How the USS Liberty Incident almost caused World War III

Please read the whole thing, even if you think you know what the Liberty Incident is all about and especially if you are not familiar with the topic. Thanks.

Thanks to the incomparable Phillip Weiss blog, I have found out that the USS Liberty is not in the news again.

Mr. Nader has pressed Mr. McCain in the liberty incident matter.

But how is the McCain name even associated with the Liberty Incident?

Lets go to the www.military.com/news article, Nader Presses McCain on Liberty Attack, October 31, 2008 off Knight Ridder.

Adding to his usual criticisms of the "corporate candidates" from the two major parties, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader yesterday introduced a wrinkle, calling on John McCain to come clean about Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.

"He doesn't like to have his character impugned. I'm challenging his character on this point," Nader said in a news conference at the Statehouse.

McCain was not involved in the incident, which killed 34 American sailors amid the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations. Israel said the attack was a case of mistaken identity, and McCain's father, Adm. John S. McCain Jr., approved an investigation that determined the incident was a mistake.

Nader is among those who think the report was a cover-up. He's dragging McCain into it because the senator wrote a positive note on a 2002 book, The Liberty Incident, that also concluded the attack was an accident.

"He has been asked again and again by these Sailors and their families to come clean," Nader said. "Instead, he endorses a propaganda book that says it was accidental. That reflects on his character."

So the father of John McCain led an official investigation that concluded that Israel was blameless in the killing of 34 (thirty four!) American sailors.

A whitewash if you will.

This is momentous news, as the sailor survivors do not agree with the official American and Israeli version of events (more on that later in article).

First things first - lets see how this news is covered in the mainstream media.

Google news query for "Nader McCain Liberty" keywords: hmm, only brings back the military.com page, with the rest of the list having totally different topics.

OK, lets go to the reliable Reuters, key words "Nader Liberty" - No results were found. Your search for 'nader liberty' produced 0 results.

Hmmm.

OK, lets go to Associated Press - keywords "Nader Liberty" - There were no matches for your search.

The CNN site search, keywords "Nader Liberty", bring forth a lot of results, mostly about the Liberty Bill, and lo and behold that www.military.com/news site again.

MSNBC website - searching for Nader McCain Liberty. Lots of stories pop up, that have nothing to do with the Liberty Incident.

I give up.

Mr. Ralph Nader calling Mr. McCain on his father's involvement in the whitewash investigation of the Liberty Incident never happened. It just became an Orwellian un-person, or perhaps un-news.

The ONLY website that covers it that I can find right now is the www.military.com/news web site.

It does not exist, everybody move along now - go back to watching the Obama/McCain circus act...

But we will not.

Lets investigate a bit.

Lets hit the Wikipedia site first.

During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status. Shortly before the war began, the USS Liberty was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean to perform an electronic intelligence collection mission. Due to concerns about her safety, after the war erupted and as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to change her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 nautical miles (23 km) and 6.5 nautical miles (12 km), respectively, to 20 nautical miles (37 km) and 15 nautical miles (17 km), and then later to 100 nautical miles (185 km) for both countries. Unfortunately, due to inadequate message handling and routing, the CPA change messages were not received until after the attack.

On June 5, at the start of the war, General Yitzhak Rabin (then IDF Chief of Staff) informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal, including sinking unidentified ships. He asked the U.S. to keep it ships away from the shore or at least inform Israel of their exact position.[3] (p.22) [8] Despite this, the United States did not give Israel any information about the Liberty.(ibid) As war broke out Captain William L. McGonagle of the Liberty immediately asked Vice Admiral William I. Martin at the U.S. 6th Fleet headquarters to send a destroyer to accompany the Liberty and serve as its armed escort and as an auxiliary communications center.

The following day, June 6, Admiral Martin replied: “Liberty is a clearly marked United States ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied.”

He promised, however, that in the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet could be overhead in ten minutes.

So a request for a naval escort by the captain was denied, but he was assured by the admiral in charge that help was close at hand anyway - the powerful Sixth Fleet, with its aircraft carriers packed with fighters and fighter bombers was standing by.

According to the Naval Court of Inquiry and National Security Agency official history, the order to withdraw was not broadcast on the frequencies that the Liberty crew was monitoring for orders until 1525 Zulu, hours after the attack, due to a long series of administrative and communications problems. The Navy said a large volume of unrelated high-precedence traffic, including intelligence intercepts related to the conflict, was being handled at the time and it also faulted a shortage of qualified radio men as a contributing factor to the failure to send the withdrawal message to Liberty in time.

