So what was the deal with the Liberty? WHY didn’t we do anything? I don’t buy that it was an accident-not with all the evidence?
If Palestine had done this-it would have been WWIII!
Look-I’m not saying that Israel is evil and Palestine is all good. In my opinion, they are equally at fault, and BOTH of them need to do some serious reforming.
But why didn’t we ever learn about this? I only heard it mentioned last week at my professor’s, when he had us over for pizza-it was the day they started bombing Afghanistan, and he mentioned it, when we were talking about foreign policy.
This all most likely happened before you were born. 2.5 million people,men women and children (less than the population of New York) were suddenly faced with annihilation by the armies of three nations. That was the stated objective of the Arabs.
Forgive this little group of people for screwing up in this incident in light of the 6 day panic situation that they were under. The State Dept has.
The memorial does not reflect the reality of what occurred either. To answer your specific questions, this event has been swept under the rug for years. If I had to guess, probably to avoid fanning the flames of anti-semitism. We did not do anything, it seems, because the government believed it was an accident. Robert McNamara, SecDef at the time and the “brilliant” strategist who planned our Vietnam incremental bombing strategy, testified that it was an accident.
Some peoplethink it was not intentional. Yes, those are not exactly neutral sources, but they make arguments which should be heard. I have heard the crew stories and it is hard to believe that the torpedo boats did not know it was a U.S. vessel, inasmuch as they supposedly approached very close and shot the Liberty full of machine gun bullets. BUT, there is the fog of war issue and a claimed similarity with an Egyptian vessel, among other things. It is hard to imagine a motive for the Israelis to shoot a U.S. naval vessel during the Six Day War. It would seem that, if nothing else, it was a big waste of time. Not to mention the possibility that we would strike back.
Given the major screw ups that occur in war (like our bombing our own troops two days in a row near Caen in WWII) it seems possible that it was a big, costly, horrific mistake. But, again, those that saw it with their own eyes say that is not possible. Obviously the attack was intentional, so the question becomes did the Israelis know it was a U.S. vessel? I saw a History Channel special on this with many crew interviews. If you hear them, you wonder. My father, Rear Admiral, always said it was intentional. Problem is, he retired in 1960, so it had to be secondhand information from the crew which put him in no better position than we are in now. Basically, I dunno. I used to believe dad but the more I think about it the complete absence of a motive seems compelling.
mipsman You are not gonna leave us hanging after that cryptic comment are you?
My advisor was of the opinion that they were warning us to STAY OUT and mind our own damn business.
Who knows? It’s pretty sick. And unintentional like the Lusitania was unintentional. But then, we went to war over much less-the Maine and the Gulf of Tonkin.
I am not an anti-semite, as I’m sure you know. I’m simply against any extremism.
After reading James Bamford’s “Body of Secrets” (which has a whole chapter on this, with “new” information) it’s hard to believe it was not intentional - presuming all of Bamford’s info is true. But i still don’t see a valid motive.
Anyway, idiots like David Duke http://www.davidduke.com/dukereport/10-01.shtml still love to yap on and on about the Liberty incident as proof of some Jewish conspiracy. To me, that’s evidence that it was nothing more than a bad mistake.
My guess-it was intentional. But that doesn’t make people like David Duke right. In fact, most of the Liberty suvivors and relatives of those killed are embarassed by people like him.
BTW, the advisor I mentioned attended college with Duke. :eek:
My Israeli wife told me about this, and it was the first time I ever heard about it after I got married. She seems to be of the opinion that it WAS intentional.
Funny how a country that desperately needed the US for the money and materials it used to fight its opponents would feel it necessary to tell us to “mind our own damn business.”
But basically, we will never know. I’ve seen opinions from both sides, and they both have strong arguments. I recently read a very good argument refuting the points in “Body of Secrets,” but for the life of me, I can’t remember where I read it. I hate that.
While the evidence you see from the sailors who were there is strong, my gut feeling always returns to “unintentional.” Although the Israelis have a serious amount of chutzpah (sp?) and tend to do whatever they feel is best for their country and the rest of the world be damned, I just can’t seem them doing something so provoking to the US without it being an issue of national survival. But that’s just my opinion.
Ah! I don’t think this is the thing I was talking about, but it does address “Body of Secrets” further down.
Thanks for the link. I was unaware of some of the new declassified stuff regarding the Sixth Fleet’s communications, orders, and Israel’s knowledge.
I think Bamford is wrong, as you do. If the Israelis really wanted to leave no Americans alive they easily could have. The Liberty had few armaments. The total lack of evidence indicating that the Liberty overheard a massacre compels rejection of Bamford’s argument. His thinking Israel started the Six Day War is creepy. After reading that article I feel more confident that the attack was a terrible accident.
One thing you have to keep in mind: the US is Israel’s friend, Israel is also Israel’s friend. Isreal has suffered from a bunker mentality (for entirely good reason, of course) since 1948. For sheer ruthlessness, Israel’s Mossad makes the CIA look like Rebecca of Donnybrook Farm. For relentless pursuit of vengeance, they make the Sicilian Mafia look like cider-sippin’ Amish. A case could be made that this is the only reason they have survived.
That said, I think the attack on the Liberty was, in fact, an error. We tend to forget that war is, by definition, madness conducted by rational means.
