Israel's attack on the USS Liberty...

[Darth Rotor]

Irrelevant. A state-of-the-art top-of-the-line billion-dollar warship couldn't tell the difference between an airliner and a hostile threat.

Argument from ignorance. Back to my point on synthetic aperture radar. Standard AAW doctrine includes fighter intercept, and typically a VID to confirm an engagement, where available. Guess what? No fighters over the PG that day, so the ship's Captain is dealing with uncertainty. Deal with it. Now, you can argue that he dealt with it poorly, post hoc, and many in the US Navy felt that way, based on factual matters, his scrap with Iranian surface forces, and doctrinal arguments, but not on fantasy camera radar presumptions like yours. The lack of confidence in CIWS that was common in those days, IMO, factors into any AAW engagement decision.

So that is the reason for shooting down an airliner? It could've been an Iranian fighter faking it was an airliner? Sorry but none of the data recorders reported any IFF response other than Mode III, Code 6760 yet the Vincennes continued to consistently misreport the signal.

Yes, it is a justification to shoot down an air contact, unknown, presumed hostile, that is flying a profile deemed to be a threat, by the Captain in CIC. His risk decision, given imperfect information, was "do I risk it being hostile, and getting hit -- he was involved in a surface action at the time -- or do I shoot and make sure I don't get hit?" It is the Captain's job to make that call. He erred to the side of caution, regarding his ship and his American men. Works for me.

The Iranian pilots NEVER HEARD THE CALLS as the Americans were hailing a commercial airliner on the wrong frequencies.

IAD is 243.0 MHz the world over. If you dont' monitor it, you are a moron.

Well if you know anything about flying an aircraft the pilots of flight 655 were not monitoring the International Air Distress frequency.

I do indeed know quite a bit about flying aircraft in international airspace, and I again note that these pilots were negligent.

And my guess is at the time the Israelis didn't give a flying fruitbat that the USS Liberty was hit. There was a war on in the Persian Gulf back then. How you like them apples?

No, Sabra, the 1967 war was in the Sinai, not the Persian Gulf, and the Israeli pilots had ample opporunity to Visually ID the Ship as American. The Vincennes did not have any means of VID for the air contact. I don't doubt that any number of Israelis didn't care that Americans died in their 1967 war, as collateral damage, given the "rock and a hard place" strategic situation Israel was in vis a vis Egypt and Syria.

Egyptian and Russian ships were known to operate under false flags. Unknown to the Israelis, the Liberty had sailed into the war zone on June 8. It was 12 miles off the coast gathering intelligence when it got hit. Time to let it go. Time to put closure on it. Like I've said before most of the people who bring up the USS Liberty couldn't name one sailor who died that day. It is generally brought up in order to question support of Israel.

I don't know who generally brings it up, or why, but I do know that I am thoroughly familiar with RoE and VID processes, as well as fire discipline. Given Ennes' testimony, the Israeli pilots were bloody negligent in their failure to identify the USS Liberty as a US ship, given its markings and the flag flying on it, particularly when one considers how close they came during their fly by passes before that attack. That they presumed a false flag also means that they had crap for ship sillouhette training, which is a standard for Maritime Strike aircraft.

That said, the explanation of a mind set seeing non-Israeli or hard to identify ships "most likely hostile, most likely a false flag" is a rational "worst case explanation." That fits with a similar mistake in VID by 2 US F-15 pilots who shot down 2 US Blackhawk helicopters over Northern Iraq -- mis identifying them as Russian/Iraqi Hinds -- killing 26, Americans and allies. (April of 1994).

Allowed some slack? The crew of the Vincennes received combat-action ribbons for shooting down an airliner full of civilians!

That is related to the other factor that you choose to ignore, and that the CO of the Sides dismissed as irrelevant: the Vincennes was engaged in a surface action vis a vis Iranian patrol boats at the time of the shoot down. Some guys I know think Captain Rogers was out picking fights. I'll leave that discussion to the crowd who publish in USNI Proceedings. The US government put a ship in harms way, in a war zone, which means that it accepted the risk that somethings were going to happen.

I am not an apologist. I am not saying firing on the Liberty was right.

Glad we agree on that, and I'll again point out that I don't reject in toto the assertion that it was a bloody awful mistake, specifically a blown VID by pilots pre-disposed to presume the worst.

All I am saying is it's time to let it go. Time to stop using an event from 40 years ago as the basis for "1001 reasons Israel is evil." America makes mistakes too ya know.

