Israel's attack on the USS Liberty...

demon said:
From http://www.ussliberty.org/

WE HAVE THE SMOKING GUN!
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It is unfortunate that there is no documentation to back up these claims, while documentation does exist to show that the State Department was unaware of the attack on the Liberty until after it had ended. As mentioned in the news story that opens this thread, Cristol used the FOIA to get the NSA tapes and he is quoted as having been informed by the NSA that there is no more documentation on the Liberty incident, which calls into question the existence of these intercepts.

edited to fix formatting
 
"It is unfortunate that there is no documentation to back up these claims..."

Granted...and as such I realise your problem with accepting their validitiy.
In that case, what do you think would motivate them to make up these claims?
 
demon said:
what do you think would motivate them to make up these claims?
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I don't know, but that does not allow me to conclude that these claims are genuine. People can and do tell lies about any number of things, from UFOs to the Loch Ness Monster to JFK. Therefore I am not compelled to accept claims that are not backed with any evidence. In this case there is not only an absence of documentation in favour of these claims, but documentation exists that contradicts the claims.
 
For years I believed the Israeli's intentially attacked the Liberty. A few years ago I did a review of the various articles on the web about it and decided that in fact it probably was an accident, but with a lot of evidence to suggest that it wasn't.

The problem with the attack was that it was a military SNAFU on a high level. To rephrase the (very exhaustive and well-documented) report on what happened in AZURE magazine (not available off-line or in English, I am afraid) it is true that--due to reconnesaince information, etc.--the israeli high command SHOULD have known that the ship was American, and COULD have known it.

But--and this is the key point--they DIDN'T know it, for reasons of miscommunications and delays between army intelligence (that gathered the radio broadcasts, etc., proving the ship was American), the high command (which got those reports), and the air force (which sent the planes to attack). Simply put, the information that the ship was American did not reach the air force from the army intelligence until the attack was long over.

So, yes, if you consider the israeli army AS A WHOLE, I can see where the idea that it was intentional came from--"it" knew that the ship was American at time t, and "it" attacked it nevertheless at time t+1, which sure looks intentional! But the problem is, this assumes perfect information transfer between the branches which simply didn't exist. Yes, the army intelligence knew the ship was American at time t, and the air force attacked it at time t+1... but THE AIR FORCE DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS AMERICAN UNTIL T+2, SO IT ATTACKED THE LIBERTY WITHOUT KNOWING IT WAS AMERICAN, EVEN IF OTHERS IN THE ARMED FORCES DID.

That's all there is to it, really, except for one other distatsteful fact. The idea that israel, in the midst of a war of survival on three fronts, would deliverately attacks a ship of its only ally in the world is, shall we say, rather odd. Not logically impossible... but surely requiring a LOT of proof. It is highly revealing that some people are willing to jump to conclusion about the "awful israeli guilt"--needless to say, while ignoring the literally hundreds of Americans killed by the palestinians over the years, undoubtebly deliberately. It is not looking for the truth that motivates such "jumpers"; it's just the desire to find something--ANYTHING--to smear israel with.
 
the motive

it's considered a mistake only because no one can think of a motive.
Israel is an ally, a friend. Why would they attack America?

Israel's motive was to create an international incident, kill every American on board so there would be no witnesses, and blame the incident on Arabs.

Lyndon Johnson was the type who faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Lyndon Johnson was so pro Israel, he was FDR's lap dog who visited James Forrestal, arranging the "suicide." Johnson would have covered up anything for Israel.

They used to say the FBI comprised most of the Black Panthers. If you want to buy drugs, you'll find a narc or undercover agent posing as a delaler. Look behind an alleged Arab attack on America, you'll find Israelis. That was the motive. Americans aboard saw the Israeli pilots close enough, so they could wave at each other, the pilots couldn't help but know it was an American ship, that's what they were trying to destroy, and kill every American witness on board.
 
