And just to fan the flames a little, having read some of the reviews for the book on Amazon.com, one reviewer says that sources more credible (than Mr Ennes) have shown that it was truly a mistake, and that the “strafing of lifeboats” was a myth.
Two such antipodal viewpoints are not likely to both be correct.
Posted above.
Such as…?
That same reviewer claims that there are “some-13 government and official inquiries which declared the incident a tragic error”
Not true.
The attack has NEVER been investigated by the US government.
We do know that a bankruptcy judge in Florida did a doctoral thesis on the attack in which he makes such a claim but nowhere in his dissertation does he provide any information about an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty by the US government – for no investigation has ever been conducted.
As to the machine gunning of the life rafts by the torpedo boats being a myth, Lloyd Painter witnessed it and testified to it during the USNavy Court of Inquiry. Curiously his testimony does not appear in the USNavy Court of Inquiry Report that has been released to the public. Nor do the written statements that have been provided to the Court by over 65 USS Liberty crewmen or a detailed written statement provided the Court by Jim Ennes.
Joe Meadors
Vice President
USS Liberty Veterans Association
Now you’ve done it. This is going to sound excessively harsh, but if you thought the LBMB guys were bad, wait 'til the Liberty folks all get here.
I dealt with this on FidoNet – in fact, I think I recognize Jim from there (can’t recall exactly who all popped up there). It seemed they would search for any mention of the incident, and then blow in full steam for an all-out argument about it.
Now, I have nothing against arguing and all, but the problem is that these folks don’t seem to have gotten over it. Yes, it was a tragedy. Maybe even a planned one. But it happened decades ago, folks. The US government is not going to do anything about it. The Israeli government sure as hell isn’t going to do anything about it. Time to get on with life!
Anyway, one more thing. Spankboy said:
Wrong. Some of his friends and allies built a shrine. The Israeli government had it destroyed. Their “nation” didn’t do that any more that our nation perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.
Now, I have nothing against arguing and all, but the problem is that these folks don’t seem to have gotten over it. Yes, it was a tragedy. Maybe even a planned one. But it happened decades ago, folks. The US government is not going to do anything about it. The Israeli government sure as hell isn’t going to do anything about it. Time to get on with life!
I assume you feel similarly about recent investigations of other past incidents – like the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the murder of Medgar Evars. (i.e., they were/are just a waste of time.)
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. Perhaps if it were your life rafts who were machine gunned in the water you would be singing a different tune.
I remember those FidoNet days fondly as well. We did have fun, didn’t we?
Joe Meadors
Vice President
USS Liberty Veterans Association
I firmly stand behind Stan and Joe (go figure).
But I also recognize that the U.S. government will never dredge this incident up again. It’d be bad for the Mid-East Peace Process.
Let sleeping dogs lay. I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the full reasoning behind the attack.
Hi, Joe. You, I definitely remember from Fido. BTW, I went by “Crackpot” then.
Anyway, Joe said:
In some ways, yes. But it’s not so much the “investigations” as the time you and the others spend doing just what you did here. You somehow found out there was a Liberty-related discussion on a message board you’d never participated in before, several of you came over here to post on the topic, and odds are we’ll never see you again once it dies. This was what I meant relating to the Fido days, and it doesn’t seem that you guys have changed.
Perhaps. But I like to think I would move on and not let one incident – no matter how horrible it was – completely take over and dominate the rest of my life. You did not have the power to change what happened to the Liberty. You do have the power to decide how you spend the rest of your life.
As Chiefscott said, neither the U.S. government nor the Israeli government is going to re-open this. It’s just not going to happen.
DavidB, sorry, but the folks over at the USS Liberty Assoc. aren’t sitting around waiting to pounce on Internet discussion threads… I had posted in agreement with beatle, and in [atypical] disagreement with Ursa - knowing a bit about the incident myself - and thought, why not ask an eyewitness to chime in ? If you disagree, it’s my fault, not theirs. This is, after all, General Questions, so the inclusion of an eyewitness to a historical incident seemed to me, anyway, sensible, and I knew how to find them easy enough. BTW, not all of us were privy to the prior FidoNet discussions.
And if they had posted “unassisted” - well, if John Rocker’s First Amendment Rights [see other thread]are “abrogated” by comments in the Pit asking for his ouster… what happened to Jim & Joe’s ability to post on an open board ? Perhaps this is getting away from GQ and into Gen’l Debates, with some different participation standard, and as a Moderator it’s your call.
On a separate note:
I respectfully beg to differ: should general discussions about the Holocaust, or the Russian gulags, or Andersonville also become irrelevant ?
Let’em chime in with their point-of-view, eyewitnesses as they were, and fight ignorance; whether or not it’s re-opened, and I too doubt it, isn’t relevant to the addition of their comments. Although watching the recent re-opening of the South Korean incident in recent weeks, who knows ?
Can this really be any worse than all the various threads about sodomy, feces, etc… ? Aloha !
I guess David’s point is not that it didn’t happen (and I think it did), just that it’s not relevant anymore. I think he’s right on that score.
It was an injustice visited upon us by our allies of the Cold War, the Israelis. Israelis gained respect during the Mid-East tensions by conducting militarily successful actions. And that respect was necessary to negotiations toward peace. For all the fal-de-mer-all associated with the peace drive conducted over the years, it was probably a wise move by the Israeli shakers and doers of the tme.
