“The rafts were never shot, inflated or not”
Source? This article in the Naval Institute Proceedings contradicts this:
"The Liberty’s motor whale boat had been destroyed, and few life rafts survived. But Lieutenant Lloyd Painter (Ennes’s relief as officer of the deck) organized three undamaged ones and kicked them over the gunwales. Two were shot to pieces immediately in the water, the third hauled aboard one of the torpedo boats.32 At this distance, Ennes emphasizes, the large bow and stern marks on the freshly painted ship were unmistakable. The designator number “5” was 6 1/2 feet high and “GTR,” four feet. Her name was in 18-inch lettering, in English.33
Judge Cristol quotes Lieutenant Painter’s testimony to the naval hearing only on the rafts’ casting away.34 He ignores what came next. This act alone, the U.S. sailors charge, proves deliberate intent to destroy a U.S. ship and leave no witnesses.35 (In 1986, Navy legal expert Lieutenant Commander Walter Jacobsen agreed, arguing in The Naval Law Review that it was also a war crime.36)" http://www.usni.org/proceedings/Articles03/PROwalsh06.htm#fn32
As I have argued elsewhere there is good evidence that the attack on the USS Liberty was deliberate including articles in serious journals and statements by numerous US government officials. This is in stark contrast to bogus theories of Israeli involvement in 9-11 for which there is no evidence.
Yes, Painter does say that…now. Of course he never said it while under oath. Look at your source and you’ll see the footnote comes from Ennes, where all he can claim is that they are “willing to tetify under oath”. When he had the chance he said nothing of the kind.
When testifying his quote was;
Painter also admits to getting “lost in the bottle” for over ten years. Does a thing to ones memory.
Nobody who was in a position to see such an act by the IDF says it happened. Including the captain. The ship logs also say nothing about any machine gun fire. The torpedo was the last shot fired at the Liberty.
As for Razorsharp’s link, its by Ennes, who has books to sell. His “recollection” does not jibe with the accounts of the majority fo the crew, the logs of the ship, nor the actiosn of the IDF boats after the torpedo hit. Plus he was below deck after the inital attack and was in no position to see what he claims.
“Of course he never said it while under oath. Look at your source and you’ll see the footnote comes from Ennes, where all he can claim is that they are “willing to tetify under oath”. When he had the chance he said nothing of the kind.”
The footnote says five witnesses are willing to testify. Did all these five testify differently in the original enquiry or just Painter? In any case there is evidence that the original inquiry was given instructions to find the attack was a mistake which creates significant doubt about the evidence it collected from Painter. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/23/national/main579649.shtml
You still haven’t given a source for your statements that the rafts were not attacked or that a majority of the crew support this.
Very relevant question… or he is an anti-semite ? (Standard excuse for criticism to Israel.) Not that the US could have done much about it at the time… but to cover up for others !
If Painter is the best witness you can come up with then I don’t hold much hope for the remaining four. Keep in mind that the “machine gunning the life rafts” bit wasn’t even part of the Liberty myth until Ennes wrote his book. I give it zero credence.
By that crewman’s standards, friednly fire incidents shoudl never happen. Fat chance, trained people make mistakes all the time. After all, why were two blackhawks shot down in Iraq in 1994 in the no-fly zone? They had flags painted on the side, but the pilot identified them as Hinds.
Since Razorsharp clearly has not understood my point concerning his contributions, I’ll restate them as clearly as I can, in itemized form:
While Razorsharp has not said so in so many words, apparently it is his opinion that Israel may have in some way orchestrated or facilitated the aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center. At the very least, he feels that insufficient resources have been directed to investigating any potential connections to Israel. In support of this notion, he has drawn our attention to three incidents: the videotaping and apparent cheering of the WTC destruction by five Israeli employees of a New York moving company; the arrest of Lakhani and Abraham, in August 2003, for attempting to purchase and smuggle short-range missiles into the US on behalf of a third party, and the attack by the Israel military on the USS Liberty in 1967. He concludes by claiming to see a pattern, presumably of enemy action by Israeli against the US, and of a cover-up by unnamed parties in the US and Israel.
There are some hints that the Israelis mentioned in the first reference may have been intelligence agents in some unknown capacity, based mainly on their apparent hasty departure for Israel after being released from custody. Nothing in the referenced material, however hints that they have any direct connection whatsoever with the events of 9/11, other than their supposed jubiliation while observing the attacks.
