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The USS Liberty: Case Closed

Skeptic

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In this article:

http://www.azure.org.il/9-Oren.htm

Yes, it is very long, but is well worth reading, since it is the definitive treatment of the subject. The NSA documents, so far as I can tell, only add force to this article's conclusions. In one sentence: it was a f--k up.
 
Holy thread Zombie. :eek:


A forum search would have given you 3-4 (more active) threads where this is discussed, including a link for the paper in the op.
 
Excellent article! The detail and relevance are unprecedented for openly available internet sources, re: the Isreali side of things.

And I'm already making "conspiracy theories" from it!
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-that-got-away.html

Debunk, anyone?

ETA: Then I see the announcement: Recent proliferation of Israeli / Palestinian Threads
Dangnabbit, apologies all.

Folks, behave!
 
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Thanks all for suffering my momentary re-animation - I just thought Oren deserved credit for perhaps blowing the case wide-open. Six years old this thing is, wow... further discussion of it as a conspiracy theory thing I took over here. Ciao all, good luck with the recessions and secessions and stuff...
 
On rereading the document linked to in the second post I found this:

Unbeknownst to both Martin and McGonagle, however, the JCS had repeatedly cabled the Liberty the previous night with instructions to withdraw to a distance of one hundred miles from the Egyptian and Israeli coasts. The transmission was delayed, however, by the navy's overloaded, overly complex communication system, which routed messages as far east as the Philippines before relaying them to their destinations. The JCS' orders would not be received by the Liberty until the following day, June 9, by which time they would no longer be relevant.
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Is it possible that one of the underlying factors in this attack is that the Israelis were privy to secret US Navy communications and based on this assumed that the Liberty had complied with the command to withdraw and the Israeli commanders therefore assumed that no American ship was where the Liberty was? This would explain the great secrecy on the parts of both governments. The Israelis didn't want to admit that they had access to secret American communications either because they were the result of covert operations or because the Americans didn't want them to admit to the level of cooperation between Israel and the US with regard to military operations.

As to the overall issue I just reread a bunch of stuff attempting to shore up or challenge my basic view that the Israelis did not intentionally attack an American ship and I came away with the same sense of it that I have had for awhile now:

It is completely incredible that the Israelis didn't realize that this was an American ship, but it is even more incredible that they did.
 
davefoc said:
It is completely incredible that the Israelis didn't realize that this was an American ship, but it is even more incredible that they did.
Click to expand...

Interesting summation. Clearly we're looking at two incredible situation, which is more could be debated. I'm not as certain as a lot of people just what happened - but leaning well towards they shoulda known, really should have.

As far as secret knowledge shading events, I'm sure there's something down that track. As far as these orders implying no US ship in the area, that might have held at first but fell apart when the Liberty was spotted and identified at about 6am. The screw-ups started after this, when Naval HQ decided to remove the ship from their chart.
 
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