Anti-War – by Jason DitzSaturday marks the 46th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a Naval spy ship in the Mediterranean Sea. The attack killed 34 American crew members and wounded 171 others.
The incident came during the Six-Day War of 1967, during which Israeli occupied large chunks of territory from its Arab neighbors. The attack on the USS Liberty was America’s only involvement in the conflict.
The attack began with two Israeli Mirage III fighter jets attacking the ship, claiming they assumed the antenna was a gun, and began attacking the US ship with rockets. The attacks escalated despite the ship being unable to return fire in any form, with torpedoes hitting the ship and napalm bombs setting it ablaze.
The immediate US response was to deploy warplanes against Egypt on the assumption that they might conceivably have been the attackers. Though never confirmed, some reports have persisted that the planes had nuclear weapons on board, though they were thankfully recalled at the last moment when it was revealed that it was an Israeli attack.
Israel claimed that they assumed the USS Liberty was an Egyptian destroyer, despite it flying a US flag and having clearly identified Latin alphabet letters all over it. The US rejected the claim but accepted an Israeli apology, along with a $6 million payment made in 1980 to cover a fraction of the repair costs for almost destroying the ship.
Israel’s own investigations into the matter throw their own story into doubt, with a 1982 IDF History Department Report (pdf) noting that the Israeli Navy knew hours before the attack that the ship was from the US Navy, and then goes on to speculate that the ground controllers directing the attack were just never told about this. It then brushed off the whole incident as “an innocent mistake.”
There were some limited US military inquiries into the matter but nothing in the way of Congressional investigations, and 46 years later survivors of the attack are still pressing Congress on the incident, saying it’s high time they got around to actually probing unprovoked attacks on a US Navy ship in international waters.
The survivors noted the incongruence between the treatment of the USS Libertyattack and the September 11, 2012 Benghazi consulate attack, saying it made no sense that Congress has dedicated months to that attack while refusing even nominal hearings on the USS Liberty, an attack which had many, many more casualties.
One israeli pilot refused to fire on the USS Liberty and returned to base.
This was an act of war and I am still waiting for it. How many attacks
by israel against the US and other countries does it take.
The enemies of Freedom are worried about what Americans might
know. Corruptors of the youth
I was going to comment but the math question is allways out of sight from the comment box and it erases the comments when you dont answer it.
That’s why the good Lord gave us a back button. 🙂
LOL aw Henry I tried that back button but it doesn`t work for me 🙂 . Yea I have missed that math question myself. Oh Well. 🙂
I agree, I’ve done it about four times. It should not scrub the comment.
Only way I’ve found to avoid that is to copy every comment immediately after writing it.
It’s saved me a LOT of grief.
The thing in the White House, LBJ, was the one calling back the jets scrambled to help the Liberty, since he didn’t want to ’embarass’ our Israeli allies.
Israel knew LBJ wouldn’t do anything to protect the Liberty, since they had him on the hook for his role in the murder of JFK.
Capitol Hill, October 2003. It is a historic occasion. An independent, blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded.
The commission consists of:
* A former ambassador to one of the US’s most important allies
* A US Navy rear admiral and former head of the Navy’s legal division
* A Marine general, America’s highest ranking recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the former Assistant Commandant of Marines
* A US Navy four-star admiral, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest military position in the country), former Chief of Naval Operations, a World War II hero, and the only Naval admiral to have commanded both the Pacific and the Atlantic fleets
The panel is moderated by a former ambassador who served as Chief of Mission in Iraq and Deputy Director of Ronald Reagan’s White House Task Force on Terrorism.
The commission announces explosive findings:
* That the attack, by a US ally, was a “deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew”
* That the ally committed “acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States”
* That the attack involved the machine-gunning of stretcher-bearers and life rafts
* That “the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of the [ship] never before in American naval history has a rescue mission been cancelled when an American ship was under attack”
* That surviving crewmembers were later threatened with “court-martial, imprisonment or worse” if they talked to anyone about what had happened to them; and were “abandoned by their own government”
* That due to the influence of the ally’s “powerful supporters in the United States, the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people”
* That due to continuing pressure by this lobby, this attack remains “the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress”
* That “there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history”
* That “the truth about Israel’s attack and subsequent White House cover-up continues to be officially concealed from the American people to the present day and is a national disgrace”
* That “a danger to the national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation” and that this policy “endangers the safety of Americans and the security of the United States”
Newsworthy?
Not when Israel is the attacking nation. Not when Israel is the “ally” to whose interests American needs are said to be subverted.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/06/23/usa-today-and-the-uss-liberty/
At least they weren’t able to blame the attack on Egypt, as originally planned.
Idiots.
bankers start wars,create conflicts and nations when they should just forget about fractional reserve banking and outright thievery before they find themselves in a whole bunch of trouble.Governments too.What a tangled web we weave.I’d rather have gold than a dollar.That is a federal reserve note called a dollar.the fiat paper “dollar” is toast.Who in their right mind would rather be paid in paper than gold?
There’s a difference between a jew and a Zionist like a puppy and a pile of shit.The jews were murdered by Zionists who unfortunately run the U.S. government to this very day.They ain’t jews,They’s murderers.
Carl……there is also a difference between a JEW and the rest of the HEBREW (Semite) tribes.
am certain im preaching to the choir here…but just sayin……..
Pity the jets enroute to Cairo weren’t retasked to nuke Israel.
-flek
If I was in charge(here we go)
Israel (the state) would not be allowed so long as they cant find land that nobody else is sitting on.
When people say they are jewish I say im sorry and they never get it.