If the Israelis were so intent on sinking the Liberty, why did they not use actual anti-ship weapons instead of napalm and light cannons? The pilots knew fully that they were not equipped for anti-ship action and did the best they could with what they had. The PT boats later showed up with torpedos by then why not just start with the torpedos? That napalm and the light cannons were used seems to indicate an on-the-spot decision instead of a well planned attack, and the Israelis know a thing or two about well planned air attacks.
Even if it were a well planned attack that managed to sink the Liberty, how would the consequences have been any different? You keep talking about how the Israelis supposedly stopped their attack after they found out that “the Sixth fleet was on it’s way”. Were they hoping that if they sank the Liberty fast enough, the Sixth Fleet wouldn’t notice it was missing? What exactly was the plan here?
Futhermore, I can’t see any reasonable motive for the Israelis to cary out such an attack. Even if the allegations about a thousand Egyptian prisoners being shot has any truth in it, and AFAIK there’s no evidence this particular event ever happened, what were they worried about? That the US goverment or US navy would side with the Egyptians and the Soviets and expose them? The liberty was a spy ship, I don’t imagine they provided a live feed of Israeli communications to CNN at the time.
On preview, I see that kawaiitentaclebeast got to one of the main objection I have with this story. If the Israelis wanted to sink the ship, why not arm their fighters with anti ship weaponry to start with? Heck, in 1967, Egyptian forces used Styx missiles to sink the Israeli destroyer Eliat, so anti-ship missiles were hardly unknown to the region in '67. If you’re attacking a ship, and you’ve planned the operation, you wouldn’t use napalm.
Nice story, except it contradicts the facts. Were the tapes which prove that it was a mistake forged? And all the experts who were supposed to judge the facts in this case, all of them were under sway of this doctrine? All of them? That’s definitely a conspiracy, not just realpolitk.
-When were the quotes made.
-What direct information did they have.
-Why wasn’t it listened to?
While one might like to claim “realpolitik” as the justification, it gets back to conspiracy. You have to suggest that the US Navy Court of Inquiry cared more about Israeli feelings/feelings toward Israel than the truth,
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
[li]Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence[/li][/quote]
And yet, the CIA report made in '67 found it to be due to a mistake, and not malice. What did the director say, at the time? This is also the same Helms, by the way, who directly was responsible for the US being caught flat footed by the size of the VC forces during the tet offensive.
Meanwhile, what specific evidence do Rusk, Ball, Clifford and Warnke present which contradicts our own intelligence? Again, I ask you to address the fact that our own spy planes intercepted conversations which showed that the Israelis thought it was an Egyptian ship. Is this all a massive coverup, or are your sources wrong? Your cites which ‘debunk’ the claims do not, in fact, do that. As I’ll point out.
Which found that there was no malice. Did the Navy lie?
Based on what evidence?
And I find evidence fairly compelling.
What evidence is there to gainsay that which our own spy planes intercepted?
Again, how does the number of people who might very well have decent qualifications gainsay the facts? Were our spy planes’ recordings faked, altered, what?
Both claims of a ‘debunking’ only show that some pilots were aware that there was an American flag being flown. But as tapes show that the Israelis thought that the ship was Egyptian, which is more likely… that the Israelis thought that the ship was Egyptian, and thus flying false flags, or that they thought it was an Egyptian ship that was also crewed by Americans?
Now if that isn’t the most disingenuous statement I’ve ever seen here, I don’t know what is. The Navy, and the NSA both found no malice. Moreoever, it isn’t what “my” “judged turned historian” said, but what the spy tapes reveal.
Oh, something does. But probably not what you’re angling for.
No. They identified the ship as Egyptian. They identified the flag as American.
Because when they radioed these details in, they were still told that it was an Egyptian ship. Surely you don’t think that no army in the history of warfare has ever gone to any lengths to hide its true identity?
You expect the fog of war to be lifted that easily? An attack was underawy. People on the ground had contrary intel, they ordered it to go forward. After the attack, they began to think they’d made a mistake, but still weren’t sure.
This also contradicts the conspiracy/realpolitik line, as, if the Israelis could jam the ship’s communications, why would they have to destroy it in order to stop it from overhearing certain things? Why not just jam it?
Cdr. McGonagle reported in his sworn testimony that he ordered the torpedo boats fired on before he saw their markings. He also testified that they first tried hailing the Liberty, even as they were being fired upon. After the Liberty fired on them, they launched torpedos.
