Uss liberty attack

[Wobble 1]

I was just watching a documentary about the USS Liberty which was attacked by isreal a while back..

isreal was an allie!

first it is attacked by fighters for approx 20 min.. its comms get knocked out.. the crew runs up a US flag that is 4 times the size of the normal flag. to try and let the attackers know its an american ship... and still the fighters persist.. hitting the ship with rockets, guns and even napalm... untill they run out of ammo.. and leave

THEN

4 torpedo boats show up! they fire torps and hit the liberty.. then drive up to within 50 feet of the ship and begin firing point blank straight at it.. all the while the giant american flag is waving.. the ship takes a torp and sailors abandon ship into rafts.. they do this for 40 miniutes

then the isreale gun boats crusie up and start shooting up the life rafts.. with people in them.. all the while the soldiers are waving and screaming who they are while they are being cut down.

Finally the gun boats run out of ammo too and leave..

THEN a armed troop chopper full of soldiers shows up and just hangs around a while and then leaves..

the entire attack took about an hour.. and when the liberty FINALLY got its comms working (torp hit I-beam so it didnt sink) isreal's explanation was it was a mistake..saying they thought the ship was the Egyptian ship "El Quseir," and that the quseir was shelling their troops...

the el quseir was not shelling anyone, the El Quseir was a HORSE trading ship was less than 1/4th the size of the Liberty...and it was and had been at harbor.. then they say there was no flag.. but in the video and pictures taken during the attack you can plainly see a MASSIVE american flag... then they say the flag was not american.. which from the pictures taken DURING the attack it obviousley is... then they say that as soon as the torp boats got close they realized it was US and tried to help.. when in fact (testomony from both isreali crew and US) the ships closed in to within 50 feet and circled the ship hitting it with everything it had then shot up the people in the rafts untill it ran out of ammo and then left.. all while the giant US flag flying...

then they say the US ship was in the wrong place.. and that they were confused... kinda hard to believe that considering that for the last 40 min of the attack there was NO WAY they could not have known it was a US ship... since they were within 50 feet of it.. seeing a giant american flag, the letters on the ship and the american soldiers screaming at them that they are american.. as they are being shot..

its just a really strange story.. confuses me

wtf, anyone know anything about this?

[Wobble 1]

on a side note Isreal paid 12 million bucks for its "mistake" and made a public apology..

[Tovarish 0]

Yep, one of the weirdest and most suspicious cases of "friendly fire" or "accidental attack" I've ever come across....here's a crewmember's account of the attack. Just goes to show how f*%ed war is....and why did Israel feel the need to shoot up the liferafts, even if they were enemies?

*edit* to get to the account of the attack itself, click on the "continued on chapter 6" link on the bottom of the page

[RedRogue 0]

Surprising it takes a TV documentary to even bring this to the attention of today's people. Shows you how important history is to most people but anyway.

The attack occured on the 4th day of the "Six day war" if I remember correctly, which was in 1962... or was that 1967.  Anyway, the ship was a intelligence gather. Which is a ship that taps into RF transmissions and then rebroadcasts them back to NSA headquarters.

The ship was assigned there to gather intel on Arabic coms during the inevitable hostilites.  However the ship also picked up the Israeli coms and sent them still encrypted back to NSA.

Given the facts and the testimony of the crew which would get nothing out of fabricating a story, and the Israeli reports themselves which make little logical sense and full of inconsistances as one is sighted by Wobble above:

I have long come to the conclusion the attack was deliberately perpetrated to sink the ship with no surviors and prevent the ship from sending a distress signal identifing the attackers and bringing the 6th fleet to its aid, to allow the planned Israeli military actions to proceed against Seria without American intelligence gathering of Israeli coms.

As a footnote to why the ship was allowed to survive in my theory I can only suppose they perhaps thought the ship was sinking and maybe the 6th fleet would come looking and find the Israeli's redhanded so to speak. I find it highly suspect that the Israeli goverment issued an apology only apon and immediately following the ship managing to send an plain language distress signal identifing the attackers as Israeli. Alot of things do not add up on the Israeli account of this incident.

[RedRogue 0]

Addition to above:

Anyway it happened over 45 years ago, the people responsible are most likely dead or dying.  I just find it ludicrous that goverments must continue to lye about such things (with really bad ones btw) when they where clearly in the wrong.  This includes the U.S.A. government.

Chew on this; If the Allies had lost WW2 our military leaders would have most likely been put up on war crime trials much like the Germans where.  Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

[Assault (CAN) 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Anyway it happened over 45 years ago<span id='postcolor'>

Actually, it was 34 years ago. In June of '67.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If the Allies had lost WW2 our military leaders would have most likely been put up on war crime trials much like the Germans where. Truth is in the eye of the beholder.<span id='postcolor'>

True. However, the Allies didn't kill more than 6 million Jews in concentration camps. Though I'm sure the Nazis would drum up some fake charges.

Anyways, reading about the attack on the USS Liberty makes me pissed, I am a little confused as to why the U.S. is still supporting Israel.....

Tyler

[LordZach 0]

they the only democracy in the middle east and it would be bad PR if we dumped them. i'll take them over the saudis tho

[Badgerboy 0]

Here's the official website of the survivors who are still waiting for a USN enquiry into the case.

http://www.ussliberty.org

Lots of interesting information.

[Wobble 1]

Surprising it takes a TV documentary to even bring this to the attention of today's people

I had heard of it before seeing the docu on it, but like you said there is for some odd reason not alot of info about it.. other than the first hand accounts.. its like it was set on the back urner from the getgo..

[RedRogue 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Assault (CAN) @ Mar. 15 2002,04:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Anyway it happened over 45 years ago<span id='postcolor'>

Actually, it was 34 years ago. In June of '67.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If the Allies had lost WW2 our military leaders would have most likely been put up on war crime trials much like the Germans where.  Truth is in the eye of the beholder.<span id='postcolor'>

True. However, the Allies didn't kill more than 6 million Jews in concentration camps. Though I'm sure the Nazis would drum up some fake charges.

Anyways, reading about the attack on the USS Liberty makes me pissed, I am a little confused as to why the U.S. is still supporting Israel.....

Tyler<span id='postcolor'>

Wow, what where my math skills doing.

As for the second part, think about it. If Germany had won albit an unconditional surrender of the allies, then the world would have become reigned under their right and their wrong. So then the Holocaust would have been justified and right.

[theavonlady 2]

Israel's version, though as always judgement has already been passed and those that didn't even know about it until yesterday are already armchair experts.

[Longinius 1]

I made a thread about this a while back. The response was that it was no biggie, shit happens. I still disagree ofcourse (And no Avon, I am not an antisemite)

Funny how the American fighter-support was called back to. Had they arrived, they could have taken on the assaulting planes and boats and possibly saved American lives. But someone didn't want risking a conflict with Israel, even if it meant sacrificing some American sailors for it.

[RedRogue 0]

No Longinous, at the time of the launching of the F-4s they still did not know who was attacking the Liberty and had misidentified the Liberty as a USNS ship, a civilian ship under service for the navy and did not want to risk the possibility of a war with Russia if they where the aggressors.

[Longinius 1]

"No Longinous, at the time of the launching of the F-4s they still did not know who was attacking the Liberty and had misidentified the Liberty as a USNS ship, a civilian ship under service for the navy and did not want to risk the possibility of a war with Russia if they where the aggressors."

I find that very unlikely to believe and a shallow excuse even if it WAS true. The US have rarely backed down to defend their own no matter who has been attacking.

So, you are telling me that not only did the Israelis make an error when identifying the ship but the US navy did not know where its ship was or that it was under attack? Why didn't they send in planes to investigate? Why didn't they try to find out who the aggressor was?

I just don't buy in to that one. Especially since it was all covered over very smoothly afterwards and nearly forgotten about by everyone else except those that it affected.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Longinius @ Mar. 15 2002,08:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Why didn't they send in planes to investigate?<span id='postcolor'>

I'm just curious. Where did they US have planes in the vicinity at the time that could have scrambled to investigate this while it was happening?

[Longinius 1]

The assault took 2 hours.

The carrier America launched four F-4 Phantoms to intercept the attackers while the arial assault was still taking place. They were called back by Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara.

As I understand it America was a part of the sixth fleet, based somewhere around Crete at that time.

[RedRogue 0]

U.S.S. Liberty Before the Attack

U.S.S. Liberty After the Attack

Egyptian Calvary Horse transport - El Quseir

Now can someone point out to me how it would be conceivably be possible to mistake the Liberty for the El Quseir, a ship a quarter the tonnage of half the length and 2/3s the beam of the her.

Where in either ship does it look like these is any type of armament that could be used for shelling.

BTW, in that accounting AL it states the ship was calculated to be traveling at 30knots and then recalculated to be doing 28 knots later. As I do not know if it claims the ship was acutally traveling at 28knots the ship was only capable of traveling rated for 18knots. She was steaming at 5knots before and during the beginning of the attack anyway. Apparently they had someone with my math skills from this morning doing the calculations.

[Longinius 1]

"The attack on Liberty faded into obscurity until

last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford

came out with Body of Secrets, his latest book

about the National Security Agency. In a stunning

revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel,

a U.S. Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft, flying

overhead, electronically recorded the attack. The

U.S. aircraft crew provides evidence Israeli

pilots knew they were attacking a U.S. Navy ship

flying the American flag."

http://www.ussliberty.org/margolis.txt

He must be an anti-semite.

[Longinius 1]

Interview audio with three survivors.

http://www.spytalk.net/audio/SpyTalk-12-30-2001.mp3

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Longinius @ Mar. 15 2002,09:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">He must be an anti-semite.<span id='postcolor'>

Maybe he's just interested in making a fast buck out of scandal and sensation - true or not.

I believe it's happened before.

[Longinius 1]

Or just maybe he might be right.

On another note, a question for Avon.

The journalist or whatever one would call him in that audio clip is American and a jew. He has done military service in the Israel navy. Now, I went to the IDF website to find info but couldnt find any... who is allowed to do service in the IDF military? Is it something all of Jewish heritage can do or do they have to live in Israel?

[theavonlady 2]

Dug a little deeper and found this article, "Case Closed", including declassified testimony from IDF and IAF persons involved at the time.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Longinius @ Mar. 15 2002,10:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Or just maybe he might be right.<span id='postcolor'>

Or wrong.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">who is allowed to do service in the IDF military? Is it something all of Jewish heritage can do or do they have to live in Israel?<span id='postcolor'>

As a rule, all citizens and permanent residents are conscripted.

Israel allows overseas volunteers under various conditions. I don't know exactly what they are. I can't find a link either on the IDF site.

[theavonlady 2]

Must cook for the crew. Later!

[RedRogue 0]

This whole thing will and has gone down in history much like the incident with the U.S.S. Maine in 1898, we will never know all the facts nor will suspicion ever be removed from either side.