The USS Liberty and Conspiracy Theories

Great Debates
41

The Israelis just have it down as a “whoops” friendly fire incident.

No explanation for how the mistake happened, especially considering the Liberty had been overflown eight times prior to the attack by reconnaissance aircraft, much less how they continued the attack for two hours and never managed to discern the difference between the Egyptian ship and American ship.

No one was ever so much as reprimanded for this in Israel. It was once suggested by the Israeli ambassador to the US at some point that there should be a trial but nothing ever came of it.

The captain of the Liberty was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. However, I think he is the only recipient (that was alive to receive it) who did not have it awarded to him in person by the President at the White House.

42

One might ask that if they were caught out with an absurd argument and trying to change the subject.

Here try to spot the difference between a guy getting a blowjob on the dl from a consenting woman and murdering an entire ship’s crew from one of the world’s only two superpowers.
As Cookie Monster might admonish you “one of these things is not like the other.”

Besides, ya know those 10 invesigations/inquiries by the Navy, CIA, NSA, Congress, etc… all of which reached a certain verdict.
Sorry, if you’re advancing a CT at least proudly support it.

Speaking of bullshit…
If that was true instead of your imagination working on overdrive, then their findings of fact would have been inconclusive and they would have stated that they didn’t know. Quite the opposite, they came to some pretty firm conclusions exactly the opposite of your claims.

Who’d a thunk it?

43

The quotation is from Scott’s piece in the Washington Post. I assume he has more details in his book.

Here is the thing. We know there have been some official enquiries which exonerated Israel. The main one was the Navy enquiry and the others were limited enquiries which referred back to the Navy enquiry.

The problem is that since then the Navy enquiry and its findings has been severely criticized by highly credible people: from the Navy, NSA and virtually every relevant branch of the US government as well as scholars and writers. Now if the initial enquiry was in fact credible you would imagine there would be a number of people from the US military and intelligence who would defend it and its conclusions. Is this the case and can you produce a list similar to the people who have attacked Israel’s story?

44

Bonus points for your active imagination.
F minus for not having even a finger nail’s grasp on the facts.
In fact, many of the facts were pointed out in the linked thread. I guess that in addition to repeated debunked fictions you have forgotten the relevant facts, as well.

What really happened was that the US had claimed it had no ships anywhere near the combat zone, the IDF forces had come under attack from an unknown quarter and the Liberty was spotted where the Americans had said none of their ships were. While pilots identified its flag as American, HQ identified the ship as Arab.
Since you’re using a CT you should at least be familiar with the term “false flag”.
There are other details, but something’s telling me I’m wasting my time.

What’s more, you confusion is… strange.
Since this appears right in black and white in the wiki link in the OP.
You could also use google.

Yet another lucky mistake on your part.
And yet again, one which was cleared up in the linked thread.

The actual facts, as opposed to your fiction, is that when they thought that there might have been a mistake they signaled the Liberty while holding fire. Only when the Liberty responded to that by opening fire did the torpedo boats attack.

As I’m sure that your argument is intellectually honest, please cite all the times that Americans have been punished for FF incidents.

Did you mean to say “pre-determined verdict” or “trial”, because they’re not the same you know? I’d still like a cite for the exact words which were used, not Scott’s recollections. Scott’s claims of declassified source material would be good too, since nobody else seems to have heard of such a massive bombshell that just happens to
contradict the reports that we do have.

The captain also testified that the attack was most likely an accident and his testimony put paid to the (still unretracted) lie that lifeboats were machinegunned while in the water let alone that there were sailors in them at the time.

45

AFAIK Israel has never produced a detailed story including the name of the personnel who made the “mistake”. If I am mistaken please enlighten me.

Most friendly fire incidents are against ground units which are obviously tiny compared to a ship. Friendly fire attacks on ships in good visibility conditions are exceedingly rare.

46

Clinton didn’t sneak Lewinsky anywhere. She already worked in the White House. And he got caught because he didn’t anticipate that she would save a dress that he’d spooged on, instead of having it laundered like a normal person.

Clinton actually had a pretty good expectation of getting away with it, for a number of reasons. So, as far as comparisons go, this one is pretty weak.

47

No, I want a cite from the guaranteed media firestorm over such a shocking revelation that would have set decades of statements by both of our governments on their heads.

Surely you can find this for me if Scott isn’t full of shit?

This too is fiction. The CIA and NSA investigations, for instance, did no such thing.

But their criticisms weren’t at all credible. (See, for example, Mole’s repeated use of a self-admitted liar alleging a secret conspiracy not noticed for 36 years). Here, why don’t you read the transcript that I provided and find any point of fact that was not adequately examined.

It should also, yet again, be pointed out that the NSA, CIA, etc… as official organizations supported the same conclusions that the Navy came to. Citing individuals who disagreed and name dropping their organization is silly if those same organizations officially disagreed based on their fact finding.

Like the Navy, CIA and NSA?
I think they count.

Here’s the list? Are you ready?

-The US Navy
-The CIA
-The NSA

48

No that’s a bald face lie of my position. I said we were “closer to Jordan [than Israel]”. I never said, implied, or even hinted that I thought we were in fact supporting them.