I don't think the Liberty event makes Israel, writ large, evil. In my first post in this thread, I acknowledge that Israel did the right thing when it became known what they had done: acknowledged culpability, called it a mistake, and paid reparations. Oddly enough, Saddam also cried "mea culpa" after the Stark, and so did the US did after the fish were fed in the PG by our Iranian chums. That does not stop Iranians from holding a grudge on that matter, does it?

DR

 

[zenith-nadir]

That does not stop Iranians from holding a grudge on that matter, does it?

DR

I guess I just don't understand holding a grudge for 40 years because 36 sailors, (who nobody can name off the top of their heads), died in 1967. I just don't. For me the Liberty has become a tool of the "see-I-told-you-Israel-is-bad" crowd.

With that I am Liberty-ed out.

 

[gtc]

just as Israel aided S. Africa's Apartheid regime)

I hear this bandied about a lot, what is the evidence?

I guess the difference is that Israel "deliberately" intends to drop bombs on old men in wheelchairs, and when half a dozen children are blown to smitherens in the process, it's a blame-free accident.

But the two situations aren't really comparable are they?

One was a civillian the other was a terrorist leader.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I guess I just don't understand holding a grudge for 40 years because 36 sailors, (who nobody can name off the top of their heads), died in 1967.

Then here are their names for the top of your pointed head:
LCDR Philip McCutcheon Armstrong, Jr., USN,
LT James Cecil Pierce, USN
LT Stephen Spencer Toth, USN
CT3 William Bernard Allenbaugh, USN
SN Gary Ray Blanchard, USN
CT2 Allen Merle Blue, USNR-R
QM3 Francis Brown, USN
CT2 Ronnie Jordon Campbell, USN
CT2 Jerry Leroy Converse, USN
CT2 Robert Burton Eisenberg, USN
CT2 Jerry Lee Goss, USNR
CT1 Curtis Alan Graves, USN
CTSN Lawrence Paul Hayden
CT1 Warren Edward Hersey, USN
CT3 Alan (NMN) Higgins, USN
SN Carl Lewis Hoar, USN
CT2 Richard Walter Keene, Jr., USN
CTSN James Lee Lenau, USN
CTC Raymond Eugene Linn, USN
CT1 James Mahlon Lupton, USN
CT3 Duane Rowe Marggraf, USN
CTSN David Walter Marlborough, USN
CT2 Anthony Peter Mendle, USN
CTSN Carl Christian Nygren, USN
SGT Jack Lewis Raper, USMC
CPL Edward Emory Rehmeyer, III, USMC
ICFN David NMN Skolak, USN
CT1 John Caleb Smith, Jr., USN
CTC Melvin Douglas Smith, USN
PC2 John Clarance Spicher, USN
GMG3 Alexander Neil Thompson, Jr., USN
CT3 Thomas Ray Thornton, USN
CT3 Philippe Charles Tiedtke, USN
CT1 Frederick James Walton, USN

With that I am Liberty-ed out.

Feel free to copy that list and refer to it at your leisure. On peaceful patrol in international waters. Killed for getting in the way of someone else's war, even though ample VID was available.

DR

 

[fuelair]

One last time and I am out on this too - until this site, I was never called anti-Israel because of my attitudes about the Liberty - and feel free (though you should already know since we have both posted on several sites) to go to my profile and see what I have had to say about Israel, IDF etc. Whether you like it or not, I am and will be (upset) about whatever Israelis were involved in that murder of US citizens/ assault on a US military vessel and I would happily have done to them what I would happily do to the slime that were involved in blowing up the marine barracks, dragging dead U. S. soldiers in streets, killing Israeli civilians, kidnapping Israeli military personnel, murdering children because they weren't smart enough to get to their father - i.e. I don't like terrorists in any form or uniform. I don't know the names of the three kids, the people dragged ,the marines in the barracks, (I do of the kidnapped Israelis) , the bombed and shot and iirc stabbed Israeli civilians, the people on the Lockerbie flight or the Liberty. I don't need to know their names to know they were assaulted/maimed murdered for no purpose I could possibly support. That said, otherwise I support Israel in its' fight to remain alive and do not in any way consider Israel my enemy. It is quite possible to hate one violent, terrible act without being against the country or the very large majority of its' people.

 

[a_unique_person]

I hear this bandied about a lot, what is the evidence?