Skepticism, why do you hate, FDR, Johnson, Forrestal, Lap dogs, the FBI, Jews, Israelies, And on, on.
 
skepticism said:
it's considered a mistake only because no one can think of a motive.
Israel is an ally, a friend. Why would they attack America?

Israel's motive was to create an international incident, kill every American on board so there would be no witnesses, and blame the incident on Arabs.

Lyndon Johnson was the type who faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Lyndon Johnson was so pro Israel, he was FDR's lap dog who visited James Forrestal, arranging the "suicide." Johnson would have covered up anything for Israel.

Look behind an alleged Arab attack on America, you'll find Israelis. That was the motive. Americans aboard saw the Israeli pilots close enough, so they could wave at each other, the pilots couldn't help but know it was an American ship, that's what they were trying to destroy, and kill every American witness on board.
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Have you bothered to read the book, or do you just repeat sound bytes from WN and CT web sites?
Assault on the Liberty (Jim Ennes (Random House 1980; Ballantine 1986; Reintree Press 2003, 2004) which tells the story
I read it a few years after it came out.

Jim Ennes was an officer on the bridge when the attack started.

Joe Meadors was a signalman on the bridge during the attack and is a former chairman and president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. He and Jim Ennes run the USS Liberty Web Site.

DR
 
Skeptic said:
For years I believed the Israeli's intentially attacked the Liberty. A few years ago I did a review of the various articles on the web about it and decided that in fact it probably was an accident, but with a lot of evidence to suggest that it wasn't.

The problem with the attack was that it was a military SNAFU on a high level. To rephrase the (very exhaustive and well-documented) report on what happened in AZURE magazine (not available off-line or in English, I am afraid) it is true that--due to reconnesaince information, etc.--the israeli high command SHOULD have known that the ship was American, and COULD have known it.

But--and this is the key point--they DIDN'T know it, for reasons of miscommunications and delays between army intelligence (that gathered the radio broadcasts, etc., proving the ship was American), the high command (which got those reports), and the air force (which sent the planes to attack). Simply put, the information that the ship was American did not reach the air force from the army intelligence until the attack was long over.

So, yes, if you consider the israeli army AS A WHOLE, I can see where the idea that it was intentional came from--"it" knew that the ship was American at time t, and "it" attacked it nevertheless at time t+1, which sure looks intentional! But the problem is, this assumes perfect information transfer between the branches which simply didn't exist. Yes, the army intelligence knew the ship was American at time t, and the air force attacked it at time t+1... but THE AIR FORCE DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS AMERICAN UNTIL T+2, SO IT ATTACKED THE LIBERTY WITHOUT KNOWING IT WAS AMERICAN, EVEN IF OTHERS IN THE ARMED FORCES DID.

That's all there is to it, really, except for one other distatsteful fact. The idea that israel, in the midst of a war of survival on three fronts, would deliverately attacks a ship of its only ally in the world is, shall we say, rather odd. Not logically impossible... but surely requiring a LOT of proof. It is highly revealing that some people are willing to jump to conclusion about the "awful israeli guilt"--needless to say, while ignoring the literally hundreds of Americans killed by the palestinians over the years, undoubtebly deliberately. It is not looking for the truth that motivates such "jumpers"; it's just the desire to find something--ANYTHING--to smear israel with.
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To hop in - or back in -I support Israel, to an extent some on these threads think obsessive. BUT if I had had the capability when I heard about the vile attack on the Liberty there would have been a thorough, heavy, clear military response that would have ensured Israel never thought about attacking even a potentially American craft again. I have seen no information that supports accident and, unless the survivors can be shown to be liars, have heard and read evidence from them that the Israelis continued the attack following the point where the men on the ship had done everything possible to demonstrate that it was American. I am not looking for evidence to smear Israel on that, I have seen no reason not to blame them for it - and not for it as accident.
 
I have seen no information that supports accident and, unless the survivors can be shown to be liars, have heard and read evidence from them that the Israelis continued the attack following the point where the men on the ship had done everything possible to demonstrate that it was American.
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The AZURE article deals with that point, as well. Yes, the Israelies continued to attack after the "Liberty" signaled that it is American... but it is obvious the signals WERE NOT SEEN IN TIME. The jets that attacked the "Liberty" under the impression that it is Egyptian made no mention in real-time of any American flag or markings; the captain of the Israeli ship which attacked the "Liberty" after the initial attack by the planes mistakenly identified its speed as (I think) close to 30 knots, which ruled out--as far as he knew--the possiblity that it is an American ship of the class the USS "Liberty" was; furthermore, when he approached the ship, which was by then covered with smoke, he also could not see any American markings. Nevertheless, he only fired on the ship after he was fired on (not that I blame the crew for firing on him, given what they believed at the time). The moment he DID identify American markings he broke off the attack.

Essentially, what we have here is a military SNAFU: the crew was sure they were deliberately attacked by the Israelies, but the Israelies were sure they were attacking an Egyptian ship. Nobody is saying the USS "Liberty" crew is lying about the fact of the attack or about signalling they were American; it's just that their interpretation of why they were still attacked after that it faulty. The sad fact is, the Israelis simply didn't notice their signals until too late.

This is made into some weird conspiracy by those who hate Israel, but, really, this sort of thing happens in every war: it is a wonder it doesn't happen much more than it does. As they say, friendly fire ain't.
 
Skeptic said:
This is made into some weird conspiracy by those who hate Israel,
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That's exactly what it is.

Friendly fire deaths by the U.S. military

WW2 - 16,000 killed
Vietnam - 8,000 killed
1st Gulf War - 35 killed
Invasion of Afghanistan - US fighter pilot dropped a 500 lb bomb on Canadian soldiers were performing a live fire exercise on April 17th, 2002.

So being a Canadian all I have to do is create a website "in honor" of the dead Canadian soldiers. Then I use the the website as just more "evidence" that the US military is guilty of "vile attacks" in not only Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Vietnam and WW2. This obviously "proves" :rolleyes: America is evil and cannot be trusted.

There, see how easy that was? ;)
 
Sabra,
I was wondering what prompted the resurrection of this thread.

As to your comments, I think your analogies are weak.

In most of the other friendly fire incidents that you mention I suspect there is little question about what happened or at least there is little question of malicious intent by the perpetrators. This is not the case with the Liberty incident.

The Liberty ship attack is an incident where there was strong evidence that the Israelis intentionally struck at an American ship.

There is also strong evidence that they didn't. So it is reasonable to expect that some people will assume the truth is one way or the other and act accordingly. Confounding the search for truth is some apparent lies by the Israelis about the incident and the initial sham investigation of the incident by the Americans.

In the end, most of the people in this thread and I suspect most people who have read much about the incident come to the conclusions that the Israelis probably didn't intentionally attack the Americans. But that doesn't mean that the case for that is absolute or that one can't understand why some Americans remain mighty pissed off about the incident after all these years.
 
I don't think anybody is suggesting the USS "Liberty"'s crew are antisemites or conspirators, Dave; they indeed had good reason indeed to think the attack was deliberate--because it was. What they could not have known, and indeed until recently nobody could know for sure since the material was only recently declassified, is that the Israelies truly believed they were attacking an Egyptian ship, due to a SNAFU.

The problem is when others, who do not know all the facts, raise this incident as "proof" of an evil Israeli conspiracy.
 
The Liberty ship attack is an incident where there was strong evidence that the Israelis intentionally struck at an American ship.