It is unclear what relevance the case of Lakahni and Abraham have to anything discussed here, save the fact that 76-year-old Abraham, who was reported to be a 50-year resident of the US, is an Israeli citizen. Lakhani, a Briton, attempted to set himself up as a middleman to obtain the Russian-made missiles for a third party; Abraham’s sole role apparently was to assist in laundering funds received for the purchase. Both the source and ultimate recipients of the missiles were law enforcement agents of the countries involved. No evidence is presented to indicate that Israel was involved in any way.
The Liberty incident, already discussed numerous times on this board, is brought up as a supposed example of the US government, and the media, suppressing unpleasant facts of a ‘friendly fire’ event involving a close ally. This accusation of official and media suppression ignores the facts that copious information, including several books, on the incident are available via the web and other sources. There seems to be no problem finding material critical of the original enquiry into the incident, even from the governments involved. Thus the claim that the incident has been suppressed makes no sense.
In reference to media reports of each of the above, Razorsharp strives to paint a picture of a conspiracy among press outlets to hide what he feels to be an unstated truth: that unnamed parties have conspired to hide deliberate Israeli enemy action in each. His only evidence of this is that, in his opinion, the number of column inches or airtime minutes given to these stories does not meet some unstated standard.
The problem is, with the sole possible exception of the Liberty incident, he has not presented any hard evidence of a deliberate Israeli act, and even there, no one has explained adequately what Israel would expect to gain by sinking a naval ship of its clsest ally and largest benefactor. Thus the issue of whether the press has covered these in sufficient detail, IMO, is moot.
I invite the poster in question to make any amendments or corrections, if he feels I have misstated his position.
“The CBSnews article is idle speculaiton by Adm. Moore.”
Nonsense. It describes a signed affidavit by Ward Boston who was a naval attorney in the investigation. And you still haven’t provided a source for your claims about the rafts. Just saying you don’t give credence to Ennes and the other crew members means nothing.
"By that crewman's standards, friednly fire incidents shoudl never happen."
It's not just about the flag. This was a ship with very distinctive electronic equipment attacked in excellent visibility conditions. Can you give a comparable friendly fire incident with a ship? The Proceedings article gives other evidence the attack was not a mistake.
“There seems to be no problem finding material critical of the original enquiry into the incident, even from the governments involved. Thus the claim that the incident has been suppressed makes no sense.”
I agree with this. In fact the main reason I believe the attack was deliberate is that there are so many respectable sources including former senior government officials who give evidence of this. You have mainstream news sources like CBS reporting about it. Like I said this is in contrast to silly theories about Israeli involvement in 9-11.
I give it little credence because there is no other evidence to indicate what he claims now is true. It flies in the face of the conspiratorial inverse square law, it ignores several other inquiries into the incident that concluded it was an accident. Furthermore, I have a hard time beleiving that all the members of Johnsons cabinet/staff would keep silent about this when their willing to blab about anything else that happened during that administration.
Finally, I find it convenient that this guy has waited until other members who signed the document are dead.
I cannot prove a negative. The only testiomny you have provided comes from someone who has changed their story.
Isreal had been told there were no US ships in those waters.
The planes that attacked the boat were not trained in maritime identification.
The assumption is that it was an Egyptian electronics ship the El Quasr.
“Furthermore, I have a hard time beleiving that all the members of Johnsons cabinet/staff would keep silent about this when their willing to blab about anything else that happened during that administration.”
Actually there is a long line of administration officials who have made similar claims including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Admiral Moorer, various NSA officials among others.
“The assumption is that it was an Egyptian electronics ship the El Quasr.”
Which is ridiculous because that was a transport ship which was half the size of the Liberty and didn’t have the specialist electronics equipment.
Anyway I don’t want to go deep into the Liberty arguments here (once again I recommend you check out the Proceedings article for this stuff). I was mainly interested in your source for your statements about the rafts and you clearly don’t have any.
I gave Painter’s quote under oath. He does not mention any machinegunning of the rafts. You counter about 4 other folks without quotes, then played this game of changing the burden of proof. Don’t tell me what I don’t have.
Mistaken for the Bismark by Swordfish bombers. This despite the crew being familiar with the ship (having flown around it plenty of times) a differing silhouette, and having less than five times the displacement of the Biskmark. Lucky for the Sheffield the torpedoes exploded on contact with the water. There’s a lot of similarities between that and the misdentification of the Liberty as the El Qasr, that link above shows it pretty effectively.
“And yet the reports that came out of those agencies sid pretty much the same thing: Isreal fucked up but didn’t do it on purpose.”
You seem to be changing the goalposts. You claimed that Boston wasn’t reliable because it was hard to believe that so many Johnson officials would keep silent. Then I showed they hadn’t kept silent. Now you talk about the official reports. But the point is precisely that these official reports are suspect because so many of the concerned officials have come out and more or less said so.
