate conspiracies behind the attack, when a simple screwup is far more plausible and likely. Besides, what value did the Israelis gain or could have potentially gained by attacking a ship they knew was American? Covering up some alleged massacre that frankly is pretty trivial compared to well-established massacres in the region, many not involving Israelis at all?
I could attribute Havel’s opening of threads like this to some devious plan, but I’d rather just assume incompetence.
Seems to me like we have quite a bit of published work in the form of articles and books (even if none of them agree with the other), as well as personal knowledge (again, much of it in conflict) for a subject that is supposedly “taboo”.
I think we have done a fair and reasonable job of demonstrating that there has been no covering up of the incident itself, and as for the cause of the incidednt it is no more secret than the cause of many military blunders in history.
I think Havel and his Russian counterpart were raking the wrong muck.
Thank you very much for that, gentlemen. I appreciate it. This gentleman’s book is striking me to be somewhere on the purple or neon side of lurid, and it’s rather been bothering me.
You think the attack on the Stark was Israeli cover for the massacre of Palestinians? Rhum Runner was joking, there…that was pretty definately the Iraqis.
I think the fact that we’re having this conversation, and that there’s a variety of books and other sources debating the issue shows that there isn’t really a taboo talking about what happened to the Liberty.
Havel, your anti-semitism is surpassed only by your stupidity.
You are aware, aren’t you, that “The Sum of All Fears” is FICTION, aren’t you? You know that Qati is not a real person, don’t you?
Tom Clancy INVENTED an Arab terrorist named Qati, and expressed the foolish, delusional thoughts he believed would fill an Arab terrorist’s head.
Tom Clancy was NOT saying that the U.S. Congress is controlled by the Jews. He was saying that an insane Arab terrorist would undoubtedly BELIEVE that Jews control the U.S. Congress.
I think that the way your OP is worded, you meant to put this in IMHO. You ask a question, and give a three word answer. Surely that is not the opening of a debate. In order to have a debate, you must have a theory or hypothesis and back up the same with some facts. You do none of that in your OP. And then you ask “what do you think?” Sounds like IMHO to me. Therefore, I think that this should go into IMHO.
If you wanted it to be in GD, you should have started “I think that America’s greatest taboo is discussion of the U.S.S. Liberty. This is so because…”
(Bolding mine).
Does this sound familiar???
It is the tactics of some guys: Just tell that now the racists are again hitting us Jews… etc. etc.
One interesting thing is that something that happened 35 years ago was asked to be forgotten in several posts here!
If I would write, which I would never do, that forget the Nazi-crimes, forget the concentration camps etc. How would You feel about that? And that is 55 years ago!
Or is it the multitude that counts?
Anyhow, I would feel bad if someone would write like that.
Alessan wrote that he is insulted by my writings:
I have not written anything about that Israel would not be a democracy.
I can just say that I believe Israel is a democracy, for it’s citizens inside Israel. In the occupied territories Israel is far from democratic, for those that lives there.
If You believe that free elections guarantees something, You really do believe a lot.
I do not believe that e.g. the Russian duma makes what the people want. In fact half of them should be sent to the northern part of Siberia. There are a lot of other countries also with free elections.
And btw. Hitler also came to power through elections.
Then the book of Bamford comes up as well as Michael Oren’s article.
What do we learn from that?
One luna-guy is hitting the other luna-guy. Result: Nothing can be the truth! How logic and convenient!
The original OP is as I understand it: Has there been a cover up in USA about this event?
The survivors claims that there is. Please discuss the OP. Naturally the discussion goes to “the Jews” and “Israel” and whatever if it is constantly taken up by people that obviously does not want to discuss the original OP.
Here is the link again to what some of the survivors claims: http://ussliberty.org/
Personally I do not believe everything that is written there, because they have published many theories about “What might have happened and why”.
But that is not the OP.
It is about if it were ever properly investigated.
But if You really, really, wish to discuss what and why, it’s OK with me. Just whistle and I have some questions I can send to You. Mostly from the first site I put in this post, the “Washington Report on Middle East Affairs”.
On the other hand, if Your tactics is to write type Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, (not one post of three has anything to do with the OP), You can discuss between Yourselves.
Just FYI: Michael Oren has a really good book out on war, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. I haven’t gotten to the sinking of the Liberty yet, but the book is worth reading and (so far) is relatively evenhanded – Oren does seem to favor the Israelis, but is clearly striving to be as objective as he can. And the book is based on recently-declassified documents, so it’s probably the most thorough work aimed at the general public available on the topic. Highly recommended.
BTW-I have only reached my conclusions from hearing the survivors’ testimony-that the Israelies shot out the lifeboats, and that the Stars and Stripes was flying.
My guess is-the higher ups did not order this. But probably those in the area were a little too gungho.
Havel, your OP has been dismissed. Should you want to start a new one entitled “The Israelie government collaberated with the U.S. Government to cover up the actual events surrounding the attack on the USS Liberty”. Then go ahead so that debate can rage. Hell, I may even agree that those events have been clouded, but when it comes to the OP here you are wrong, you were wrong to begin with and you have been wrong from there on out. You have failed to maintain your OP because you know your wrong, you never properly supported your OP to begin with because short of fabricating information there is nothing to support your OP. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I have avaided a flame, even though I think denigrating the intelligence of your OP may be in line here since you never once substantiated it.
Is this issue language related? Did you mean to say something else and just lakc the words to do it? We do have some linguistic talent here at the board, perhaps if you track down someone who speaks your native tongue then translates what you mean to say you will actually be able to suppor you OP? I doubt it, but I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
One last chance:** Can you in any way shape or form support your OP that the U.S. has a taboo in regards to open discussion of the USS Liberty? **I’m not asking you if you agree with the conclusions people draw from these discussions, that isn’t in your OP. I’m asking you to demonstrate a cultural taboo about discussion. Period. Do it or get shut of it and create a thread that says what you really mean “the Jews are conspiring to control the world through agression and deception.”. Because it’s fairly obvious that this is what you want to say.
I get tired of hearing about conspiracies and cover-ups regarding the USS Liberty. No matter what you believe happened, the fact that people don’t know about it today has nothing to do with secret conspiracies, taboos, shame, etc…
The incident is not well known because in the broad scheme of history, it didn’t matter. Yes, it mattered to those involved, especially those wounded and killed, but nothing came of the event. It didn’t start or end a war, bring down a government, permanently alter the relations between Israel and the US… The Liberty incident is forgotten because of the lack of impact on history. The comparison to the USS Stark is rather apt. No one remembers that either, or for the most part the entire Tanker Wars.