That’s a simple out and out lie and not one member of the crew mentioned anything about that in their sworn testimony. Lt. Painter’s testimony, in specific, mentions that the lifeboats were kicked overboard because they had already been shot and/or were burning. In addition, McGonagle testified that there weren’t even any crewmen in the lifeboats. He too mentioned nothing about them being fired upon once placed in the water.
So our unwillingness to quite possibly start a war with an ally means… what?
A spy ship’s crew were ordered not to discuss the circumstances of their mission? Obviously highly suspicious.
Distorted propely, sure. Otherwise it presents a picture of a massive SNAFU.
The usual explanation I’ve heard thrown about was that the Israelis were trying to make the US think the Egyptians had done the deed, in order to provoke the US into piling onto the Egyptians. Once they realised they’d failed to pull that off, they called off the attacks in order to mitigate the fallout. The inital strike ordered by the sixth fleet was actually aimed at Egypt, but was recalled when they figured out who the real culprits were.
However, that factoid was from the Discovery channel or some similar cable TV nonsense :dubious: - I am getting increasingly allergic to conspiracy theories as I get older.
Of course, I know this isn’t your hypothesis, but I still feel the need to address it.
As the Israeli planes which attacked clearly were labeled as Israeli jets, and the torpedo boats were clearly labeled as Israeli boats, and there was never any “machine gunning” of those attempting to escape the ship, wouldn’t the risk simply be too great that a sailor might be able to remember seeing that the attackers weren’t, in fact, Egyptian?
This was also the '67 war, in which Israel virtually annihilated the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian air forces before they ever got off the ground. It’s a textbook perfect example of a force with inferior numbers defeating numericaly superior forces. Israel took territory many times larger than the '48 boundaries, and captured all of Jerusalem. They didn’t need United States help.
The History Channel, I think… a program which was really horribly flawed and didn’t even point out that many of their sources were contradicting their own sworn testimony.
Many people here are arguing from the point that US and Israel were allies in 1967. In fact, they were not; at least not at all comparable to the present relations between these two countries. US was mostly a detached observer during 1967 war. The present US position of firm alliance with Israel has developed much later. Israel’s most important supporter during 1967 was France. For a long time before that US policy was to oppose Israel, France and GB in the Middle East (starting with Suez). Actually, US decision not to respond to ‘Liberty’ bombing with force was a first openly friendly act toward the state of Israel in a long time.
Trying to comprehend the situation, imagine a small country fighting the attack from hostile neighbors from all sides. War is going on. Nobody knew at the moment it will end with decisive victory in 6 days (the prospect of complete annihilation might have appeared more plausible). So Israel is fighting like cornered rat. Yes, they were not shooting helpless and innocent Arabs in cold blood, they were fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, the sea is filled with spy ships from big states: US, Soviet etc., just observing…
IMO, anything was possible, even a deliberate attack. It appears extremely risky to try to force US hand in such manner, but what do we know about extreme situations? Israelis had every reason to believe those were the ‘end of days’.
And with all due respect, ‘Liberty’ sailors just have to shut up already. So your country used you for the obscure purposes of inernational intrigue, which you can’t comprehend? Tough.
I have no idea why the planes were armed as they were. I do not see how that makes a difference though. If we buy that the Israelis thought the Liberty was Egyptian and they were after a legitimate target why were the planes carrying napalm? Maybe they ran out of antiship missiles at the airbase they came from…I have no idea but attacking an Egyptian or American ship for some reason the planes were armed inappropriately for an antiship mission. I wonder though if the attack was meant to look like the Egyptians did it that they would forego using US made antiship missiles. It could be a forensic study later would show that so they used less capable but also less traceable weaponry (just speculation on my part).
However, I find the premise put forward earlier that the Israeli planes were on their way to attack ground troops and just happened to come upon the Liberty a bit dubious as well. I am not in the military but it seems to me that pilots armed for a ground attack mission and sent to do just that simply do not roll out and pounce on whatever they happen to see along the way. If they had originally been ordered to do their ground attack mission than that is precisely where they would have gone and done and at most reported seeing an Egyptian ship along the way. If the commanders retasked the planes then so be it but by all accounts the Israeli attack jets came right at the Liberty rather than overfly at cruising altitude and then come back for them.
