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20 Feb 03 - 11:50 AM (#894333) Subject: BS: USS Liberty From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar OK, I did a search on DT and forum and found nothing, but am intrigued to know if any 'Catters are familiar with the story of the USS Liberty. Last night Dutch TV showed a documentary (it appeared to be British-made) about the sinking of a US electronic intelligence ship the USS Liberty by the Israeli forces at the start of the Six Days' War and the subsequent cover-up by the US defence authorities. The incident led to the deaths of 35 unfortunate US personnel. But it also led to the launching of A4s carrying nuclear bombs, prepared to bomb Cairo on the assumption that the attackers had been Egyptian. The attack on Cairo was called off on McNamara's then Johnson's personal instructions with only minutes to spare. The explanation of the cover-up was that there was a contingency plan for a staged incident involving the "Liberty" as a pretext for the US atacking Nasser's Egypt, and it appeared that the Israelis had got carried away with the idea. The plan was cooked up by a "303 Committee" in the US intelligence community whose specialisation was dirty tricks carried out with the tacit acceptance of politicians but no detailed knowledge so that the politicos could plead innocence. Where it gets really nasty is the extent to which the US's supposed ally Israel went in their attempts to ensure that there were no survivors, following up an aerial bombing and cannon strafing with napalming, then torpedoing by the navy and even machine-gunning of life rafts which had broken loose. It was an extraordinary story which I had never heard even the remotest reference to before. It was all of a piece with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and retrospectively even the Cuban interpretation of the Maine incident looks perfectly moderate. Today I found several websites devoted to the incident, including this one. I'm quite amazed to have remained completely unaware of a story like this until now. |
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20 Feb 03 - 11:57 AM (#894339) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: Sorcha Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all............. |
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20 Feb 03 - 12:02 PM (#894346) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: artbrooks The basic story is pretty well known, although the business about setting it up as a pretext for an attack on Egypt sounds pretty far fetched. The Liberty was an intelligence (aka spy) ship whose mission was to monitor the communications of both sides during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It was attacked by the Israeli Navy and Air Force, who claimed they thought it was Egyptian. The ship was covered with large US flags...whether or not the Israeli fast movers saw them or not before they opened fire has always been an issue. |
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20 Feb 03 - 01:23 PM (#894417) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: GUEST,The Hated Guest The USS Liberty incident is a good example of the Hegelian Dialectic. Problem-Reaction-Solution. A govt will create a problem to unify the citizens, and the solution will be increased taxes or decreased liberties or war. The Liberty was supposed to draw the U.S. into the conflict in the Middle East...just blame it on Egypt. Other historical examples: *Nero burned Rome and blamed it on Christians. *Hitler burned the Reichstag (parliament) and blamed the Communists. *Churchill parked the Lusitania in dangerous waters and withdrew it's military escort so it would be sunk with Americans aboard and draw America into WW1. *FDR knew the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor a week beforehand and let it occur in order to draw the U.S. into WW2 *LBJ made up the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The attack never occurred. *The USS Liberty was attacked by Israelis and the plan WAS to blame it on Egypt...but the ship didn't go down and too many survivor / witnesses were left. So they were told to shut up. *The Clinton/Bush secret police bombed the Murrah Bldg. in Oklahoma City in order to get the 'Omnibus Anti-legislation' bill passed. *The Bush secret police carried out Sept 11 in order to enact 500 dormant 'martial law' provisions. "Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY." --Goering at the Nuremberg Trials |
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20 Feb 03 - 01:24 PM (#894418) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: GUEST,The Hated Guest That should read 'Omnibus anti-terrorism' bill...Clinton's pet project. |
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20 Feb 03 - 06:16 PM (#894654) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: GUEST,Claymore artbrooks has it basically right. There was no pretext issues and no A-4 ever took off with nukes. They were delayed over an hour as it was. The Israelis claimed it was a mistake and the US always felt that is was to shut off any leak of intelligence from any source, prior to their preemptive strike against the Egyptians. The History Channel has run the video they produced, several times over the years, though the Dutch version has not, to my knowledge, been run in the States. Perhaps the nuclear allegations are so demonstatively false that no station in the US would run it. However the rest of the truth is, unfortunately, still out there. |
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21 Feb 03 - 03:44 AM (#894985) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: Hrothgar If it was a stuff-up, maybe it was the CIA. |
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21 Feb 03 - 06:24 AM (#895034) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar According to the documentary, which featured interviews with several participants and examination of documents released many years later, the A4s did take off in a state of readiness which was described by a euphemistic term well known to naval personnel at the time as indicating that they were carrying nuclear armament. After calls to McNamara and Johnson they were recalled. Further aircraft were subsequently launched with conventional armaments in readiness to fly missions to protect the Liberty but they too were recalled. It was some hours before unarmed rescue missions were flown after the Israelis had withdrawn. The film didn't make any wild allegations. The inference which could reasonably be drawn was that there were some contingency plans for an "incident" involving the Liberty (which had sealed orders covering these plans that remained unopened), but that the attack by the Israelis went beyond what had been planned and was probably carried out without the connivance of the US in its actual implementation. I'm not trying to turn the Cat into a substitute site for conducting the argument about the Liberty (there are quite a few of them). I just wondered how well-known the incident was, given that I'd never heard of it before, and wanted to draw attention to what seem like sufficiently serious allegations as a reminder of the lengths that governments will go to to claim that "He started it", and take advantage of the chain of "retaliation" to broaden wars in directions which suit their longer-term strategies. Parallels with the present situation are rather obvious. |
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21 Feb 03 - 06:34 AM (#895037) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: McGrath of Harlow I'm rather assuming that at some stage soon there will be an analogous incident to get things moving. |
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21 Feb 03 - 06:38 AM (#895038) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar My point exactly. I presume that's why Dutch television chose to air it now. |
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22 Feb 03 - 11:12 AM (#895850) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: jmeadors I was on the USS Liberty when the ship was attacked. For more info about the attack you can visit our website at USS Liberty Veterans Association Home Page Joe Meadors joe@ussliberty.com |
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22 Feb 03 - 12:07 PM (#895904) Subject: RE: BS: USS Liberty From: Amos Joe: What did you see happen? A |