IIRC, it was supposed to be about the need to test their nukes, a quid pro quo.

 

[Mycroft]

Where we disagree and will continue to disagree, I suspect, is that I think there are large numbers of people who believe the attack was intentionally aimed at an American ship who are not motivated by anti-Israel or anti-semitic feelings and you don't.

What do you think the motive of such an attack would be?

 

[davefoc]

What do you think the motive of such an attack would be?

First, to make it clear, I think the available evidence cuts strongly against the idea that an attack on an American ship was ordered by the Israeli government. One of the most important reasons for me is that the Israeli government doesn't seem to have had a good motive to do it.

Perhaps others will help me out here but I have heard two possible motives.

1. The Israelis were up to something no good and didn't want the Americans listening in on what it was.

2. The Israelis did it as a provocation with the idea of blaming it on somebody else.

Possibility one strikes me as on the edge of plausible, but highly unlikely.

Possibility two strikes me as implausible. The risk would have been enormous that the Americans would uncover a plot like that. In addition, it seems very unlikely that the Israelis would attack their benefactors just as a matter of their ethics. It is true that some Israelis did kill some British soldiers twenty or so years previous to this incident, so at least some Israelis were not above turning on benefactors, but those attacks happened before Israel was a country and the attacks on the British were condemned, I believe, by most of the Israeli factions.

There is also the possibility of a motive we don't know about.

 

[Huntster]

Those Israelis are just soooo damn sneaky.....

Yeah. Same with those damned Yankees.

Sometimes they're sneakier than Hell, and sometimes they're as inept as Hell.

It all depends on your ideology.

Like this particular issue is concerned, it's especially wonderful when we can blame the Jews for being oppressive against Yanks.

 

[Dr Adequate]

1. The Israelis were up to something no good and didn't want the Americans listening in on what it was.

2. The Israelis did it as a provocation with the idea of blaming it on somebody else.

Possibility one strikes me as on the edge of plausible, but highly unlikely.

Possibility two strikes me as implausible.

And there we go.

As for possibility 2, I think I've nuked it. As for possibility 1, whatever they were up to the Americans found out a day later, and I invoke the Suez crisis. If the Americans really didn't like what the Israelis were doing, they could have stopped 'em.

It is true that some Israelis did kill some British soldiers twenty or so years previous to this incident ...

A fact which, being British, I will condemn, until someone asks me whether, nonetheless, a state in the Israel/Palestine region can be legitimate despite being supported and founded by terrorism, at which point I guess I have to answer "yes".

If Israel is legitimate despite the Stern Gang, then Palestine is legitimate despite Hamas.

 

[Mycroft]

Dave, I think the point is that those that insist Israel did it on purpose are conspiracy nuts precisely because there is no real motive for Israel doing it that stands up under the slightest scrutiny.

Yes, it’s possible for someone to look at the evidence and still come to the conclusion that Israel did it on purpose without being an anti-Semite. All one really needs for that is to be swept away by the stories of the survivors.

But realistically, militaries around the world are filled with stories of colossal f-ups. You can’t spend an evening with someone recently in the military without eventually getting to that one story where everyone from Captain on down went along with this amazingly stupid idea, and they were all lucky to survive.

This one is worse than most because so many people died. But it’s also the kind of thing that happens in war, where a modern soldier is more likely to die from friendly fire than from the enemy.

The real issue is why it’s still controversial after 40 years.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Dave, I think the point is that those that insist Israel did it on purpose are conspiracy nuts precisely because there is no real motive for Israel doing it that stands up under the slightest scrutiny.

Right.

I am, as you know, no apologist for everything that Israel has done, and yet the only person on this thread who has offered a motive for the "deliberate attack" hypothesis is:

(1) Wrong.

(2) A Holocaust denier.

(3) A believer in the innocence of OJ Simpson.

(4) Raving, barking mad.

 

[davefoc]

Dave, I think the point is that those that insist Israel did it on purpose are conspiracy nuts precisely because there is no real motive for Israel doing it that stands up under the slightest scrutiny.

I think this is one of those strange situations where there is good evidence for the occurrence two mutually exclusive events.

