08Jun1967 - USS Liberty attacked by Israeli Air Force in Med

[outsider]

Remember, folks, this year 8th June is the 50th Anniversary of the murderous attack by Israel on the American spy ship the USS Liberty!
Let's not let it go by without doing something to bring it to people's attention.

Below is a comment I made on Craig Murray's blog last year:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/07/barbarians-at-the-gate s/comment-page-2/#comment-615669


'Ah, yes, the murderous attack by Israel on the USS Liberty - I campaigned on it a lot.

Whilst Paul Craig Robert's article is useful, it misses out an EXTREMELY important point - LBJ not only covered it up, he actually colluded in it. Another EXTREMELY important point is the first planes to be sent from the 6th Fleet were NOT to beat off the Israeli attackers, but to nuke Egypt (nuclear armed planes were also on the way from a US base in North Africa). It had been assumed by the time they got to the area, the Liberty would be sunk, all crew murdered, and the blame was to be placed on Egypt. The planes were recalled 3 minutes from target. I know not all the survivors accept this, but if you watch this: "USS Liberty: Dead In The Water":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA , and better still read Peter Hounam's 'Operation Cyanide', it becomes crystal clear.

LBJ had summoned the Deputy Israeli Ambassador, Ephraim 'Eppie' Evron (who was probably the Mossad Chief of Station) to meet him less than two weeks before the attack. Here is what he said, after talking about his recent trip to Canada: 'I, Lyndon Johnson, have to get congressional approval if I want to act as President of the United States. I'm just a six-foot -four Texan friend of Israel.

But you and I, the two most powerful people in Washington, are going to get the Congress to pass another Tonkin resolution'.

(I just copied that word for word from 'Operation Cyanide', page 267. We now know, of course, that LBJ massively increased the war in Vietnam on the lie of the 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident, which declassified documents now show never occurred. I also read Eppie Evron's recollection of the talk in a book written to detail exactly the recollections of key people involved in the Six-Day War, in a meeting held twenty five years after the event, designed to ascertain what lessons could be learnt; I forget the title.'

I've read a good number of books on the Liberty, including James Ennes' 'Assault on the Liberty'.

Here's another good article on the Liberty: 'The Most Incredible Story Never Told: The USS Liberty, Israel & LBJ's Order to Destroy the USS Liberty:

http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-most-incredible-sto ry-never-told.html

Also: 'USS Liberty Memorial': http://www.gtr5.com/

'Remember the Liberty' should be our 'War Cry' for 2017!!!!

[outsider]

[outsider]

And 'Dead in the Water' is back up:
'"USS Liberty: Dead In The Water" (BBC Documentary 2002)':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA

[outsider]

[TonyGosling]

The Six Day War has endured for 50 years
This conflict has caused untold misery for those living its consequences.
Tony Walker - Show comments
A week today the world will note the 50th anniversary of the start of the most enduring conflict of the modern era, and one which has caused untold misery for those living with the consequences.

On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against surrounding Arab states in retaliation for an Egyptian blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-six-day-war-has-endured-for-50-years -20170526-gwe1o3.html

In a matter of hours, Israel had destroyed 90 per cent of Egypt's Soviet-supplied air force, and over succeeding days, in what became known as the Six Day War, it seized the Sinai Desert and Gaza Strip from the Egyptians, Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Overnight, the Jewish state trebled the size of territory under its control.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-six-day-war-has-endured-for-50-years -20170526-gwe1o3.html
Moshe Dayan, Israeli Minister of Defence during the Six Day War.
Moshe Dayan, Israeli Minister of Defence during the Six Day War. Photo: Fairfax Media
By any standards this was an extraordinary military achievement, but the question a half century later is whether Israel, as an occupier of several million Palestinians, has been cursed by that success.

Might it not have been desirable for the country's leaders to declare victory and pull back to defensible boundaries, and thus avoid the opprobrium that inevitably accompanies occupation?

I can tell you, having observed it in various parts of the Middle East over many years, that occupation is as corrosive for the occupiers as it is for the occupied.

Anticipating criticism in the letters pages, let's assert that Israel was a victim of aggression by the Arabs led by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, that it had every right to defend itself to the best of its ability and, in the process, make use of territory gained in the conflict to negotiate a just peace.

What a smashing victory in 1967 did not entitle Israel to was to be a permanent occupier of territory and its people and settlers of land seized in war in defiance of international law.

Much will be published in the next several days hailing a stunning victory, but significantly less attention will be paid to voices in Israel who have sought to question that triumphalist perspective.

We should heed these voices since they represent, in many cases, fine Jewish traditions of moral courage and intellectual curiosity.

The distinguished Israeli writer, Amos Oz, had this to say in the aftermath of the 1967 war: "We are condemned now to rule people who do not want to be ruled by us. I have fears about the kind of seeds we will sow in the near future in the hearts of the occupied. Even more, I have fears about the seeds that will be planted in the hearts of the occupiers."

Some might describe Oz as a prophet without honour in his own country.

Or Benny Morris, the historian, quoted in The Guardian who said of the great paradox of the Six Day War victory:

"On the one hand, it contributed to peace because it was so decisive that it persuaded the Arab regimes that Israel couldn't be beaten militarily … On the other hand, it gave rise in Israel to a messianic right-wing expansionism and ideology that had not really existed before 1967."

Or Tom Segev, author of the definitive work on the 1967 war, 1967: Israel, the War and Year that Transformed the Middle East, who observed in 2007 on the 40th anniversary:

"Forty years of oppression and Palestinian terrorism, both extremely cruel, have undermined Israel's Jewish and democratic foundations."

It is interesting to compare Australia's cautious responses to Israel's 1967 war victory with alignments of today in which conservative politicians fall over themselves to identify with Israeli right-wing nationalists wedded to settlements on Palestinian land.

The recent visit to Australia by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a case in point. Hardly a word was heard from government ministers about Israel's continued settlement expansion.

This brings us to the arrival in the White House of a man who has described peace between Israel and the Palestinians as the "ultimate deal".

On his visit to the Middle East this month, including time in Saudi Arabia, in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories Donald Trump evinced what seemed like a naive faith in his ability to bring about a resolution of arguably the world's most vexed conflict.

But if there is reason for the slightest optimism it may well lie in Trump's unpredictability, and one other important ingredient best summed up by the Arab saying: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Thus, Israel and the Sunni Arab world led these days by Saudi Arabia – in lieu of an impoverished Egypt – might find common ground in their fear and loathing of the Islamic Republic of Iran whose shadow is lengthening across the entire Middle East.

Trump left the region without making any concrete suggestions about a way forward, and may well prove to be a false god, but at least in his public statements he did no harm. Fifty years after the Six Day War remade the contours of the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians deserve a fresh start.

Tony Walker is the co-author of Arafat: The Biography and a former Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times.

[TonyGosling]

Remembering the U.S.S. Liberty
The 50 year cover-up of a mass murder of U.S. servicemen orchestrated by Israel and its friends
PHILIP GIRALDI • JUNE 6, 2017 • 1,600 WORDS • 182 COMMENTS • REPLY
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/remembering-the-u-s-s-liberty-2/

There has been a lot of media coverage mostly written by Israelis or American Jews regarding Israel’s “victory” fifty years ago during the so-called Six Days War directed against its Arab neighbors but I have yet to see an account that mentions the fate of the U.S.S. Liberty. Nevertheless, the Liberty is not forgotten. This Thursday at noon at Arlington National Cemetery there will be a small gathering for the annual coming together with the survivors and friends of the most decorated ship in the history of the U.S. Navy, a victim of a particularly brutal and unprovoked attack by Israel that has been covered up for half a century by the powers that be in Washington. The moving service will include reminiscences by surviving crew members plus the ringing of a ship’s bell for each one of the thirty-four American sailors, Marines and civilians that were killed in the deliberate Israeli air and sea onslaught that sought to sink the intelligence gathering ship and kill all its crew. Present will be a number of veterans like myself and other Americans who are committed to ensuring that the story of the Liberty will not die in hopes that someday the United States government will have the courage to acknowledge what actually happened on that fateful day.

The Liberty survivors who will be present in Arlington on Thursday will be fewer than usual because the crew is having its own 50th anniversary commemoration in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the U.S. Atlantic fleet. In truth the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967, has almost faded from memory, with a younger generation completely unaware that a United States naval vessel was once deliberately targeted and nearly sunk by America’s “greatest friend and ally” Israel. The attack was followed by a cover-up that demonstrated clearly that at least one president of the United States even back nearly fifty years ago valued his relationship with the state of Israel above his loyalty to his own country.

It was in truth the worst attack ever carried out on a U.S. Naval vessel in peace time. In addition to the death toll, 171 more of the crew were wounded in the two-hour assault, which was clearly intended to destroy the intelligence gathering vessel operating in international waters collecting information on the ongoing fighting between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Israelis, whose planes had their Star of David markings covered up so Egypt could be blamed, attacked the ship repeatedly from the air and with gunboats from the sea. When one Israeli pilot hesitated, refusing to attack what was clearly an American ship, he was instructed to proceed anyway.

The most disgusting part of the tale relates to how U.S. warplanes sent to the Liberty’s aid from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean were called back by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara acting under orders from President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who declared that he would rather see the ship go to the bottom of the sea than embarrass his good friend Israel. Ironically, the first ship to reach the Liberty and offer assistance was from the Soviet Union, an offer that was declined.

Johnson reportedly feared Jewish influence over Congress and in the media, which might work together to block his “Great Society” legislative initiatives, not to mention his expected reelection bid in 1968. It was an early manifestation of the power of the Jewish lobby in American politics and foreign relations. One has to hope that both LBJ and McNamara are currently burning in hell.

The incredible courage and determination of the surviving crew was the only thing that kept the Liberty from sinking. The ship’s commanding officer Captain William McGonagle was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic role in keeping the ship afloat, though President Lyndon Baines Johnson broke with tradition and refused to hold the medal ceremony in the White House, also declining to award it personally, delegating that task to the Secretary of the Navy in a closed to the public presentation made at the Washington Navy Yard. The additional medals given to other crew members in the aftermath of the attack made the U.S.S. Liberty the most decorated ship based on a single engagement with hostile forces in the history of the United States Navy.

The cover-up of the attack began immediately. The Liberty crew was sworn to secrecy over the incident, as were the Naval dockyard workers in Malta, and even the men of the U.S.S. Davis, which had assisted the badly damaged Liberty to port were ordered to be silent. A hastily convened and conducted court of inquiry headed by Admiral John McCain acted under orders from Washington to declare the attack a case of mistaken identity. The inquiry’s senior legal counsel Captain Ward Boston, who subsequently declared the attack to be a “deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew,” also described how “President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” The court’s findings were rewritten and sections relating to Israeli war crimes, to include the machine gunning of life rafts, were excised. Following in his father’s footsteps, Senator John McCain of Arizona has used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to effectively block any reconvening of a board of inquiry to reexamine the evidence. Most of the documents relating to the Liberty incident have never been released to the public in spite of the 50 years that have passed since the attack took place.

The faux court of inquiry and the medals awarded in secret were only the first steps in the cover-up, which has persisted to this day, orchestrated by politicians and a media that seem to place Israel’s interests ahead of those of the United States. Liberty survivors have been finding it difficult even to make their case in public. In April 2016 a billboard that read “Help the USS Liberty Survivors – Attacked by Israel” was taken down in New Bedford Massachusetts. The billboard had been placed by the Honor Liberty Vets Organization and, as is normal practice, was paid for through a contractual arrangement that would require the billboard company to post the image for a fixed length of time. It was one of a number of billboards placed in different states. Inevitably, Israel’s well connected friends began to complain. One Jewish businessman threatened to take his business elsewhere, so the advertising company obligingly removed the billboard two weeks early.

After fifty years, the dwindling number of survivors of the Liberty are not looking for punishment or revenge. When asked, they will tell you that they only ask for accountability, that an impartial inquiry into the attack be convened and that the true story of what took place finally be revealed to the public.

That Congress is deaf to the pleas of the Liberty crew should surprise no one as the nation’s legislative body has been for years, as Pat Buchanan once put it, “Israeli occupied territory.” The Lobby’s ability to force Congress and even the presidency to submit to its will has been spelled out in some detail by critics, first by Paul Findley in They Dare to Speak Out, later by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in The Israel Lobby, in Alison Weir’s Against Our Better Judgment, and most recently in Kirk Beattie’s excellent Congress and the Shaping of the Middle East.

Government willingness at all levels to protect Israel even when it is killing Americans is remarkable, but it is symptom of the deep corruption that has generated a tendency to go to bat for Israel reflexively, even when it is damaging to U.S. interests and to the rights that American citizens are supposed to enjoy. I note particularly legislation currently working its way through Congress and numerous statehouses make it illegal for any federal or state funding to go to any entity that supports the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, better known as BDS. BDS is a way to put pressure on the Israeli government over its human rights abuses that is both non-violent and potentially effective. Israel’s supporters have labeled BDS as anti-Semitic and have had some success in making any criticism of Israel labeled a “hate crime.”

