I can understand some (particularly the U.S. military who were involved) continuing to beat the drum on this matter out of a sense that an injustice was committed and insufficient apologies/compensation/publicity provided.
What I don’t get is the insistence that some deep dark conspiracy must have been involved, other than that for some people it is necessary to have conspiracies.
There was no threat of court martial. The crew were talking almost from the moment a reporter walked into their range. There are issues of New Republic from scarcely a week or two with quotes from the crew.
I’d like to hear of one single court martial of the crew for talking.
This is a myth. The President does not always present the MOH.
The ‘multiple attacks’ aspect of the Liberty attack was partly caused by the Liberty itself. The Jets had left, the torpedo boats were moving in, but they did not attack and were trying to signal when the Liberty opened fire.
Nope.
+1
There’s no problem, at all, with stating the clear and obvious facts… that Israel fucked up royally, that their military forces were sloppy and stupid in this case and it lead to the death and injury of many too many good men. That’s not really debatable.
What gets nutty is when folks claim that the attack was carried out on purpose against a known American ship and that, even wackier, the US then went and covered it up. And Congress went along. And the NSA. And the CIA. And the Navy. And a massive report was totally fabricated and nobody noticed or at least spoke up for 36 years, not even the people who testified and had their testimony totally changed.
I think, though, that the conspiracy theory feeds into another, mutually reinforcing conspiracy theory. Fear of Jewish/Zionist/“Israel Lobby” influence/control/extortion is quite popular, and if you believe that Jews/Zionists/the “Israel Lobby” control US policy or just “influence” it (to the degree that the US marches in “lockstep” and can do nothing that’s not approved by its evil J/Z/IL masters)? Well, then it’s a small step to believing that other nefarious J/Z/IL schemers have (more) overtly attacked your country and their wicked brethren within your country forced your own government to cover it up.
P.S. See Tom? How many more times do you think the-gag-order-that-wasn’t will be trotted out?
If one of the people who first made the claim and had it debunked makes it again (here or in another thread), what way would you advise someone to point out that it’s total bullshit without raising hackles? What if it’s the third time that it’s mentioned by that person? The fourth? Fifth?
People who believe in conspiracies of that nature do not really understand the way human relationships work. Tens of thousands of people cannot keep a secret.
Because it was extremely preliminary, and as such was prone to errors.
The guns had already cooked off before the torpedo boats attacked.
A flag is not magic. By the estimates of an attack speed aircraft you’d have less than one second of being able to ID the flag, and only on the first or second run. When you add in the fact that the planes attacked bow-on, the flag’s edges are what are facing the pilot, and he probably isn’t big on reading numbers on the backside when he passes.
Antennas are hardly exclusive to US boats, so why should they factor in? Dish, maybe, but that’s hardly much to go on.
Life is not a video game, identification of craft, even when flying flags, is extremely difficult. Especially when the pilots lacked Sea ID skills.
If this were true you would see a lot more incidents like the Liberty where large ships are mistakenly attacked by planes even in excellent visibility conditions. Could you give me examples of a few?OK on the last page I missed your post where you try to give a few examples. However you don’t mention an example in good visibility So I presume that incidents like the Liberty if they have ever happened at all are extremely rare. Perhaps happened once or twice in all of aviation history if at all?
Again, see what I mean Tom?
In addition to asking this non-sensical question (yet again), he already had it answered in post 63.
Um I asked for an example of a large ship attacked by friendly planes in good visibility conditions. Please look at post 63 again; none of his examples match this.
And just assuming that this won’t be ignored like the facts of the CIA and NSA investigations were:
page 4.
US forces fired on a Russian merchant ship in a harbor, with a flag flying, with a hammer and sickle painted on its stack, in excellent visibility. Yet rather obviously they weren’t aiming at starting WW III. Shit happens.
Now can we please get off the [del]“But what other steel framed buildings have collapsed from fire”[/del] “But what other ships were shot at after being misidentified” diversion?
And while we are at it, you still haven’t provided a cite for your contention that the NSA report exonerated Israel. All you did was provide a quote without providing a source.
According to your source, the US planes were under fire from anti-aircraft guns, returned fire and accidentally hit the Turkestan. That is a completely different situation. They never claimed that they mistook the Turkestan for some other warship.
The bombing of the German destroyer Leberecht Maas. The attempted bombing of the USS Grayling during the Battle of Midway. The bombing of Australian cruisers by American bombers during the battle of the Coral Sea. The torpedoing of the USS Porter at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. The bombing of the USS Peary by RAAF fighters. The bombing of the USS Mackinac by planes off the USS Wasp. The strafing of PT-346, PT-347, and PT-350 by Corsairs off the Solomons. The bombing of the USS Pompano by ships off the Enterprise. The bombing of the S-16 off the coast of Panama. The bombing of the USS Tunny by planes off the Yorktown.
These are just a few examples, all from World War II.
Could you give details of a few of them? Especially visibility conditions?
You could try simply posting “This error was debunked in Post #63 of this thread.” without hammering the board with calls of “lies,” making insulting personal reamrks about others’ usernames, and using every imprecation that comes to your keyboard.
Yes, it can be frustrating, but it does less to raise the hackles of one’s opponents and does far less to entice neutral observers to wade in against you simply because they figure that you are employing your rage to cover any fallacies or spin among your sources.
Why the heck shouldn’t I point out when sources are using obvious lies? We may have to engage in the polite fiction that nobody posts in GD with the intention to ignore evidence and repeat falsehoods, but I’m under no such rule when dealing with off-board liars.
As for pointing out that the user named whack-a-mole was engaging in the game of whack-a-mole by posting the very same claims that had been conclusively debunked previously… eh. It’s ironic.
And do you think that he won’t, for instance, re-cite the lie (oh, I mean, er, accidental outrageous malicious fabrication) about how crewmen who were pretty much immediately giving interviews were in fact going to be court martialed for it? Has he retracted it yet? Didn’t he use it again in this thread after a list of all the interviews those “gag ordered” crew participated in was given to him in the last thread?
Even you, admirable as your calm may be, get visibly frustrated with certain posters in GD.
That thing I provided, which had a direct quote… that’s a cite.
And no, sorry, it’s a fact not a “contention”. The original report is no longer online and I’ve cited a direct quote of it. I suppose you’ll just have to accept that not everything is on the internet.
I suppose while I’m at it, I could point out that you still haven’t retracted your false claim that the CIA investigation wasn’t an investigation since they wrote its finding down in a memo, or that when they said they consulted all available sources that they weren’t being truthful. For me, when the CIA says they conducted the investigation with all available information and you claim otherwise, my money is on the CIA actually knowing how they investigated the matter.
Untrue.
What you’re complaining about is that the NSA doesn’t have that report online anymore. And you still haven’t retracted your claim that it didn’t talk about culpability. I’ve provided a cite showing that they did, you haven’t provided any cite at all showing them limiting the scope of their inquiry so as to avoid the actual issue of what happened.
Of course, you could try to find the original text of the NSA study… but you haven’t.
And what incentive is there for me to find it, anyways? I’ve already provided the relevant quote and you’re ignoring it. I debunked your claims about the CIA report with a direct cite of the report itself, and you handwaved it away. I’m not in the business of simply throwing my time away, even tough I do spend it foolishly from time to time.
Speaking of which, what the cite about the attack on the Russian merchant vessel actually said is that the gun camera footage was destroyed and the Americans involved really did cover up the evidence. So we don’t know exactly why they attacked the Russian ship. The Russians claimed that they were 4 football fields away from the shore, let alone the specific battery.
But now we’ve gone from “friendly planes attacking a large ship in good visibility” to “planes attacking a large ship in good visibility but claiming it was a war ship.”
Let me guess, the next example will be rejected because it was friendly planes attacking a large ship in good visibility and believing that it was an enemy military target but they didn’t overfly it first.
And the one after that will be discarded because it doesn’t eat its porridge with sugar.
Like I said, there’s no reason to play this game.
If you can’t or won’t discuss the facts of the matter (are you still ignorant of how the Israelis said this happened?) then I’m not going to help hijack this debate to a totally unrelated subject. Now stop asking for cites of other steel skeleton concrete buildings collapsing due to fire and discuss this specific example. Yes no matter how rare the WTC collapse was. Or, ya know, the Liberty attack. Whichever.
If I could just give you one or two…
The Lebrecht Maas was part of the German naval Operation Wikinger in early 1940, designed to intercept British submarines off Dogger Bank. The incident happened around 7 pm. It was night, but the skies were clear, the moon was out, and the ships were visible. A Heinkel bomber made two passes over the flotilla, and made no recognition signals. The crew of the flotilla mistook it for a British recon plane and open fire. The bomber pilot, convinced that the Lebrecht Maas was a British ship, dropped three bombs that hit the Lebrecht Maas, breaking it in two and sinking it.
In the case of the PT-347 incident, it happened in the morning. The sea was calm, the weather was clear, and there was visibility of about 15 miles. The PT-347 had run aground onto a reef, and the PT-350 was trying to help get it off. At this point, the two boats spotted two planes (American Corsairs) coming at them, which strafed the 350. The 347 and 350 returned fire, destroying one of the planes. The attack led to 3 dead and 7 wounded on the 350. During all this time, the boats tried to raise the planes by radio, signal light, and visible signaling (arm waving). Both boats had aircraft identification stars on their canopies and were flying US flags from their radar masts. The plane that wasn’t shot down flew off. The 350 returned to base.
At that point, the 347 signaled all the nearby ships for assistance, and at 10:30, managed to contact the PT-346. It arrived at about 12:30, and continued its efforts to get the PT-347 off the reef. At about 1400, American planes appeared about ten miles out. The boats believed they were air cover and continued to try to get the boat off the reef. Seeing that the planes were moving into an attack run, the boats attempted to contact them by radio, and crewmembers on the 346 unraveled a ten foot American flag as identification. Nevertheless, the planes strafed and bombed the two ships, setting one on fire and sinking the other. The crews abandoned ship, and then the planes began strafing the sailors in the water. Total deaths were 14 seamen killed or missing, 14 seamen wounded, and 2 marines (who were flying the planes) killed. No one was ever prosecuted for the incident.
The attack on the Greyling happened during the battle of Midway, with good visibility. Some bombers mistook the USS Greyling, an American submarine, for a Japanese cruiser, and bombed it, forcing it to dive to avoid taking damage.
Those are three of the incidents, all of which happened during good or fair visibility, and all due to the misidentification of a friendly ship as a hostile.
A quote without any source isn’t a cite. Where did you get that quote from? Is it a book, website, newspaper article? Why all the mystery?
The original Wiki article says that the NSA report doesn’t address the issue of culpability. Could be wrong of course but the article as a whole is pretty thorough. This is not that big an issue actually but if you want me to change my mind you need to provide something better than a bare quote without a source.
As for the example I am sure you understand the difference between mistaken identity and accidental fire. You have provided an example of the latter not the former. The US never claimed they mistook the merchant ship for some other ship. It’s not at all like the USS Liberty incident. The whole crux of the issue is whether the Israeli claim of mistaken identity is credible given the circumstances like excellent visibility, large differences between the Liberty and the Egyptian ship etc.
Fair enough. The second and third incidents are not large ships; obviously PT boats and submarines would be more difficult to identify than a large ship like the Liberty. In the first case, even under full moonlight visibility wouldn’t have been nearly as good as the broad daylight of the Liberty attack; the attack took place at around 2pm. Obviously the fact that the flotilla opened fire first makes a huge difference as well.