There is also strong evidence that they didn't. So it is reasonable to expect that some people will assume the truth is one way or the other and act accordingly
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If what you mean is that the USS "Liberty" crew had good reasons to honestly believe the attack was deliberate, you're quite correct. This, however, doesn't mean they are correct in their belief.
 
davefoc said:
Sabra,
I was wondering what prompted the resurrection of this thread.
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I didn't resurrect it. It was bumped by someone else and I had never seen this thread until yesterday.

davefoc said:
As to your comments, I think your analogies are weak.
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Ok.

davefoc said:
In most of the other friendly fire incidents that you mention I suspect there is little question about what happened or at least there is little question of malicious intent by the perpetrators.
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You mean when the American pilot bombed soldiers from my country with a laser-guided bomb he had "benevolent" intent? ;)

davefoc said:
This is not the case with the Liberty incident. The Liberty ship attack is an incident where there was strong evidence that the Israelis intentionally struck at an American ship.
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So goes the conspiracy theory.

Even with technology 35 years more advanced than the Israeli technology in 1967 the American F16 still bombed soldiers from my country. My conspiracy "theory" is Maj. Harry Schmidt did it on purpose.

davefoc said:
There is also strong evidence that they didn't. So it is reasonable to expect that some people will assume the truth is one way or the other and act accordingly. Confounding the search for truth is some apparent lies by the Israelis about the incident and the initial sham investigation of the incident by the Americans.
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There has been one friendly fire incident between America and Israel. Only one ever in the recorded histories of both countries. It happened 40 YEARS AGO and is still used to vilify Israel as if it took place yesterday.

So you don't mind if for the next 40 years, (until 2042), I use the Maj. Harry Schmidt friendly fire incident as evidence of "American malicious intent".

davefoc said:
In the end, most of the people in this thread and I suspect most people who have read much about the incident come to the conclusions that the Israelis probably didn't intentionally attack the Americans. But that doesn't mean that the case for that is absolute or that one can't understand why some Americans remain mighty pissed off about the incident after all these years.
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Hey people can be pissed off. I just find when anyone wants to diss Israel you are guaranteed that this incident is dragged up out of the history books.

So when I feel like dissing America I shall drag up the April 18, 2002 incident when Maj. Harry Schmidt dropped a laser-guided 225-kilogram bomb on part of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group.
 
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Sabra said:
So when I feel like dissing America I shall drag up the April 18, 2002 incident when Maj. Harry Schmidt dropped a laser-guided 225-kilogram bomb on part of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group.
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Hey since we're doing this, can I use Chunuk Bair as an excuse to criticise the British? Granted, it happened over 90 years ago, but hey, the British ships and their friendly fire managed to wipe out an entire battalion after a New Zealand Brigade had fought tooth and nail over 5 days.

How many Americans did those evil Israelis kill again?

-Gumboot
 
Sabra,
It is hard for me to believe that you can not understand my point.

The killing of the Canadian soldiers in a friendly fire incident was very sad. I was personally shaken by it. It has been a while since I have read about it but my recollection is that American commanders deserved some of the blame for the incident. However, there never has been a charge nor do I think there is any evidence that the US government ordered the attack.

The Liberty ship attack is quite different in that regard. The ship itself looked nothing like an Egyptian ship, the attack extended over a long period of time and the American sailors claimed that a large American flag was displayed on the ship. In addition, the American investigation after the incident was clearly a sham investigation.

All of this adds up to a reasonable case that in fact some contingent of the Israeli government ordered a strike on the Liberty ship that they knew to be American. So one doesn't need to be anti-Israel, or an anti-semite to believe that in fact Israel did order the attack.

As I have stated previously, I believe the attack was accidental and that when the publicly available data is reviewed the case is stronger that it was an accident than that it was intentional.

Where I disagree with you is that you seem to see the incident as evidence of anti-Israel attitude. Perhaps that is an underlying bias of some of the people that believe the story, but given the strength of evidence that it was an intentional attack I don't think that an anti-Israel bias is necessary to believe that the attack was intentional.

ETA: Although after thinking about it a bit more, I would agree with you that the fact that it continues to be brought up after all these years is mostly because of anti-Israel sentiment.
 
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