So the treatment of the U.S.S. Liberty should surprise no one in a country whose governing class has been for decades doing the bidding of the powerful lobby of a tiny client state that has been nothing but trouble and expense for the United States of America. Will it ever end? As the Israel Lobby currently controls the relevant parts of the federal government and much of the media, change is not likely to happen overnight, but there are some positive signs. The BDS movement is growing in spite of the pressure it is experiencing and will not go away. And opinion polls suggest that the American people are finally waking up to realize that they are sick and tired of the entire farce playing out in the Middle East under Israeli direction. Israel, which aggressively spies on us, kills our citizens and takes billions of dollars of our tax money which could be better spent here, is no friend of the United States and never has been. Just ask anyone who served on the U.S.S. Liberty.

[outsider]

'Israeli paper investigates 50-year-ago attack on ‘USS Liberty,’ while US papers leave it in the letters column':
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/07/israeli-investigates-letters/

'...Earlier this week Haaretz once again showed itself to be head and shoulders above U.S. media in addressing issues of Israel’s influence inside U.S. politics when it published a major inquiry into one of the lingering mysteries of the 1967 Six-Day War: Why did Israeli jets and boats attack the USS Liberty, a spy ship, on the fourth day of the war, killing 34 Americans and wounding scores of others?

The article reaches no fresh conclusions about the reason for the attack, or why it was swept under the rug with an apology and a handshake, but its headline is enormously provocative —

‘But Sir, It’s an American Ship.’ ‘Never Mind, Hit Her!’

And those lines are taken from a new American book on the case, a study that the U.S. press is ignoring. That’s the problem here; Haaretz is confronting a U.S. mystery head on during an important anniversary when no US media will touch the story.

Our business here is not to credit one theory or another about the attack on the Liberty. We could accept the view, which the Haaretz article endorses, that the attack was a mistake or “screw-up” in the fog of war. But as Haaretz states, the evidence is ambiguous, and conspiracy theories about the attack still abound. And the chief adherents of these theories are survivors of the attack or family members, or U.S. Navy supporters.

What is unquestionable is the magnitude of the attack: it was a grave blow to the burgeoning U.S.-Israel special relationship, yet President Lyndon Johnson, who was far more friendly to Israel than John Kennedy, was willing to let the matter pass without a blow-up. That pattern, of letting the Liberty attack go as just some kind of misunderstanding, has persisted to this day in the American media silence about the case even on its 50th anniversary.

The coverage has largely been international. Three years ago Al Jazeera did an investigation of the case, concluding:

The top Israeli commanders, [former CIA official Bobby Ray Inman] explained, had known exactly what they were doing when they attacked the Liberty and when it came to holding them to account, the US government rolled over for them.

Google news results for the USS Liberty today, and it’s fascinating. Our leading journals have nothing to say about the 50th anniversary of the Liberty. Besides the Haaretz story, all the leading results are for letters to the editor from people who can’t forget the Liberty. Like this from Allan Gehring in Florida to the Berkshire Eagle, alleging an official coverup:

News media that learned of the attack were warned not to run stories on the assault by powerful forces within our society and, as a result of that suppression, most Americans still do not know about the assault....'

'....Here are two interesting passages from the Haaretz story. One quotes at length from a new US book on the matter. That book must be hard to find in the United States!

Israel apologized and paid compensation to the victims’ families. Israeli and American commissions of inquiry found that the attack was a mistake. But naturally, as often happens in such events, to this day there are some who believe Israel attacked the ship with malicious intent. . .

A new book published in May in the United States (its authors include several survivors of the attack) promises that “the truth is being told as never before and the real story revealed.” The 302 pages of “Remember the Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas” include quite a number of documents, testimonies, arguments and information that were gathered in the subsequent 50 years . . .

The book includes, among other things, a CIA document from November 1967 that is still partially censored. In the document, which is also on the official CIA website, an anonymous source is quoted as saying: “They said that [then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe] Dayan personally ordered the attack on the ship, and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the action and said, ‘This is pure murder.’”. . .

