Posted on 10/22/2003 5:25:49 PM PDT by TheOtherOne
Former Chief Navy Counsel Alleges Cover-Up by LBJ of 1967 Israeli Attack on U.S. Ship
Published: Oct 22, 2003
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In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt. Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Boston was senior legal counsel to the Navy's original 1967 review of the attack. He said in the sworn statement that he stayed silent for years because he's a military man, and "when orders come ... I follow them."
He said he felt compelled to "share the truth" following the publication of a recent book, "The Liberty Incident," which concluded the attack was unintentional.
The USS Liberty was an electronic intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty at what became known as the outbreak of the Israeli-Egyptian Six-Day War.
In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than 170 were wounded.
Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States.
After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining whether it was an accident.
It was "one of the classic all-American cover-ups," said Ret. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.
"Why would our government put Israel's interests ahead of our own?" Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack.
Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate.
Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev disputed any notion that Israel knowingly went after American sailors.
"I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy ship," Regev said. "This was in the middle of a war. This is something that we are not proud of."
Calls to the Navy seeking comment were not immediately returned.
In Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a cover-up. Attempts were made to reach Boston at his home in Coronado, Calif., but he did not return calls seeking comment.
Moorer's panel suggested several possible reasons Israel might have wanted to attack a U.S. ship. Among them: Israel intended to sink the ship and blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967 war.
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On the Net:
USS Liberty Memorial Web site: http://www.ussliberty.org
AP-ES-10-22-03 1943EDT
You do realize that the operational archives of the British and American navies were available for Israel's perusal, and that numerous popular histories of World War II gave detailed accounts of what did and didn't sink ships.
You argue that the Israelis were crafty enough to suborn two entire branches of the US government, but, at the same time, they were too stupid to crack open Morison's history of US Naval Operations in World War II and figure out that napalm wouldn't work?
However, I'd be interested in finding out the answer to this and all these other questions. Maybe we should condition our next aid package to Israel on 1) Israel's allowing us to examine all evidence relating to the attack on the Liberty, 2) allowing all Israelis involved in the attack to be cross-examined under oath and in public before Congress, and 3) allowing the survivors of the attack also to give testimony in public before Congress.
Sure, why not?
Do you think AIPAC would go for this?
A chance for some of "their" Senators and Congresscritters to cross-examine American sailors, to highlight every inconsistency in their testimony, and to reveal some of the unsavory organizations these sailors belong to?
AIPAC would say "Please don't throw Br'er Rabbit in the br'er patch!"
You might want to read what George Wahsington had to say about passionate attachments to foreign countries in his Farewell Address.
If the attack was intentional, it logically follows that it was planned.
Key word: IF.
Too bad that there isn't any evidence aside from hearsay that isn't backed up by actual documentation.
You can read all about the intercepts at the website maintained by the Liberty survivors.
I did. It relies on hearsay. Unfortunately, when Side A argues from official documents, Side B had better be arguing from official documents.
They also have a link to a very comprehensive, recent article in the Institute of Naval Proceedings concluding that the attack was deliberate.
I read the article. Norman Polmar ripped it to shreds in the next issue of the Proceedings.
Either Israel was horribly incompetent at war while competent in cover up, or it was an accident.
Occams razor says accident.
Sure you are.
You've done everything short of professing Shahadada.
Putting American interests before Israeli interests hardly makes me a Moslem.
Putting Wahabbist Wacko propaganda up and claiming that you're not doing so argues that you are.
There's a reason Admiral Moorer, Admiral Inman, Richard Helms and all the other American military and intelligence veterans maintain the attack was deliberate, you know.
Not only am I Roman Catholic, I have Polish ancestry, and the Poles drove the Turks from Vienna in 1683, saving Europe from Moslem dominantion. I have visited the shrine of the Black Madonna at Czestochowa, and seen the booty King Jan Sobieski brought back from the victory in Vienna, including, if I remember correctly, the Grand Vizier's tent.
Go ahead, ask me any question about Catholic theology: I dare you.
They did a pretty good job on the Altalena in 1948.
Would a country whose leader and *founding father* killed his fellow Zionist Jews and sank a ship containing desperately needed arms just to assure that he kept political leadership and control to himself also kill Americans if they thought their American sympathizers could help them get away with it? Oh yes.
Name the one area of theology that is completely off-limits for discussion by theologians.
The torpedos were thought to be enough to sink the Liberty, and the Napalm from the aircraft and 20mm explosive rounds fired from the patrol boats into the survivors on deck and to shread the liferafts were clearly meant to ensure that the crew wouldn't be around afterward to dispute the Israeli version of the *Arab attack on the Liberty.*
And of course, the cannon fire to the bridge was probably a deliberater attempt to kill the Captain and as many officers as possible.
-archy-/-
His stated reason in the article above is that he was a military man and an order is an order. He decided to speak out now because of the recent book "The Liberty".
This seems to be the pattern if LBJ, making sure that he controlled all of the outcomes of investigations. I am not sure though about the truth of this one of course.
The whole process of theology is one of seeking to understand faith by reason: as St. Anselm said, "fides quarens intellectum." (Yes, that's the same Anselm who gave us the Ontological Proof for the Existence of God).
Of course, there are any number of questions that are considered answered by theologians faithful to the Magisterium. But even answered questions benefit for new explanations in new ages, as Cardinal Newman argued.
And there are a large number of questions where the answers are less certain. Some Post-Vatican II theologians have pushed this concept beyond its limit, but even before Vatican II Catholic theologians recognized the concept of "theological notes" and viewed some doctrines as more firmly established than others. My Marist theology professor in college was quite interesting on this point.
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