43rd Anniversary of Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty
On June 8, 1967, Israeli forces knowingly attacked an American intelligence ship off the coast of Egypt. Thirty-four Americans were killed.
Here is a new YouTube video that captures the spirit of the attack.
The Johnson administration responded by rushing to coverup the facts.
James Bamford, author of <strong>Body of Secrets</strong>, has unearthed massive evidence proving that the Israelis had definitely identified the ship as American before they sought to destroy it.
The fact that many of the files and tapes relating to the attack on the USS Liberty are still kept under wraps illustrates how truth has scant chance in DC – if some major interest group is profiting from official lies.
Some additional links on this subject are available at the blog I did on the last anniversary of the attack. .
It is naive to think that the Obama team would give a damn about getting the truth out about last week’s Israeli attack on the humanitarian relief ship, considering how the U.S. government has vigilantly covered up the IDF killing of 34 American sailors.
I’m by no means an apologist for the attack on the Liberty, but I would suggest reading the account of the spectacular ascent of Christian Zionism, specifically in the deeply pro-military south, in Eli Evans’ history of the Jews of the South “The Provincials” – merely for the sake of perspective of why American society probably couldn’t handle the truth about the Liberty at the time.
My own view has always been, and others in the know I’ve talked to support this, that the attack was basically a Dr. Strangelove scenario, in which a mad lower-echelon officer ordered it and once it happened cover-up was in everyone’s interest. While it obviously was not an accident, I’ve never found any of the proposed motives satisfactory. A retired foreign service officer I once put this to explained that reckless initiative by lower echelon officers has always been the modus operandi of the IDF, and accounts for most of the outrages they commit.
Having said that, however, the attack on the flotilla definitely seems, the more that comes out, to have been orchestrated by the Israeli leadership, an attempt to definitively tie Hamas to al Qaeda which has severely misfired.
Jack Ross wrote:
“My own view has always been, and others in the know I’ve talked to support this, that the attack was basically a Dr. Strangelove scenario, in which a mad lower-echelon officer ordered it and….”
I’m no expert on the incident but it strikes me at least that this is about the *least* reasonable of explanations, Jack. A *lower* echelon guy orders an attack on a U.S. warship … and people *obey* it? In a *sustained* manner? (Which the attack represented.)
Are you serious? You expect it to be routine for soldiers in the heat of battle to appeal their orders up the chain of command?
This topic causes way too much cognative dissonence for most people to handle. They stutter and stammer, “but but but, Israel is our greatest friend and ally,” and I chuckle, “you really think so?”
As I was not on board the USS Liberty, I don’t know what happened but am willing to go with the judgment of the American crewmen who all agree that it was a deliberate attempt by Israel to sink a clearly marked US warship in international waters and to kill the entire crew. The truly disgraceful aspect is that many lives could have been saved if Washington had not called back aircraft scrambled to assist the Liberty. Whoever made that decision should be identified from whatever records exist in the White House and should be regarded as a traitor to the United States. And then there is the carefully orchestrated cover-up by LBJ and McNamara and the failure of congress since that time to demand a full inquiry, which would include Israel’s surrendering all relevant documents on the incident.
When we Americans put our sons and daughters in uniform and send them in harm’s way and they are killed we have an absolute obligation to honor their sacrifice, to include establishing full accountability for why they died. Otherwise they have died for nothing.
Jack Ross wrote:
“Are you serious? You expect it to be routine for soldiers in the heat of battle to appeal their orders up the chain of command?”
Yes, and not only because at the very least one can easily imagine an Israeli pilot or boat captain asking for those orders to be confirmed when suddenly realizing that they’ve been ordered to possibly start a war with the U.S. by attacking a freaking U.S. warship, but because it’s my understanding that our people who heard radio intercepts heard *exactly* that happening: A flabbergasted Israeli pilot radioing in and asking for confirmation that he indeed was supposed to be attacking the Liberty.
Don’t try bullying, Jack, esp. when your position essentially absolving Israel by blaming the attack on a crazy “lower-echelon” Israeli officer is, to say the least, questionable, even just from the standpoint of common sense, which is all I did.
Moreover, your idea that it was a “lower-echelon” officer who ordered the attack also doesn’t mesh with the fact that not one but at least *two* branches of the Israeli military were involved. Nor with the fact that if it was some simply crazed lower-level guy who did it that, again at the very least, one would suspect some whispers of this would likely have leaked out but have not. Given esp. that it would be in Israel’s interest to see that done, much less perhaps to have just come clean from the start and explained it by putting it all on that crazed officer.
Again, it just seems to me your idea isn’t among the most plausible of explanations, but of course you’re entitled to it. You wanna get insulting defending it though you go right ahead; it’s the caliber of your thinking that I think will be perceived as the victim.
Thanks for your remembrance of the USS Liberty.
It doesn’t get much if any attention in the mainstream media.
All Americans should know of the heroism of the men on board that fateful day.
I wonder, will this post (too) be censored out by TAC?
The fact that the USS Liberty was attacked in international waters by the Israelis has never been disputed. It is also indisputable that the Israelis did not know it was a US flagged ship. They had a secret objective and did not want others to know what that was, and therefore attacked the Liberty to keep that secret.
Our government let our sailors down at the time, and it is hard to believe what they try to tell us now.
I know that the pilots asked credulously for confirmation, and I’m not sure why the involvement of two branches of the IDF negates my theory. Which, by the way, I only posit to reconcile the obviously deliberate nature of the attack with the unsatisfactory nature of any of the proposed motives, and which has been supported to me by people I trust on such matters.