On the other hand, the new book quotes a story reported by former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter, who recounted a conversation between an Israeli pilot and the Israel Air Force war room, which was allegedly picked up by an NSA aircraft and inadvertently cabled to CIA offices around the world:

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship – I can see the flag!

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.

Haaretz is not convinced the attack had higher-ups’ approval, but it cites an Israeli historian’s diggings raising questions about that narrative, and documents the Israeli belief that the attack could open a “malignant wound” in U.S.-Israel relations:

In response to a recent request by historian Adam Raz. . . the Israel State Archives posted hundreds of documents on its website related to the USS Liberty affair. . .

[Raz] refuses to accept the assertion that the claims Israel hit the ship deliberately are a conspiracy.

One of the documents Raz found among the hundreds of papers published by the State Archives is the Israeli Foreign Ministry correspondence that was sent from New York to Jerusalem.

“Menashe informed us we had better be very careful. He doesn’t have complete information but he knows that Issaschar is very angry about our letter. The reason is apparently that the Americans have findings that show our pilots were in fact aware the ship was American,” according to the document.

And later: “Menashe believes there is a recording on the ship of the conversations between the ship and our pilots, in which the ship’s crew said the ship is American. Menashe says that, in his opinion, our only chance of getting out of the crisis is to punish someone for negligence.”

In another document, which is also now posted online by the State Archives, the Israeli Embassy in Washington writes to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem under the heading “Urgent.”

“We must change the abovementioned letter, because we certainly won’t be able to say there is no basis for the accusation that the identity of the ship was determined by Israeli planes prior to the attack,” it declares.

In other documents, which are fascinating in themselves, there is documentation of Israeli preparations for the U.S. investigation and the demands for compensation that were to follow.

“The issue has turned into a malignant wound, which involves serious dangers for all of our relationships on all levels here, whose friendship was ours until now and which are crucial to our status in the United States. In other words, the president, the Pentagon, public opinion and the intelligence community. Do you realize that the president is also the supreme commander of the U.S. armed forces?” wonders the Israeli Embassy in Washington, in a telegram to the Foreign Ministry.

The piece concludes in the camp of Amir Oren and Tom Segev, Israeli historians who have treated the event as a mistake without malicious intention. Credit Haaretz with the courage to raise the question — which is more than we can say for the New York Times and the Washington Post.'

Haaretz has a lot more guts than our 'MSM' Presstututes!


Here's the actual article:
''But Sir, It’s an American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' When Israel Attacked USS Liberty': http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.800584

[outsider]

'American Legion calls for full investigation into Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty':
https://israelpalestinenews.org/american-legion-calls-full-investigati on-israels-attack-uss-liberty/

'In a historic move, the American Legion, at its national convention in Reno on Thursday, August 24, 2017, approved Resolution 40 (text provided below) calling for the first full U.S. government investigation of Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.......'

'....While Legion members have long been supportive of the Liberty crew, Legion leaders have often managed to torpedo resolution. The resolution was passed over a recommendation by a Legion steering committee member that it be rejected......'

[outsider]

[outsider]

First time I've heard this info; I know the USS Amberjack was on site and even that they had filmed the attack through their periscope (from, I believe, Peter Hounam's book 'Operation Cyanide'), but this Liberty survivor heard that the Amberjack actually fired the torpedo that hit the Liberty.
The Amberjack info starts about 40:00 into the audio:
'1967: USS Liberty attacked by submarine USS Amberjack – Crew member blows whistle':
https://lipstick-and-war-crimes.org/1967-uss-liberty-attacked-by-subma rine-uss-amberjack-crew-member-blows-whistle/

Obviously it would be good to have confirmation, but we're not likely to get it.
He sounds extremely genuine.

[outsider]

Today is the 52nd anniversary of Israel's murderous attack on the USS Liberty.
The USS Liberty was also a case where draconian threats were made to cover up War Crimes against American survivors who were threatened by a US Admiral of Court Marshall, long prison terms 'or worse' if they so much as mentioned the attack to anyone, even their families.
See "USS Liberty: Dead In The Water":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
and for much more detail, read Peter Hounam's book 'Operation Cyanide'.
Also see 'USS Liberty Memorial: http://www.gtr5.com/

In the US, a Petition Drive: https://www.facebook.com/events/300258114238048/

'52nd Anniversary of Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty':
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/06/08/52nd-anniversary-of-is raels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty/

[outsider]