Have the Israelis said how/why the attack was initiated? Overzealous pilots jumping a target of opportunity? Planes on another mission retasked by ground control? Where in the chain of command did the orders to attack originate? When? Why were the planes armed so poorly for attacking a ship if they originally thought they were going after a legitimate shipping target? Who dispatched three torpedo boats? Who placed several electronic warfare planes up to block communications? Just luck those planes were up and in position for this attack?
The Israelis have a savvy and highly competent military. Certainly accidents happen in even the best run organizations but this pushes the bounds of credulity even in a shoddy operation. Eight reconnaisance overflights and they ALL failed proper identification? Three attack jets make numerous strafing runs and they ALL fail proper identification? Three torpedo boats show up some 45 minutes later and resume the attack and they ALL fail proper identification. And don’t give me the torpedo boats were fired on first line…even if true the Liberty had been attacked repeatedly by Israeli jets. The jets blew off much of their antenna and the Liberty was being jammed. Torpedo boats trying to establish communications from close range with a ship that has no communications and was just on the receiving end of an attack is laughable. If the Israelis knew of their mistake at this point the torpedo boats should never have attacked even if fired upon by the Liberty. Certainly if they wanted to establish radio contact they could have done so out of range of the Liberty’s minimal weapons. I read somewhere that at some point (near the very end of all this) the torpedo boats tried to communicate via signal light but the Liberty’s signal light had been destroyed.
It does not take a thousand people in on a conspiracy to make it work. It takes a few at the top who desire a specific outcome to let it be known and manipulate information. If everyone else down the chain works on muddled or incomplete or false information it is no surprise that the results are wrong. I had a thread awhile back asking about how everyone “knows” the Israelis have nuclear weapons yet the world marches merrily along pretending they don’t. Conspiracy? Or just an acceptance that forcibly putting the truth out in the open is more trouble than it is worth so everyone plays along? Why would you think this can’t be a similar case?
I am not going to track down the dates of all the specific quotes…not sure I could. That said my impression is some quotes were at the time but memos and not part of the record (behind the scenes if you will) while others like Captain Boston recanted much later.
As for direct information I separated my list into people I think had direct involvement (one way or another) with the events of that day. I’d say given who the people are they had better than average insight. How much better do you want than the Secretary of State or Director of the CIA? Only better than that I think would be McNamara and LBJ. Lacking those two I think it is as good a list as anyone could hope for.
Why weren’t they listened to? I am guessing the administration wanted this to all quietly go away (or as quietly as possible) and (surprise) people in government lined up and followed directives.
Director Helms said:
I already did…I’ll do it again. Your version of the spy tapes seem to be flatly wrong. There is evidence that the Israelis DID know it was an American ship from spy tapes:
[quote]
Akins noted that his friend Ambassador Dwight Porter, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon in 1967, had told syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Akins, and other friends (including the Washington Report’s publisher, executive editor and this reporter), that he had seen transcripts of Israeli radio discussions during the attack. The U.S. monitors heard an Israeli pilot identify the Liberty’s American flag. His superiors ordered him to attack the ship anyway.
Of course enemies will disguise themselves but what you are suggesting is a bit much. An Egyptian freighter that erected a huge satellite dish and antennas to look just like the USS Liberty? And THEN they sailed their freighter 20 miles off the coast of Israel with whom they were at war? Sure…
That the attack was initiated in the first place by mistake after 8 reconnaisance flights is quite a stretch. After three attack jets made numerous strafing runs (I read 30 somewhere which I took to mean 10 by each of the three planes) at the ship and three torpedo boats got very close nearly an hour later and NO ONE radioed back, “Hey, these might be Americans!”. It strains the bounds of belief.
What testimony are you reading?
If by this you mean a coverup was justified then fine. Certainly we could make arguments that getting in a huff with our ally would be counter to US interests. If anything however that argues for the case of having a coverup.
There is no reason they couldn’t discuss the events of the attack and avoid details of their mission. The Liberty was hardly a covert spy ship. It was a plodding SIGINT ship bristling with antenna sailing 20 miles off the coast of Israel. Hardly a case of, “What us? We weren’t there!”
Anybody know why it was the US Navy’s policy NOT to have an armed escort to spy ships (like the LIBERTY)? I mean, the are was a war zone, and the Liberty had no means to defend itself from attack. You would think that the US Mediterranean fleet would have had at least a frigate to protect the ship. Of course, maybe they (the navy) thought the flag was sufficient identification. But, the USS PUEBLO was by itself as well.