Jorge, Beatle has pretty well summed up my point. No, I didn’t think they were monitoring the Internet – it was fairly obvious that somebody told them about this thread. But why bring several different people, none of whom, as I indicated, are probably ever going to contribute to anything else here again? That’s all I meant. There is certainly nothing wrong or illegal about them posting here – I’m just saying I think it’s a waste of their lives. They obviously disagree. Oh well.
I posted here earlier, asking that all you readers not judge the situation concerning the USS LIBERTY, and have read some good responses here (some not so hot) but learning the facts here should be the goal, since the orginal question was just that “does anyone know the facts?”.
Do some of us go where we hear there is a thread concerning the LIBERTY - absolutely!
Why, because we are eye witnesses, and can set the record straight when rumors or misleading statements appear.
Should we just let this “horrible incident” go and get on with our lives? I think you will find that we have all gotten on with our lives, but forget, never! This was nothing but common murder of United States citizens by a “fiendly” country, covered up and lied about by that country, and refusal by the United States to come to the assistance of American service men in distress, an act of treason, followed by a massive cover-up and distortion of the truth!
Lies and total lack of concern to the families of those killed, and continued lies to those that request information from our government concerning the LIBERTY ie; that the assault has been thoroughly investigated.
A U. S. judge writes a long disertation on the attack, making 14 trips to Israel to interview and investigate and then quotes a couple of LIBERTY survivors, but no-one seems to know who - or why he didn’t interview many of us who were eye witnesses that could have filled pages of his disertation. A couple of guys write a book saying we were spying on Israeli troops and forwarding the info to Egypt, more lies without facts.
Get on with our lives, YES, FORGET -NEVER!!!
Stan (Survivor with a life)
Well there’s a reply. Good luck, Stan.
A lot of people have failed to do any research on Israel or the U.S.S. Liberty incident. The count was America 34 dead, 171 wounded. Israel 0. Mistake! As the commanding officer put it, It was the best planned mistake he ever saw! No way a country that kidnaps 13 Lebanese civilians (that had nothing to do with their missing soldier)and refuses the Red Cross or anyone access to them, until the soldier is returned. Amnesty International. Bulldozes 150 homes because a soldier was shot (Geneva Convention). Murders the wrong man on foreign soil (thought to be a terrorist). How the heck can any American take the word of a foreign power over all the American servicemen that were there? Our govermental inquirie! How soon we forgot Vietnam, those ships that fired on our naval vessels never existed! McNamara wrote a book apologizing for the lies he and others told to keep the war going. How many Americans died because of those lies? Rehashing the past is not helping? Since when has the search for truth not helped us realize our mistakes so they may not be repeated at the high price of American lives? If a senators son was on the U.S.S. Librty, those aircraft sent to assist the ship would’nt have been recalled at all, let alone twice. The atrocities Israel commits in the name of security, and when called on them. They remind us of the Holocaust. Well, serial killers that were abused as children are held accountable for their actions. Now I’ll be labeled as anti Jewish because I do’nt think highly of Israels actions. Remember McCarthyism?
JMeadors
unregistered posted 01-10-2000 09:43 AM
I just checked the USS Liberty Veterans’ site at http://www.ussliberty.org and discovered that Joe Meadors had served as Presdident of the Association for four years and after that as Chairman of the Association for another four years. But not as Vice-President.
I wonder how the REAL Joe Meadors feels about you abusing his name and the association?
With all due respect, David B, I must take issue with a few of your comments. I think Jorge said it very well, but it bears repeating, that telling survivors of the attack on the USS LIBERTY to “get over it” because it happened decades ago, is tantamount to telling Jewish Holocaust survivors or Viet Nam veterans to get over it. That’s just absurd. No one, no matter what the cause of the events, just “gets over” that kind of traumatic experience. Period.
I can only imagine how scared to death those men (and were there women?) on that ship must have been, being under attack, regardless of whom it was by or why. I pray that you or your loved ones never have to suffer an experience so horrifying. Or if, G-d forbid, you or they do, that no one dares to tell you or them to “get over it.” I shudder to think how you might react if anyone did.
The OP asked for factual information regarding this event, and I can ill imagine any contributions that could be more relevant than those provided by actual witnesses. I found their input to be not only appropriate but relevant. It matters not how they heard of this board or this thread, or whether they ever plan to return for further discussions on other topics.
The whole POINT of this forum is to disseminate the “straight dope.” I wonder if you would dare to suggest that it’s just a waste of Cecil’s life to spend his time attempting to correct misinformation with the facts by writing his columns and books and making this forum available to answer questions, as you have said it’s a waste of the LIBERTY survivors’ lives to respond to questions about which they have the straight dope.
I have not read both “sides” of the story, so I cannot say that I have an opinion one way or another, and would not want to form one without giving all of the information due consideration. However, even as a Jewish American, I am willing to allow that there is the possibility that Israel acted deliberately and with malice, and I appreciate being able to read the accounts from our American veterans’ points of view. And even if I were to believe that Israel acted deliberately, that wouldn’t make me any more anti-Semitic than it would make me anti-American to acknowlege that our government has done their share of uncivilized acts and covered their asses after the fact.
That said, I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to the survivors of the LIBERTY for the loss of their friends and loved ones.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank