One Canard Down...

[phthisis]

Not that it will matter to anti-Semitic propagandists, but Israel has been cleared of wrongdoing in the famous USS Liberty attack, by the National Security Agency, of all things.

"New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's

Comments

[throwingstardna]

Doesn't it note on that index of information that those are only the transcripts between two helicopter pilots? Have you read any other info-like almost EVERYTHING by the men who were on the Liberty-about the attack?"The Israeli version is untrue. We did fly a flag. We did identify ourselves. We were in international waters. They did not stop firing after seeing our flag as they claim, but continued to fire for another 40 minutes. The attack was not brief or accidental as Israel claims. We did not "attempt to hide" or escape when detected, as Israeli has charged. These things are easy to prove."
-James M. Ennes, Jr., lieutenant on the bridge of the USS Liberty
When the Liberty was attacked, Captain Joseph Tully in the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga received the ship's call for help and immediately sent jet aircraft to her assistance. Tully's jets were recalled almost immediately by orders from Washington. As a result, American jet fighter support was withheld for more than 90 minutes. The survivors have tried for decades to learn why they were denied the immediate air support that they were promised in case of trouble. There are no answers. The Navy still won't even admit that help was not sent, even though one of the aircraft carrier commanders has offered to testify that he was forbidden to help them.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.

The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, according to then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities.

You should read this good article by David Walsh released in the Naval Institute Proceedings on June 3rd. The article notes-among other things-that even Clark Clifford, chairman of President Johnson's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a great supporter of Israel, called Israeli claims that the attack was accidental "unbelieveable." Clifford told the president, "Something had gone terribly wrong and then it had been covered up. I never felt the Israelis had made adequate restitution or explanation for their … unprovoked actions."

Make sure to read the box at the bottom of the article also, "Former NSA Officials Agree." Former Cheif of Naval Operations and Joint Cheifs of Staff Chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer has been on the record for some time saying the attack on the Liberty was deliberate. Among those agreeing with him are then-NSA Director Marchall Carter, carter's deputy, Louis Tordella, NSA analyst Walter Deely, and Hayden Peake, professor of intelligence history at the Joint Military Intelligence College and a retired CIA officer.

Also read Body Of Secrets if you ever get a chance.

I've read some

[phthisis]

I haven't excavated the issue like you seem to have, but I've looked through some of the survivor writings, and ussliberty.org. What would help me as I move through the material you've supplied, is some plausible explanation why Israel would just up and assault an American spy ship in the area with full knowledge that it was American.

What I have trouble believing is not that Israel attacked the ship, and not that it was horrible and that people suffered. I also don't have a problem believing that the American and Israeli governments were reluctant to accept accountability for this awesome fuck-up.

What I have a problem believing is that this attack against Americans was mounted intentionally in order to prevent their discovery of some ongoing mass murder of Egyptian prisoners, or whatever other conspiracy-minded hypothesis, because that's when we get into implausible territory that is often mined by anti-Semites to soil Israel and Jews.

So, if I am to believe that this is not an example of those pernicious practices, what reason would Israel have to do this? And also, why would the NSA go through the potentially embarassing trouble to doctor evidence to exonerate a nation guilty of murdering its staff? Because surely the tapes are then doctored. Otherwise they prove that the pilots had no knowledge the ship was American.

Hmm.

[throwingstardna]

I find it distressing that you refer to anything that hints at the government-American Israeli, or other-acting in an underhanded manner as "conspiracy theory." It's a an offhand dismissal that skirts the issues being discussed. It's like when a conservative arguing against something I'm saying uses the argument "Well, you're a liberal," as if that in itself is an argument, and all they have to say to dismiss what is being said.

So why did the Israelis attack the Liberty? That's just one of many questions that has never been answered. It's a damn good question.

There are several possibilites. A few days before the Six Days War, Israel's Foreign Minister Abba Eban visited Washington to inform LBJ about the forthcoming invasion. Johnson cautioned Eban that the US could not support such an attack. It's possible, then, that the IDF assumed that the Liberty was spying on the Israeli war plans. Possible, but not likely.

A somewhat more likely scenario is that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel's plan to breach the new cease-fire and invade into Syria to seize the Golan. It's also been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and swinging public (and political) opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis.

There's another factor, your "conspiracy theory." The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had used that town's mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the (otherwise featureless) desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp.

According to eyewitness accounts by Israeli officers and journalists, the Israeli Army executed as many as 1,000 Arab POW's during the 1967 war. Historian Gabby Bron-now an Israeli reporter-wrote in Yediot Ahronot in Israel that he witnessed Israeli troops executing Egyptian prisoners on the morning of June 8, 1967 in El Arish.

Bron reported that he saw about 150 Egyptian POWs being held at the El Arish airport where they were sitting on the ground, crowded together with their hands held on the back of their necks. Every few minutes, Israeli soldiers would escort an Egyptian POW from the group to a hearing conducted by two men in Israeli army uniforms. Then the man would be taken away, given a spade, and forced to dig his own grave.

"I watched as (one) man dug a hole for about 15 minutes," Bron wrote. "Afterwards, the (Israeli military) policeman told him to throw the shovel away, and then one of them leveled an Uzi at him and shot two short bursts, each of three or four bullets."

Bron says he witnessed about ten such executions, until the grave was filled. Then an Israeli Colonel threatened him with a revolver, forcing him to leave the area.

As these executions were underway, America's most sophisticated intelligence platform, our lovely USS Liberty, was less than 13 miles from El Arish.

Could the USS Liberty have intercepted voice radio messages authorising these killings? How would they have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?

It's a plausible scenario. Stranger things have happened, especially in war. Additional questions you should be asking is why the US government would cover up a war crime against its own sailors? (The men in the life rafts were machine-gunned) Why would we recall jets sent to help the Liberty after the distress call was made and recieved?

Asking why Israel would attack a US vessel is a valid question-and just one of many unanswered questions. But dismissing the claims simply because you don't have the answer to that question is irrational. You seem to have a "problem believing" any "conspiracy-minded hypothesis" that calls into question what you want Israel to be-the good guys-and you dispel any claim that calls that into question.

All governments lie, and most have committed horrible crimes. To somehow imply that Israel-alone among the nations of the world-is above this is simply fantasy. And that's exactly what you do when you dismiss any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic or "conspiracy theory."

Didn't answer your question...

[phthisis]

Sorry, I didn't answer your question. The captured conversations of the helicopter pilots involved their supervisor at Hatzor Base as well:

"The spy plane also recorded the orders radioed to the pilots by their supervisor at Hatzor Base, which instructed them to search for Egyptian survivors from the "Egyptian warship"
that had just been bombed - thus supporting Israel's claim that it had believed the ship was Egyptian when it ordered it attacked. "Pay attention. The ship is now identified as Egyptian," the pilots were told.