It is never too late to bust our government for poor behavior. You’re correct that it is hardly surprising that a government sells some of its people down the river to suit its own ends but that does not make it correct or desirable. It is correct and proper in a democracy for the citizens to expect accountability from their government and a belief that they will NOT be sold down the river because someone thinks it is expedient.
Even if it takes 40 years the truth should come out. It is far enough down the road that I suspect Israeli/US relations would weather it intact. If it turns out the whole thing was just a clossal screwup then even better.
There are roughly a zillion examples of governments (not just the U.S.) keeping things strictly classified for extended periods, even when from the perspective of historians and reporters there is no need for secrecy.
Witness the current bizarre effort by the CIA to paw through columnist Jack Anderson’s papers for “secret documents”, even though you’d hardly think there was something critical to national security in files dating back 30 years or more (and which have already been the subject of published columns).
You’re right, it’s inexplicable. Even though there’s no logical reason for it to have been a deliberate attack and no solid documentation to back the claims of evildoing/conspiracy/coverup, I cannot understand why some are so reluctant to acknowledge the sheer evilness of it all.
After the torpedo boats attempted to hail the Liberty, and were fired upon.
And I find it hard to believe that you have to reduce the discussion to the basest strawman possible in order to make a point. People have not said that attack was an accident, obviously they intended to attack the target. The accident is that they thought it was Egyptian, and if they’d known it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have attacked.
Nice inclusion of the Jewish smiley. :rolleyes:
And yeah, an ancient Egyptian transport, complete with chariots and a Pharoh or two. Spot on.
The -facts- of the matter are that the position of the Liberty had been cleared from the board during a shift change at IDF command, and when they received word that the IDF was being shelled, and they already had command of the air and land, they figured it was coming from the sea. Lo and behold, there was a vessel there.
There’s a reason the term “SNAFU” was coined.
Really? You don’t? Whether it was a planned operation or an accident doesn’t matter?
Target of opportunity.
And then attacked with clearly labled fighters and boats? No, doesn’t sound at all likely.
The phrase “target of opportunity” exists for a reason.
So you’re an expert on Israeli tactics and target priorities?
If the Liberty was overflown several times, as you’ve already stated, then why would the attack jets need to cruise at altitude and then come back? They were ordered in for an attack run.
The area of engagement that this was going on in is not exactly all that vast, you realize. Especially since they already knew the general area from which they were being shelled.
Why do you insist on arguing in this disingenous manner? Although some pilots called in that they saw an American flag, they were still told it was an Egyptian ship by people on the ground. Fog of war, after all.
In addition, it seems that you’re unaware of the fact that on June 8, 1967, the United States said that it had no warships within hundreds of miles of the combat zone. Little salient fact that’s worth pointing out.
Again, why argue so dishonestly? The captain of the Liberty testified that his ship fired first on the torpedo boats, and that they tried to hail him before they attacked.
Sorry for complicating your screed with facts.
The boats, which were in a much better position to actually communicate with the Liberty, hailed it. And they were fired upon first. The captain, by the way, ordered the firing to stop because he realized that the attack might have been made in error.
Again, sorry to complicate your screed with facts, but they attempted to hail them with standard naval visual communication protocols.
Again, sorry about the facts, but the Israelis weren’t sure, and were confused. The torpedo boats attempted to make contact via visual signals, and were fired upon.
According to the captain’s own testimony, they first tried to hail the Liberty, only after that, and they were fired upon, did they launch torpedos.
You just denied something… and then affirmed it. Which is it? Were there sinister conspirators at the top who told Congress, the Navy, the NSA, the CIA, etc… what to conclude and what information to manipulate? If so, why hasn’t this ever come to light? To my knowledge there has only ever been one hearsay charge made, why haven’t there been hundreds of exact charges? Coverups don’t last in this world, conspiracies have whistleblowers.
Luckily enough, that’s not what happened. The investigations had access to, among other pieces of information, the tapes which proved that the Israelis first thought that the Liberty was Egyptian, and then were confused over whether or not it was.
Um… no. Nobody pretends that they don’t, and that’s a false equivolency anyways if you’re trying to draw any parallels at all.
And yet some of them, as I pointed out, were part of inquiries that found exactly the opposite of what they’re claiming. You still haven’t provided any concrete evidence as to why that might be.
Not even going to touch on the fact that that specific Director of the CIA had a proven track record of being horribly wrong, and that his own agency contradicted his beliefs after performing their own investigation?
Really? So the president gave an order, and all the branches of the government, military, and intelligence services who were involved simply rolled over and did it? Do you have any proof of this, or is this just a ‘guess’?
And, speaking of which, your very next quote contradicts your WAG, as Helms says he wasn’t even involved in the inquiry. Hard for the President to exercise such direct control if the superiors in the CIA aren’t even involved. And, meanwhile, it was not an interim report, as it was the only CIA report ever filed.
Absurd. How can it be wrong if that’s what they said? Now you’re just making things up. Moreoever, you’re now repeating an assertion which has, already, been refuted. They identified the flag as American, but ground control told them that the ship was Egyptian. Again, which is more likely, that they figured it was an Egyptian ship flying false colors, or an Egyptian ship crewed by Americans?
Further, if this “dual-citizen Israeli major” and everybody in the room “knew” that the ship was American, why was there still confusion even after the attack? Why tell the helicopter pilots to check and see if the survivors were American or Egyptian? Why tell the pilots, during the attack, that it was Egyptian?
This is just silly. You can arrive at the reasonable conclusion that they might have figured that the Egyptians disguised it with various junk on the deck to make it look like it wasn’t a transport ship, but this nonsense about thinking that they made it look exactly like the Liberty is just beyond the pale. “They’ve disguised it with bogus com gear” is one thing. “They’ve made it look exactly like a specific American ship that most of us wouldn’t have any knowledge of, anyways” is… another.
Yeah… who’d want to get a troop transport near the country they’re fighting with. :dubious:
Sure it does, especially since we’ve already addressed this point and for some reason you’re either forgetting it or pretending it didn’t already come up in our discussion. Those who radioed in about seeing American markings were told that it was an Egyptian ship.
What testimony aren’t you reading? Have you not read the US Navy Court of Inquiry testimony? Your cite’s claims are also bogus. You are suggesting not only that somehow the crew was ordered not to tell the truth, but actually lied about it as they stated that the life boats which were kicked overboard did not have sailors in them and had already been shot. Which is it? Where the torpedo boats close enough to make visual inspection, and thus wouldn’t have fired on empty life boats, or weren’t they?
Besides, where’s any of the proof for this claim? Because there sure as heck was testimony from the captain stating that the attack might have been a mistake on the Israelis’ part. There is also plenty of testimony about the Israelis’ actions. Obviously, your cite is making stuff up. Just like your first cite was when they stated there wasn’t a congressional investigation when there were six.
You should really read the Inquiry yourself rather than relying on second hand distortions.
Ahhhh, the argument by semantic gymnastics. No, by this I mean that launching a war wasn’t justified. You still haven’t proven a coverup, at all.
As friend Jack has already pointed out, secret missions/data are not often made public.
I agree but that does nto stop one from asking why the government felt compelled in this case to silence the Liberty crew regarding being attacked (beyond the assumption that the government/military would probably be happiest if they never had to publically acknowledge what they had for breakfast much less anything else).
Well, I am not claiming to know why Israel initiated an attack and I doubt that is ever something that will be known but there are theories.
As for “no solid documentation to back the claims of evildoing/conspiracy/coverup” I think you need to re-read my posts. There seems to be an abundance of evidence and documentation of a coverup. 100% conclusive? Maybe not but drop it on the balance and I think it far outweighs anything the naysayers here have provided.
If you want to extrapolate that to evildoing and conspiracy I think the case could be made but that is another debate.
By the way Whack-a-Mole, it’s now been shown that the main cite you used for the Liberty Veterans contains at least one massive whopper of a lie. What does that make you think?
You’ve also not retracted your claim that “my” ‘judge turned historian’ was the only one who held a particular view, while organizations which actually supported it were, in fact, opposed to it. Will you retract this untruth?
You mean, where you discounted the evidence and tried to claim that the Navy and the NSA didn’t agree with “my” ‘judge turned historian’, even though both the Navy and the NSA released verdicts directly opposite to what you claimed they said?
Or do you mean the claim you cited in post 14 that Congress had never investigated the attack? Why, do you think, it would behove the people making their case to out and out lie about such an easily verified fact? Your only real response was that after reading of all the various agencies and groups which had investigated the matter, you thought that there must be a coverup. It’s just interesting that you immediately jumped to your realpolitik/conspiracy theory rather than realizing that your cite was lying.
Does it interst you to know why they’d like about something like that?