On the one hand you have the nearly impossible idea that the Israeli pilots could have confused the American ship with any Egyptian ship. At least by the silhouette images I have seen the Egyptians had no ships that looked remotely like the American ship. In addition, the sailors on the liberty ship claim that an American flag was clearly visible. It seems highly likely to me that they were telling the truth on that. In addition the attack went on for a considerable length of time by different attackers. It is hard to imagine even given the fog of war that the incident could not have been an intentional attack on an American ship. Given these facts and others that I have read but can't recall in detail right now, I find it completely reasonable that many people would believe the attack was intentionally directed at Americans regardless of their views about Israel.

On the other hand you have the results of several investigations that have found that the event was indeed an accident coupled with the lack of a likely motive by the Israelis. And for me those two facts are enough to make a good enough case to conclude that the incident was probably an accident.

 

[Skeptic]

There were ten official American investigations, and three Israeli investigations (cite). So the conspiracy theorists want everyone to believe that all thirteen investigations MUST BE wrong and they, the conspiracy theorists, are right.

You're correct about that, Sabra, but that's not Dave's point. His point as I see it is to differentiate between those on the ship had good reason to think the attackers knew they were Americans, from later conspiracy theorists who use the sailors' recollection as proof that the attack was intended as an attack on an American ship.

The difference is that the USS Liberty crew could not know what the current conspiracy theorists do know but supress: to wit, that investigation of the Israeli side shows conclusively the Israelies didn't know the ship was American.

 

[Huntster]

Quote:
It is true that some Israelis did kill some British soldiers twenty or so years previous to this incident ...

A fact which, being British, I will condemn, until someone asks me whether, nonetheless, a state in the Israel/Palestine region can be legitimate despite being supported and founded by terrorism, at which point I guess I have to answer "yes".

Now, can opposed states in the Israel/Palestine region be legitimate despite being supported and founded by terrorism?

If Israel is legitimate despite the Stern Gang, then Palestine is legitimate despite Hamas.

Both are as legitimate as their diplomatic/military/political standing establishes.

I guess it's all in who is willing to fight, how hard they're willing to fight, and for how long.

He who fights, fights harder, and fights longer wins.

 

[Gurdur]

Funny thread.

.....especially wonderful when we can blame the Jews for being oppressive against Yanks.

Some Yanks here just whine so very much so often about being oppressed by everyone else, including being oppressed by the American electorate not doing what they want.

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
.....especially wonderful when we can blame the Jews for being oppressive against Yanks.

Some Yanks here just whine so very much so often about being oppressed by everyone else, including being oppressed by the American electorate not doing what they want.

Yup.

Some sure do. Like here?

Here?

Here?

 

[zenith-nadir]

Then here are their names for the top of your pointed head:

DR

I bet a weeks wages that even you had to refer to the internet in order to stuff their names in my face. It was 40 years ago, Israel said sorry, get over it already.

On peaceful patrol in international waters.

DR

Intelligence gathering ships don't patrol peacefully...they gather intelligence covertly. (cite).

in international waters

DR

12.5 miles off the coast of Gaza during the Six Day war (cite).

Like I said I am Liberty-ed out. You have your right to an opinion and I have my right to my opinion.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I bet a weeks wages that even you had to refer to the internet in order to stuff their names in my face. It was 40 years ago, Israel said sorry, get over it already.

Intelligence gathering ships don't patrol peacefully...they gather intelligence covertly. (cite).

12.5 miles off the coast of Gaza during the Six Day war (cite).

Like I said I am Liberty-ed out. You have your right to an opinion and I have my right to my opinion.

Let's see: your contention is that intelligence collection from international waters, or airspace, is a belligerent activity? How about from space? Is that too a casus belli?

No state of war between US and Israel.
No state of war between US and Egypt
No state of war between US and USSR

Signals collection ships, in international waters, conducting patrol, in peacetime, hence a peaceful patrol. Beyond FON, due to international waters, I'd like to understand how a passive intelligence collection activity is other than peaceful.

Was a Maritime Exclusion Zone declared by Israel before the attack?

DR

 

[WildCat]

New developments have come to light that I think settles it once and for all that there was a coverup here. And there's an excellent article in today's Chicago Tribune:

Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel's reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.

In declassifying the most recent and largest batch of materials last June 8, the 40th anniversary of the attack, the NSA, this country's chief U.S. electronic-intelligence-gatherer and code-breaker, acknowledged that the attack had "become the center of considerable controversy and debate." It was not the agency's intention, it said, "to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material," available at http://www.nsa.gov/liberty .

I think the only question left is why did Israel attack what it knew was an American ship, and why did the US cover it up?