U.S. agency confirms sinking of USS Liberty was accident

Haaretz ^ | 9/7/2003 | Nathan Guttman

[E Rocc]

I am quoting this article

http://www.shalem.org.il/azure/9-Oren.htm

with this reference:

27. LBJ, Country Files, Box 104/107, The National Military Command Center: Attack on the USS Liberty, June 9, 1967. See also Cristol, Liberty Incident, p. 55.

On the USSAmerica.org website, the history says the America carried A-7s, F-4s, and A-6s. Nowhere does it mention deploying F-104s, an air force interceptor which I'm quite certain wasn't carrier capable.

If the author of your source made an error this basic, it suggests sloppy research. Which indeed suggests he was more interested in arguing on behalf of his pre-held belief than stating the facts, and discredits his entire premise. Much like the original article in this thread saying the Liberty was sunk. Every other analysis of this incident that I have seen has said it was F-4s that were scrambled.

-Eric

[dark_lord]

The issue is whether it was a deliberate attack on an American ship. Now we know...Cold hard AMERICAN evidence shows that it was inadvertent.

Actually, not. Yes, the Israeli pilots were told it was an Egyptian ship. First an Egyptian warship, then an Egyptian cargo ship. So the pilots made their attack runs presumably believing they were attacking a ship from a state that was currently at war with Israel. And I don't think that pilots are looking that closely at a flag on a ship anyway, since flying the flag of another state is considered a "ruse de guerre".

That said, did the men who ordered the pilots to attack the Liberty know whether it was an American warship? Hard to say since everything has been covered up. There are really two good possibilities.

On the one hand it would appear they should have known. Anyone who uses Jane's book on ships will be identify ship type pretty quickly and nationality shortly after that (type first and then nationality because nations sell their warships to each other) right down to the exact ship. And since the ship was just "swanning around" there was not exactly any dire urgancy to go attack it before getting rock solid identification from visual analysis. Therefore from this perspective it would appear to be deliberate.

On the other hand, fog of war plus panic can cause stupid decisions made in haste, later regretted. It could be that the ship was sighted on radar and then not confirmed visually, and was ordered attacked by officers who were panicked. But in this case they screwed up badly since you don't just attack anything that moves on radar even if you are at war! That kind of foolishness causes a military to even attack its own units, and commanding officers are trained to avoid that kind of error. In this case there was no immediate hurry -- they had the time to get a proper visual identification and they either (a) did that and lied to their own pilots or (b) didn't do it and so screwed up.

[Poohbah]

It might be a typo. Aircraft designators get screwed up even by the folks who SHOULD know.

However, the F-4s launched from the USS America were loaded with nukes.

[Courier]

Israel attacked an American ship. Of course they screwed up badly.

We killed Canadians. We screwed up badly.

We have killed our own. We screwed up really badly.

There is a world of difference between even the most negligent screw up (even if not in the heat of war) and a deliberate act.

It never made sense that Israel would deliberately attack an American ship.

That claim was kept alive for 36 years by Israel and Jew haters who have been clamoring for classified US material to be declassified. They got their wish.

Now they will spin, lie and fantasize new scenarios..

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

My problem with what you said is not so much that you don't think our survivors' impression of the incident is the correct one. My problem with what you said is that you implied people who believe their account believe it because they have a problem with Jews, and that is simply false.

[wideawake]

My problem with what you said is not so much that you don't think our survivors' impression of the incident is the correct one.

It is correct. It is just, by necessity, incomplete. They couldn't have simultaneously been fighting for their lives and inside the IDF cockpits.

My problem with what you said is that you implied people who believe their account believe it because they have a problem with Jews, and that is simply false.

I believe the survivors' accounts are accurate. But anyone who thinks that the survivors were privy to all the details of what was going on either doesn't understand simple logic, or has some external agenda.

[Tommyjo]

http://www.nsa.gov/docs/efoia/released/liberty.html

From:


http://www.nsa.gov/

[grapeape]

That probably got the Isrealies attention. This is starting to get stranger and stranger. I have only seen the history channel special on this. Perhaps I should read more.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I don't think it's that black and white, because there have been some very good reasons to question the position of the Israelis. Doing so doesn't necessarily indicate an anti-Semitic"agenda" or an inability to comprehend the facts in this case.

I'm not anti-Semitic in the least, and I find the inability of the Israelis to have correctly identified the ship rather difficult to believe - and I might add that the inability to be critical of Israel is just as dysfunctional as irrational hatred of her.

[yonif]

But no anti-Semite will ever be convinced. They will just say that the US gov't is controlled by "The JOOZ" and that this is an ongoing part of some conspiracy.

Bump

[yonif]

I will trust the words of the men who served on that ship rather than our government or that of Israel's.

Not if they have an agenda that blurs what really happened.

[adam_az]

That's the important point - that the planes were turned around because they were armed with nuclear weapons.

[Tommyjo]

Failures in recognition are littered in conflicts/areas of tensions. Take for example the USAF shootdown of two US Army Blackhawks over Northern Iraq - 1994. One of the pilots made a visual pass on the Blackhawks and declared them as Iraqi Mi-24 Hinds. The result was that the F-15 pilots shot down the two Blackhawks with the resultant deaths of all 26 onboard. WW2 is also full of examples of mis-identification of ships/aicraft and vehicles and personnel dying as a result.

[yonif]

In case you haven't seen the thread and new messages placed by people.

Here is a good site which shows the inconsistancies the survivors reveal in a History Channel "documentary":

Here

And Here

[yonif]

Last October when I was writing an article about the USS Liberty in my college paper, I did speak to Judge Cristol on the phone and he even mailed me an email the Bush administration sent to this Liberty group saying that the US viewed this as an accident.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Not if they have an agenda that blurs what really happened.

What sort of agenda are you suggesting our survivors have?

[yonif]

The Liberty was not sunk, it was attacked with full knowlege that it was an an American ship. I am a Christian Zionist and "Haaretz" can pound sand, Labour Party sand at that.

Haaretz is simply reporting on this, not making up its own opinions. Here, want a right-wing publication? Go to Jpost - here

[yonif]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1057723800324

Jpost is reporting the same.

[yonif]

Tell it like it is brother. Those 34 U.S. sailors were murdered that day by an "ally"...

Are you saying that Israel planned on "murdering" those people a few days before the attack?

[yonif]

Take a hike...... I notice you don't deny there are many who hate Israel out there. Go play your game of lumping 'em all together on some one else.

Check out some of the links on their site, many leading to anti-Israel, pro-Arab sites.