This is stupid. Yes, if the U.S. destroyed a bunch of Israel’s aircraft then it would have been obvious that the U.S. was attacking Israel. However, and this is the key point so read closely, THEY WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN THAT IN THE 2 HOURS THE U.S. AIRCRAFT WERE FLYING TOWARDS THE WAR ZONE. All the Soviet’s would see is a large sortie of U.S. aircraft with indeterminate intentions flying towards their allies engaged in a war. That is a recipe for an escalated incident and it is prudent to avoid that.

Comparing that to the probes of each other’s airspace is laughable in absurdity.

Oh look an insult and inappropriate boasting instead of responding to my point. How unusual for you.

You think this has anything to do with the fact that the carriers were well over the horizon? None of the aircraft got close enough for Israeli radar to detect.

Again, there would be no way of knowing who’s aircraft they were and what their intentions were. All that they would see is fighter jets flying as fast as they can towards Israel. I find it somewhat amusing that you accept that Israel mistakenly attacked a U.S. vessel, but deny the possibility of them responding to unknown fighter jets flying towards their territory.

49

Don’t you mean, if you’re “mistaken”?

What mistake, exactly, are you referring to anyways?
Why don’t you point to a specific fact that you’re questioning rather than this vague “mistake” stuff?

Read the PDF I linked to.
The fog of war isn’t a joke.

[

](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1350417.ece)

50

Seems to me that it isn’t a bad plan to assume that people are acting in more or less rational self-interest.

The conspiracy theory credits the Israelis with both too much intelligence and ability, and too little.

First, it assumes that they were terrified that the Liberty was stealing vital military secrets. What secrets, no-one knows.

Second, it assumes that the secrets being stolen were so vital that the Israelis were willing to risk war with the most powerful nation on earth - the US - in order to avoid having said secrets stolen.

Third, it assumes that the Israelis were confident that they could successfully “get away with it” - that is, convince the Americans whose ship they just attacked, that it either wasn’t them, or that it was a ff incident. To this end, they allegedly repeatedly overfly the Liberty before attacking it in broad daylight, leaving numerous survivors.

Finally, they do in fact succeed in convincing the US to cover it up, evern though the US gov’t allegedly doesn’t believe it was ff.

Seems to me that if there was an Israeli conspiracy, they would have gone about it quite differently. The risk vs. reward ratio does not compute: the “reward” does not in any way match the enormous “risk” they were taking; but of course if one simply assumes they were acting irrationally, all bets are off.

51

Finn Again,
The CIA report was just a memo; it was definitely not a full enquiry. The NSA reports didn’t even look into the issue of culpability. And you are still not answering the main question. Numerous highly credible people in the US military and intelligence services have criticized the enquries and their conclusions. If it was the case the intelligence and military community accepted the Israeli story you would surely find a comparable number of officials offering the opposite point of view? Just citing a CIA memo written in 1967 hardly answers that question.

52

Look, I agree that the idea of an Israeli conspiracy is weak and I am not saying for certain that it existed. There is a reasonably coherent “conspiracy theory” and a lot of high level U.S. officials, low level spooks, and other disparate people that believe this theory. Against this, we have the explanation that this was a monumental fuck up so breathtakingly stupid that it’s in the competition for “biggest fuck up ever”. It’s just difficult to believe either.

53

The mistake is obviously mistaking the Liberty for the El Quseir. Who made the mistake and how did it happen?

And if you can cite examples of large ships being mistakenly attacked in good visibility conditions by planes I would like to see them. Perhaps it’s happened a few times in all of naval history but it is exceedingly rare.

54

So being “closer to” one nation as compared to a nation that we weren’t supporting doesn’t indicate an increased level of support.
Roger.

Then again, I must admit that I was acting as if you had a clue as to what you were talking about. The fact is that since the 50’s we were indeed supporting Jordan to the tune of billions of dollars.

It’s nice for you to put your fiction is huge letters.
It’s very considerate for you.

The USS Saratoga was, actually, about 1/8 the distance away as your fiction claims.
Whoopsie, eh?

Heaaaaaavy rationalization goin’ on, eh?
We attacked Soviet allies (and used our proxies to attack them) all through the cold war. But flying 15 minutes from the Saratoga to the Liberty and then destroying Israeli jets would have simply been too much!

Not to mention that, later on, we really would support Israel even in the fact of Soviet opposition.

Actually, what’s absurd is that you’re doing a good impression of Neo avoiding bullets here. The point that you’re studiously missing is that there would be no reason for reaction as US and Russian jets routinely got close to each other’s airspace without violence ensuing, let alone approaching an ally’s airspace. That Russia would have gone nuts while the US jets were approaching the borders of their allies, let alone once it was clear that they were attacking Israeli targets, is the risible bit.

So let me get this straight… when i respond with your exact phrase it’s “an insult”. And it’s some sort of “boast” to have caught you in a mistake?

Dude… that’s kinda like boasting about kicking someone’s grandmother in the face.

Fact… thing you’re inventing…
Could go either way.

True. Israeli radar ends 14 minutes and 55 seconds of flight time away from their borders.

