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
|
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.
---
On the Net:
USS Liberty Memorial Web site: http://www.ussliberty.org
AP-ES-10-22-03 1943EDT
The Liberty was attacked while Israel was at war with Arab countries around it.
Dunno. It just happens to turn out that way. :)
Are you saying that all the members of Congress who invesigated this event and found it to be an accident are "dual loyalists?"
Some conspiracy theory ya' got going there.
As for my sources on this, I got interested in the Liberty after reading about it in columns by Charley Reese and Bob Novak. I don't think either of them are Moslems, either. Most of my knowledge comes from the material contained in the website of the survivors of the attack, none of whom, so far as I am aware, are Moslems. What is most galling is not the initial attack, as horrific as that was, but the supine and shameful response of Americans to the attack, beginning with the Johnson-McNamara coverup alleged by Captain Boston and continuing to the attacks on anyone who dares raise the topic.
AMDG et BVMH
Looks like you signed up just to spread your filth. My father was in the US Army and I do not have Israeli citizenship
Ranger Smedley Butler
Since Oct 23, 2003
|
|
|
|
Still waiting, Thorin. All you could do is play your antisemite card. Job to big? Here, work on this on. Ill settle for one President, proven to be a shill for Israel, if you can.
....................
Dear Mr. Tourney:
Thank you for your letter to President George W. Bush concerning USS LIBERTY. I am answering on behalf of the President.
I can certainly understand your motivation in writing. The People of the United States will forever remain in debt to those crewmen of USS LIBERTY who sacrificed their lives in the service of their country. In reference to your letter, the main question posed to the investigative team was whether the attack by the Israeli armed forces on USS LIBERTY was deliberate. The Navy convened a court of inquiry immediately after the event to review this question and address other concerns. Much of the hearings and testimonies were classified as they dealt with the nature of the Navy's electronics and communications technology. Large portions of this report have subsequently been declassified.
Israel accepted responsibility for the attack and made a public apology for the incident. Additionally, as you already know, the Government of Israel paid reparations for the death and injuries suffered by your shipmates on LIBERTY and for the damage to the ship caused by this tragic and unfortunate incident.
The results of the investigations, and the conciliatory actions of the Government of Israel, were considered satisfactory to Administration and Defense officials. At this time, there is no precedent to reinvestigate this case and no plans have been made to do so. Please be assured that we have taken measures to prevent an incident of this tragic nature from occurring in the future.
Again, thank you for writing to the President.
Sincerely,
(sig)CHRISTOPHER J. ROUIN
Director, White House Liaison Office
Office of the Secretary of the Navy
....................
You might want to read what George Wahsington had to say about passionate attachments to foreign countries in his Farewell Address.
The cut and paste historian strikes again?
Ive read the entire address (like you-ha, ha), and have some familiarity with the period, particularly the events of 1798 and 1823 which clearly impact on Washingtons remarks.
I see no relevance in Washingtons remarks about permanent alliances to the 1967 war at all, nor do passionate attachments come into play, the USs relationship to Israel at the time could hardly be called passionate.
There is some relevance though. Washington warns as well about those who indulges towards another a habitual hatred becoming a slave to its animosity.
Equally relevant, So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop
let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. Clearly Washington would have honored our firm commitment to keep the Gulf of Aqaba open to Israeli shipping, made as an inducement to return the Sinai to Egypt. In that event, the 1967 war might well not have happened.
Israel was fighting a war for it's existence. The USA are should not have had spy ship there. Beyond that the rest is up in the air
You have made 29 posts in the last month and 25 of them are on this thread. What woke you up? The chance to slam Israel? Typical
Filth?
It's odd seeing this rubbish spouted by purported conservatives, though it does explain where the canard of the right wing bigot comes from.
More likely he signed up again today, after having been banned at some point. Our "gain" is probably LF's loss. ;)
Then, unlike the poster you're excused. Smedley Butler was a Marine, not a ranger.
The loyal American Jews were the ones aboard the U.S.S. Liberty, not those defaming United States sailors on behalf of a foreign government.
A lot of people on this board exhibit no such remorse. Quite the contrary.
Plausible, keep us stuck in the middle of their shiite.
Or something a little darker: the fear that the Liberty might reveal evidence of Israeli war crimes, the murder of Egyptian Prisoners of War.
After all, if the Israelis really did believe that the Liberty was an Egyptian ship, their machine-gunning of the life rafts in the water and of the stretcher bearers on the Liberty's decks was a war crime punishable by hanging.
Reprinted with permission
from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
May/June 1996USS Liberty
Did Israel commit one war crime to hide another?By James M. Ennes, Jr.
Washington Report readers know the story well. In 1967 on the fourth day of the Six Day War, the armed forces of Israel attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty for 90 minutes in international waters in broad daylight following several hours of close, low-level reconnaissance. Thirty-four men died, 171 were hurt, and the ship was so badly damaged that it had to be scrapped.
The government of Israel has lied about the circumstances ever since, telling a story markedly different from that told by American survivors. Congress has refused to question Israel's demonstrably false account, even though the State Department's own analysis finds the Israeli story to be untrue.
Yet the most pressing question remaining from that infamy is not whether the attack was deliberate. That was settled long ago for most reasonable people. The question is why Israel risked its cozy relationship with America by killing American seaman on the high seas.
Indeed, spokesmen for Israel use that question in Israel's defense. Why, they ask, would Israel risk alienating its American friends?
So why did Israel attack? Intelligence analysts and others have long supposed that Israel attacked to prevent the ship from reporting the impending invasion of the Golan Heights, then imminent despite cease fire pleas by the United States. Israel's defenders reject that explanation.
Recent reports in the Israeli and Egyptian press suggest another powerful possibility.
According to eyewitness accounts by Israeli officers and journalists, the Israeli Army - the army that claims to hold itself to a higher moral standard than other armies - executed as many as 1,000 Arab prisoners during the 1967 war.
Historian Gabby Bron wrote in the Yediot Ahronot in Israel that he witnessed Israeli troops executing Egyptian prisoners on the morning of June 8, 1967, in the Sinai town of El Arish.
Bron reported that he saw about 150 Egyptian POWs being held at the El Arish airport where they were sitting on the ground, densely crowded together with their hands held on the back of their necks. Every few minutes, Bron writes, Israeli soldiers would escort an Egyptian POW from the group to a hearing conducted by two men in Israeli army uniforms. Then the man would be taken away, given a spade, and forced to dig his own grave.
"I watched as (one) man dug a hole for about 15 minutes," Bron wrote. "Afterwards, the (Israeli military) policeman told him to throw the shovel away, and then one of them leveled an Uzi at him and shot two short bursts, each of three or four bullets."
Bron says he witnessed about ten such executions, until the grave was filled. Then an Israeli Colonel threatened him with a revolver, forcing him to leave the area.
USS Liberty was nearby
As those executions were underway, America's most sophisticated intelligence platform, USS Liberty, was less than 13 miles from El Arish.
We were close enough to see the town mosque with the naked eye. With binoculars we could make out individual buildings and might have seen the executions if we had looked in the right place.
Could our operators have heard voice radio messages revealing these killings? Did senior Israeli officers sanction the murders, or did they learn of them? How would they have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?
Would they have been desperate enough to attack an American ship?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.