Because it is seemingly so patently wrong that I suspect there is a semantic issue involved here. That is, making that claim would be akin to stating the sun rises in the west and whatever you think of these people I seriously doubt they’d make such an obvious error (an error I have seen repeated elsewhere as well). I’ll have to look into it more to see what they are really on about.
And yes…I still think it was just a Realpolitik issue and not some Zionist control thing and that was not me backpeddaling. That has always been my view of it.
You still seem to have fun poking holes in my word usage and lack of personal credibility while never actually addressing the evidence provided. The best you have done is impeach Director Helms’ trustworthiness and pouncing on the issue of a congressional hearing while ignoring the rest. Fair enough to take those items to task but that still leaves a pile of evidence yet to be explained.
You do not walk us through a plausible version of how IDF forces attack a ship for two hours and never figure out their mistake and only back off when they hear a message that the Sixth Fleet was responding.
You poke fun at someone mentioning the Liberty was mistaken for a horse transport when in fact that is precisely what the Israelis say they mistook it for. Not only that but that horse transport is decidedly smaller than the Liberty and only bears a vague resemblance to the Liberty (you can see a comparison here ).
Make of that what you will. I do not know what “thoroughly investigated” means versus what inquiries have been done. That said this is what they were getting at.
No, you didn’t. You evaded it. You answered with a lying cite, which I already disproved, by the way. That still doesn’t get to the fact that you simply made up the claim that the NSA and Navy agreed with you, when in fact they did not.
Saying “They didn’t agree with me, but their investigation wasn’t completed to my standards, therefore they agreed with me” is hardly honest debating.
And, to repeat your claims as if you’ve answered anything, when it’s been shown that your cite is lying… that’s not exactly intellectually honest. The claims that the crew weren’t allowed to talk about those things are straight up lies. I, again, invite you to read the actual transcript rather than lying distortons written about it.
And, yet again, you put up a cite that I’ve already pointed out is mere hearsay. Intersting that Kidd never said anything about this while alive, isn’t it? Moreoever, you have -yet again- used a cite that has already been debunked. Boston claims that the Israelis machine gunned life boats, but the crew of the Liberty testified that the boats were aleady shot when they were put into the water, and that nobody was in them. Why you continue to cite refuted things like this is beyond me.
Further, although you claim that this wasn’t a conspiracy, your cite goes on to claim that the very report was changed, claiming that Painter made refrence to the Liberty’s life boats being shot at. And your cite is the only person who noticed that a Navy Inquiry was not only altered, but changed to outright lies? And it took him how many decades to make this claim? No, I’m sorry, but conspiracy nonsense like this simply doesn’t fly.
Faced with an outright lie, you handwave it away as a semantic issue? Why? You’re willing to invent labrynthian conspriacy theories including, evidently, virtually every branch of the US government over a span of almost 40 years, and yet you won’t accept that one of your cites is lying?
Distorting the truth in order to make their position seem likely.
Totally untrue. I have addressed, and refuted, the evidence you have provided. In some cases, I have had to do this several times in a row.
Actually they sent in helicopters to begin search and rescue operations. I’ve already pointed this out, and they’re refrenced in our own country’s spy tapes.
You seem to have missed the phrase “Ancient Egyptian”.
Yet another lie. Again, please read the actual transcript rather than believing second hand accounts. If you require, I will find a cite for you. Suffice it to say that it is the most baldfaced lie that crew members were not allowed to testify. They did. It’s on record.
In any case, this is pretty much over. If you have any new points, or wish to hold your sources to the same level of scrutiny that you wish to hold every single ‘conspiratory’ investigation that the US even conducted, then maybe we can get back into the thick of it.
I think this is in order to prevent shooting wars erupting every ten minutes. Running an unarmed spy plane or ship up and down the coastline of another sovereign state is generally regarded as pretty cheeky and a bit of a provocation, but not an overly hostile act. Doing the same with an armed warship or warplane is a whole different level of provocation, and much more likely to result in unpleasant mistakes. Remember how tense it got with that whole China/E135 incident? Imagine having a few armed F15s tossed into that situation. Or if the USS Vincennes had shot down a Chinese or Russian airliner instead of an Iranian one. In this situation, firing at the Israeli jets would probably have resulted in them firing back at what they thought was an Arab frigate, and then it could have gotten really nasty.
Spy ships/planes are pawns, and expendable to a certain extent. Every now and again one gets swatted, either by mistake or because someone has pushed their luck a bit too far. C’est la vie.