If they figure it is in their best interest to cook up some evidence that will pin this anthrax stuff on one of thier enemies, you can bet your bottom dollar they will do just exactly that. (It would be the height of historical irony if the one crime Saddam didn’t commit is the one that gets him dead.)
Keep in mind, the US (much less fallible than any other nation, of course) has already made some mistakes in our bombing of Afghanistan. We hit the Red Cross by accident (sure, maybe it was on purpose b/c we knew there were Taliban forced hiding there, etc). I surely don’t think we meant to bomb the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, though.
Shit happens. The Liberty incident was most likely an example of it happening.
I believe those who say that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, knowing that is was an American ship, say Israel did so in order to cover up an Israeli massacre of Egyptians in the Sinai. Those who make this claim also say that the U.S. was willing to overlook the Israeli action because of the importance of our strategic relationship with Israel. My question is, why wouldn’t the Israelis have just asked the U.S. to overlook their alleged massacre in the Sinai? This seems much more straightforward and much less risky than deliberately attacking an American ship and then presuming on the importance and closeness of their relationship with us to get them out of a jam.
Conversely, we know horrendous mistakes happen in war. The classic soldiers’ acronym SNAFU stands for “Situation Normal–All Fucked Up”. To add to our recent tragic mistakes in Afghanistan and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (of course, there are those who think the latter was also a deep, dark, deliberate plot), I’d also point out the high proportion of U.S. casualties in the Persian Gulf War which resulted from friendly fire, and the shoot-down of the Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes during our undeclared naval war with the Iranians at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. We also shot down a couple of our own helicopters over northern Iraq after the Gulf War.
Of course, in the end logical thinking isn’t really the point; evidence is the point. Unfortunately, it’s hard for ordinary citizens to sort out the claims and counter-claims made about something involving so much classified material.
Image of the Liberty after the attack. Please note the clearly visible hull number, and the US Ensign flying at the masthead. Confirm everything else you read on this particular site before you believe it, as it’s a conspiracy site, and has an agenda to deliver.
Tranquilis succinctly states the case that make me a fence sitter on this whole thing until I get some dispositive information. I used to think it was certainly a knowing attack on a U.S. vessel. “The fog of Beagle” is complete at this point.
The James Bamford book is lacking one major bit of credibility other than the critique which was posted by Rossarian. Why, If the Israelis wanted the Liberty sunk, did the Israelis not finish the attack on the Liberty? The Liberty had no air cover or weapons of significance (only .50 cal. machine guns) and easily could have been sunk, if the Israelis so wished. Every source acknowledges that the attack was broken off suddenly. Why?
I am never surprised by the amount of things which later become public knowledge after being classified for years. CIA LSD experiments, remote viewing, syphillis experiments on AAs, Soviet germ warfare, briefcase bombs, Soviet pilots flying in Korea, spy planes shot down, the raising of a Soviet nuclear sub by the Glomar Explorer, and our tapping Soviet communications lines in the Sea of Othotsk are just some examples. Those are just U.S./Russia topics, I could go on forever. What do we not know about the attack on the Liberty? I don’t even have a wild guess.
The total lack of an Israeli motive, the fog of war, the possibility of provoking a war with the U.S. while the Israelis were at war, and the arguments in the articles I and Rossarian posted keep me from buying one side completely. I will stay tuned.
What bothers me is that I never even heard of this in all my years in school.
Hello, in World History, tenth grade, we heard all kinds of stuff that went on, all kinds of cover ups. Same in American History in eleventh grade. We heard everything-the good and the bad. But no mention of this.
I don’t think it has to do with anti-Semitism. I don’t know how true Bamford’s book is. But I don’t think it was an accident. I don’t think Israel is evil, or all good. But when you read the kinds of things we’ve supported over the years, and let happen…it doesn’t seem too surprising.
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. I just think it’s more people don’t want to talk about it-because it bothered them and rightly so.
Well, in high school, I don’t think they ever taught me anything that happened after 1950. It wasn’t deliberate…it was just that it would be the beginning of June, and we’d be leisurely discussing WWII or something, then the teacher would realize “THERE ARE ONLY 2 DAYS TILL CLASSES END!”, and say something like, “AndthenthewarendedthenwefoughtinKoreaandthenVietnamthenWatergatehappenedandlaterReagangotelectedandthespaceshuttleblewupandhaveagoodsummer.”
The evidence that the aircraft and torpedo boats that attacked the USS Liberty knew they were attacking an American ship is overwhelming. It wasn’t an accident. It may very well have been a deliberate policy decision from the very top, or it may have been a stupid and ill-informed decision from somewhere in the upper echelons. It was a co-ordinated attack, with multiple waves and types of aircraft, followed about an hour later by a naval surface attack. That’s not a low-level mistake. It may very well, however, have been a high-level or top-level mistake.
We’ll likely never know the true motive, what made Israeli brass so worried about the presence of the intelligence ship, what made it such a perceived threat, that it had to be attacked, or why they’d risk alienating their most staunch supporter.
My thought is that the surface attack was stopped when someone high in the government had a moment of clarity and realized the horrible risk they were taking.
Okay, I see the hull number, but I don’t see any American flag. There are a couple of smudges that might be flags, but I can’t tell for sure. Of course, it’s a black and white photo; then again, I’m not flying by in an airplane at a couple hundred miles an hour, either.
[sub]Does this mean I could be a pilot in the Israeli Air Force?[/sub]