Yes, during the Cold War nations just randomly shot at each other’s jets for approaching their airspace without even ID’ing them.

That’d be a mistake on my part, but you’re making it up.
Nowhere did I claim that there’d be no response. That is fictional.
What I actually said (just a few posts up, strangely enough) is that Israel would not have attacked one of the world’s major super powers (especially in a battle where additional jets could be launched and were 15 minutes away.)

55

Bullshit on both counts.
The CIA investigation clearly and unambiguously states that its findings were based on “all available sources”.
The NSA report concluded “the tragedy resulted not only from Israeli miscalculation but also from faulty U.S. communications practices.”

[

](http://www.thelibertyincident.com/docs/liberty-intelligence.pdf)

As many threads on similar topics go, I’m still too busy pointing out fiction.

This is not a “main question” it is a fallacy. What else do you want me to say? Review the evidence and dispute it if you can, if all you have is the fallacy of appeal to authority, then you aint got nuthin.

There are.
This is surreal.

The US Navy published an official report that came to a certain conclusion. That means that was their conclusion, of the US Navy, as an organization. You don’t need to find individuals who support it because that was the Navy’s official statement.
We’ve already dealt with your fictions about the NSA and CIA reports and your criticism of those fails on the exact same grounds. Those organizations, in an official capacity, made public statements. That means that the agencies themselves went on record.

Yet again, the facts are all there.
Which one(s) are you questioning?

Nor does it make any sense to ask how often it happens. Even if it’s rare, friendly fire goes on. Not to mention the problems with identifying ships at sea that go on all the time. Read the linked PDF. Just because a ship is a “big thing” doesn’t mean that friendly fire doesn’t include ships.

You seem to not grok the fog of war. SNAFU wasn’t invented as an acronym because it wasn’t accurate. Sometimes, even when our forces know exactly what to expect, when, and where, shit happens.

56

FinnAgain,
Do you understand the difference between a memo and a full enquiry? An enquiry gathers new information by for example interviewing witnesses. A memo can be based on various sources but that doesn’t make it a full enquiry.

And please provide a cite for the NSA report exonerating Israel.

As for the rest you are just repeating yourself so it’s pointless going on. Basically there has never been a detailed explanation of how Israel made the mistake and no Israeli has every been punished. And if friendly fire attacks by planes on large ships in good visibility conditions have ever happened you are conspicuously failing to provide examples.

57

I disagree that there is a coherent conspiracy theory. My criteria for a coherent conspiracy theory is one in which the conspirators, acting in rational self-interest, enact a plan which they could reasonably have anticipated would gain them a reward worth the risk, using a means that they could reasonably assume would both obtain the reward and allow them to escape scrutiny.

None of those elements are present here.

There is no reward alleged that is worth the risk.

The “plan”, if it was deliberate, makes no sense. How would damaging (but not destroying) the Liberty, in broad daylight, leaving numerous survivors, accomplish anything (other than piss off the US)? How did they anticipate getting away with it, assuming it did in fact acomplish anything? How did they plan on escaping scrutiny?

As a plan it was laughably bad. The obvious explanation was that it was a screw-up, not a plan. The objection to it being a screw-up is that the Israelis were too competent to make such a mistake (which I think ties into a mythology of Israeli competence and omniscience which one would have thought was exploded by the '73 war, when the Israelis were caught napping); yet if they were so smart, surely they would have come up with a better conspiracy plan than this?

58

… is your contention really that the investigation the CIA performed was invalid because they published it in the form of a memo?

On one hand, we have the CIA itself confirming that they used all available sources.
On the other, we hve you saying that they didn’t conduct an inquiry and it was “just” a memo.
Pesonally, I trust the CIA’s statement of what it did over your criticism that since they released their findings in a memo, they’ve invalid.

:rolleyes:
Another one, when you just ignored the first one?

More fiction.
I keep asking you what specific statements you’re challenging and you refuse to even mention one. You’re not going to, are you?
We’ve already identified that your “punishment” demand is a red herring at best as nations routinely go without punishing their soldiers for FF incidents.

Here’s a hint… there was at least one.
I think its name started with someone like “iberty”. Hrm… Miberty? Ziberty?
The name will come to me sooner or later.

Do I really need to point out the fallacious and non-sensical nature of your demand here? That a rare occurrence that’s proven by all the facts can’t be said to occur if other similar events didn’t also occur? We could even apply an intellectually honest filter to this and turn your question back on you. If you claim this is deliberate that they targeted an American ship in broad daylight deliberately with non-ship killers and deliberately left survivors (all in some sort of nefarious plan), then show other times that’s happened too. Your lack of cites is conspicuous, eh? Eh?
:rolleyes:

Your argument now reads like the 9/11 Truthers who claim that since we didn’t observe a similar event happening elsewhere, that there must be foul play. “Show me other times it happened!” is a good dodge, but it does noting to address the facts of this case.

59

Maybe someone could explain then why he signed off on the Naval reports that declared it was an accident?

60

Except they seemed to. From a signals intercept of the communication between

That doesn’t seem like the language of people who clearly had identified the ship as American ahead of time. That sounds like the language of people who are saying to themselves, “Oh shit, what did we just do?”