Here is a list of these officials: http://ussliberty.org/supporters.htm
“I gave Painter’s quote under oath. He does not mention any machinegunning of the rafts”
Huh? You are the one who claims Painter isn’t reliable, right? Anyway I don’t think your link is a full transcript so we don’t really know for sure what he didn’t say. Besides you claimed a majority of the crew members supported your view. What’s your source for that?
As for the Sheffield incident you would need more details to compare it with the LIberty. What were the visibility conditions like? How long did the attack last? Were there reconnaisance flights earlier? There is also other evidence in the Liberty case like selective jamming of radio frequencies.
And as for those who so desperately cling to and and go into contortions of logic to defend the “mistaken identity” excuse, well, they have asses to cover.
All I’m saying is that under oath he makes no mention of it. Then later he says something happen. This after many years of hard drinking. 'scuse me if I don’t take his later claims seriously.
Conspriacy theory invocation noted.
Again, there’s no mention of it until Ennes writes his book. Even then there’s only four other alleged accounts. I’ll say it again, I cannot prove a negative like this. I also cannot prove that Jesus didn’t show up and start tapdancing on the water next to the ship.
Not sure, North Atlantic in May. I’ve everything from Fog to clear. All I am sure of is that the weather was good enough to fly obselete biplanes.
Just the one. Ten torpedoes. Torpedo planes tend to be kinda one-shot items.
Flying boat spotted the Bismark. And that report lead to the attack. Does that count?
The British pilots had a much greater familiarity with the craft they accidently attacked. Certainly a lot more than the IAF planes that were looking at an unfamiliar craft that wasn’t supposed to be there. The pilots were not trained in Maritime identification.
Yeah, right. Jamming with no source. Mirage jets didn’t have any such equipement (and were long gone by the time the ‘jamming’ was noticed) and neither would the torpedo boats. Most likely it was damaged equipment.
“All I’m saying is that under oath he makes no mention of it. Then later he says something happen. This after many years of hard drinking. 'scuse me if I don’t take his later claims seriously.”
OK so let’s ignore Painter for both sides. But there are other crewmembers who claim the rafts were attacked. Here is one: http://ussliberty.org/voices.htm
Check out Hrankowski about 40% down.
“I’ll say it again, I cannot prove a negative like this”
Your claim that a majority of the crew support your view is not a negative. Failure to provide evidence duly noted.
“Conspriacy theory invocation noted”
Is it a conspiracy theory to note that we don’t know if your link has a full transcript? I don’t think so.
As for the Sheffield attack it’s pretty different. With Liberty you had a combined arms attack of which lasted for an hour and quarter according to the crew members. Visibility conditions were excellent. The Sheffield was just a one-off attack under unknown visibility conditions. I checked out your link and I still think the USS Liberty’s profile is more distinctive but I will let that pass.
“Flying boat spotted the Bismark. And that report lead to the attack. Does that count?”
According to American sources there were multiple reconnaisance flights for hours before the attack in excellent visibility conditions. Seems rather more than one spotting.
“Mirage jets didn’t have any such equipement (and were long gone by the time the ‘jamming’ was noticed) and neither would the torpedo boats”
IIRC the exact types of the aircraft is disputed so there may have been planes other than Mirages.
Again, color me unimpressed. Hrankowski is a Fireman Seaman who worked below decks. Just how is he going to know what’s going on on the decks where this is supposedly taking place?
That’s two down.
I can only point to the crewmen who, under oath, made no mention of any such action by the IDF. I draw conclusions from that. Forgive me for doing so.
Then find the full trascript. Its been declassified. With it and the 13 other investigations show no testimony of attacks on the liferafts.
The first attack was about 15 minutes. AFterwards the further attack (the torpedo attack) came as a result of the Liberty Firing on the Torpedo boats.
Remember again the familiarity that the Brit pilots should have had with their own craft. Also remember the IAF pilots were not trained in identifying
[/QUOTE]
“Flying boat spotted the Bismark. And that report lead to the attack. Does that count?”
According to American sources there were multiple reconnaisance flights for hours before the attack in excellent visibility conditions. Seems rather more than one spotting.
[/QUOTE]
Eight flights were spotted by the Liberty during a shooting war. There’s very little evidence that indicates they were recon flights, let alone recon flights sent to observe and identify the Liberty.
Furthermore, documents show that the helicoptor flights identified the Liberty as an egyptian vessel
There’s major problems with the “jamming” allegations. At least one radioman (Smith) stated in sowrn testimony that the transmitter was knocked 1 KC off. Plus some of the “jamming” was closer to what happens to radios without antennas.
