[Rebelbase]

A+Bert, Is that you? Hahahahahaha!

[PoppingSmoke]

Never happened and the Israeli Art Students were not spying either. 125 got deported because of visa violations. Well pigs fly too now, I guess...

[CanadianFella]

Just recently 4 of my countrymen were accidently killed by an American bomb, but I don't think people will make much fuss about it in more than 30 years because just like Liberty, this was an honest and unfortunate mistake.
The obsession with USS Liberty has nothing to do with the ship and everything to do with hating and defaming Israel.

[Cicero]

Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara bear a lot of the responsibility for this disaster. Johnson was an evil man, McNamara a brainy fool who couldn't seem to do anything right.

Frankly, it would be better if the Israelis admitted responsibility and gave us, the families of those killed, and the survivors a real apology for this cruel and foolish mistake.

The U.S. has done some stupid things too--most notably clinton's unprovoked and criminal attack on Yugoslavia. When one of your leaders makes such a mistake, it's best to admit it and amend the situation as best you may. At least Israel had the excuse that their backs were to the wall and they feared that Johnson would intervene to make their situation even worse--which still doesn't excuse it.

[ProbableCause]

The fact that Isreal was able to deliberately attack our navy in international waters--and get away with it completely--tells you a lot about how our country is run. Anyone who says the attack wasn't deliberate is either a fool or liar.

[Aric2000]

This is old, it is done, it has been handled. GET OVER IT!!!

Israel is our ally, they have taken care of it the only way possible, with money and diplomacy, it ain't gonna bring back the dead, but it is over. So how about you guys get over it!!

[bmwcyle]

Old news, move on.

[VaBthang4]

You see the kind of crap that occures when Liberals are running the White House?

How in the hell do you put a spy ship into a warzone and 450 miles away from support?

Plus McNamara's actions were completely cowardly....another Liberal handjob that expected the sky to fall if the US defended itself.

"The carrier USS Saratoga scrambled fighters to come to its assistance. But Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recalled the fighters while they were in the air. Military experts maintain the secretary wasn't certain who was attacking the Liberty. They say he thought it might be the Russians and he didn't want to start World War III."

Anyway...

Israel did what it had to do.

I dont hold any grudges for what happened. I wish they would've just been up front with Washington but I dont know how much they could've or did trust the Liberals in the White House.

[fella]

Being a non-combatant in a free-fire zone is never a good idea.

[Clemenza]

Remember the Liberty Bump! WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

[Jackie222]

ping.......

glad to hear from you

:-)

[Zionist Conspirator]

Israei -- One atrocity 35 years ago.

Arabs -- hundreds of atrocities and murders against the US (servicemen and civilians) over a continuous period of thirty+ years.

Whose crime is greater?

Why, Israel's, of course!

Why? Why, because they're The Serpent Race, of course!

[End sarcasm]

Go back to originaldissent and discuss "the Aryan worldview" with your pallies.

[xvb]

United We Stand With Israel

[KLT]

Where'd you find this...What a bunch of BS....Hey, is this one of our anti-semetics incognito...

Here We Go Guys...another bunch of BS ping...

[anka]

amazing. an article such as this CAN be used by people to argue whatever agenda, be it pro-Israel/anti-Israel, they wish. but when you take it at face value what happened is, the Israelis attacked a KNOWN U.S. vessel. That some of you can defend this action just boggles the mind. I mean, you are U.S. citizens, right? But, it's ok if another nation, be it ally or not, attacks our forces, because, well, it was in that nations self-interest to do it. I mean, what business does the U.S. have in spying on our allies, right? Screw our own self interests, right? And if we get our nose bloodied because we were spying on an ally, oh well, we deserved it. Re-f*cking-diculous. So, next time an ally is caught spying on us, let's go balls-out and hit them as hard as can, repurcusions and opinions be damned. Attack a few of their military assets. Sentence a few of their spy's to death. I can't understand how you could can defend an attack on our armed forces by an ALLY for WHATEVER reason. It makes absolutely NO sense. (My apologies for not being very coherent, I just woke up...)

[AshleyMontagu]

After reading all the fuhgetaboutit posts I've changed my mind about the Liberty. On this 35th anniversary of the Liberty attack I think I'll spit on the graves of the dead Americans and raise a toast to Israel for having the courage to kill American kids aboard an undefended boat. Mazel tov!

[Minutemen]

This historical event makes you wonder who was running the show, and for whom the show was being run- Kind of parallels events happening today.
Already past the anniversary day, but let's remember and honor our boys lost that day 35 years ago on the Liberty!

[zapiks44]

MYTH

"During the 1967 War, Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty."

FACT

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake.

On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no Naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171.

Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out — to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels.28 The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai.

According to Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin's memoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore.29 The sea was calm and the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry found that the Liberty's flag was very likely drooped and not discernible; moreover, members of the crew, including the Captain, Commander William McGonagle, testified that the flag was knocked down after the first or second assault.

A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors.

The argument that the attack was a tragic mistake is further reinforced by a new biography of Yitzhak Rabin (Dan Kurzman, Soldier of Peace: The Life of Yitzhak Rabin. NY: HarperCollins, 1998), who was Israel's Chief of Staff during the war, which says the Israelis initially were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship and might have provoked the Soviets to join the fighting. The Israelis were relieved when they learned it was an American ship, though Rabin remained concerned the mistake might jeopardize American support for Israel.30

Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty.

Many of the survivors of the Liberty remain bitter, and are convinced the attack was deliberate as they make clear on their web site. In 1991, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak trumpeted their discovery of an American who said he had been in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to knowingly attack the American ship.31 In fact, that individual, Seth Mintz, wrote a letter to the Washington Post on November 9, 1991, in which he said he was misquoted by Evans and Novak and that the attack, was, in fact, a "case of mistaken identity." Moreover, the man who Mintz originally said had been with him, a Gen. Benni Matti, does not exist.

Also, contrary to claims that an Israeli pilot identified the ship as American on a radio tape, no one has ever produced this tape. In fact, the only tape in existence is the official Israeli Air Force tape, which clearly established that no such identification of the ship was made by the Israeli pilots prior to the attack. It also indicates that once the pilots became concerned about the identity of the ship, by virtue of reading its hull number, they terminated the attack. The tapes do not contain any statement suggesting the pilots saw a U.S. flag before the attack.32

None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides (five messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ship to remain at least 25 miles — the last four said 100 miles — off the Egyptian coast arrived after the attack was over) is a more probable explanation.

Accidents caused by “friendly fire” are common in wartime. In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns south of Jenin on the West Bank.33

Retired Admiral, Shlomo Erell, who was Chief of the Navy in Israel in June 1967, told the Associated Press (June 5, 1977): “No one would ever have dreamt that an American ship would be there. Even the United States didn't know where its ship was. We were advised by the proper authorities that there was no American ship within 100 miles.”

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress on July 26, 1967: “It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.”

In 1987, McNamara repeated his belief that the attack was a mistake, telling a caller on the “Larry King Show” that he had seen nothing in the 20 years since to change his mind that there had been no “cover-up.”34

Israel apologized for the tragedy and paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.