OK, an order to withdraw from the coast of Israel, Syria and Lebanon was supposedly made but goodness, it was made on a wrong frequency and never received by the men on the USS Liberty.

Keep in mind, the USS Liberty was a spy ship (an electronic surveillance vessel if you want the official name), whose main and only job was to LISTEN IN TO ALL RADIO FREQUENCIES originating in the region.

During the morning of the attack, early June 8, the ship was overflown by several Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft including a Nord Noratlas "flying boxcar" and Mirage III jet fighters. At least some of those flybys were from a close range.[citation needed] At 6:03 a.m. Sinai time (GMT +2) that morning, the Nord identified the ship as a U.S. supply ship. After the Nord landed and its naval observer was debriefed, the ship was further identified the USS Liberty based its "GTR-5" markings. Many Liberty crewmen gave testimony that one of the aircraft flew so close to Liberty that its propellers rattled the deck plating of the ship, and the pilots waved to the crew of Liberty, and the crewmen waved back. The ship was marked as a neutral vessel on Israel's Central Coastal Command plot board, but at 11 am the ship was removed from the plot because information on its position was stale.

The crewmen of the USS Liberty have stated that an Israeli reconnaissance plane has flown so close to their ship that they waved to its crew, and the Israelis waved back.

This version of events seems to be born out because their ship was makrked as a neutral vessel on "Israel's Central Coastal Command plot board".

The ship was removed from the Israeli map later on - no longer a neutral American vessel in these waters - at least on the "Israel's Central Coastal Command plot board".

At this time, the ship was slowly heading westward, in international waters, along the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. This course took the Liberty approximately 45 kilometers from its last sighting by IAF pilots by 2 p.m

Continuing with the official story:

At 11:24, the Central Coastal Command received the first of several reports that El Arish, on the Sinai coast near the Liberty's position, was being shelled from the sea, and half an hour later sent three torpedo boats to investigate. At 1341, the boats detected a target on radar. Two boats independently calculated its speed as 28 knots (52 km/h) and 30 knots (56 km/h), suggesting a combat ship, though, in fact, the Liberty was not capable of anywhere near that speed. At 13:48 an air attack was ordered.

Now, the attack.

Beginning about 2 p.m. the Liberty was attacked by several IAF aircraft, initially by two Mirage IIIs, firing cannon and rockets, followed by two Dassault Mysteres carrying napalm. One napalm bomb hit the ship.

After a series of strafing passes by aircraft, one Israeli pilot, Rabin, who wondered why the Liberty had not returned fire, made a close pass and noted that the ship had Western, not Arabic, lettering. Rabin immediately feared that the ship was Soviet and ordered the planes and a three torpedo boat squadron which had been ordered into the area, to withhold fire pending positive identification of the ship, and sent in two helicopters to search for survivors. These radio communications were recorded by Israel. However, although the order was recorded in the ship's log, the commander of the torpedo boat squadron stated that he had not received it.

So again, a huge fuckup according to the official story.

Another Israeli pilot, Rabin, noticed that the ship they were attacking was not Arab at all, and its markings looked Western. According to the official story, he was worried that the ship was Soviet, and so ordered the attack stopped and rescue helicopters sent in.

Quick note - Soviet ships - didn't they use Cyrillic script in their naming of their ships? Wikipedia seems to agree.

And anyway, to use napalm on a ship, an airplane has to get very close to a ship it is targetting.

Anyway - hold on a second - who uses napalm in attacking a ship?

This was the first and last time napalm was used in a sea engagement (at least if you discount 'Greek Fire' that the Byzantines were using).

So, if a ship's markings looked Western, but Soviet ships used Cyrillic markings, what does that tell you?

Another mystery, hmmm?

Of course Mr. Rabin's radio signal, although received and recorded by the Israeli command, never went out to the Israeli Navy torpedo boats.

Continuing with the Wikipedia, aka the official story of the Liberty Incident:

When the commander of torpedo boats could see the Liberty, he immediately realized the ship was not a destroyer or any type of warship capable of 30 knots (56 km/h) speed. He immediately ordered the attack stopped pending better identification "although this was difficult due to the billowing clouds of smoke which enveloped the vessel; only her bow, part of her bridge and the tip of her mast could be discerned." The commander attempted to signal the ship but got a reply asking him to identify himself. He also observed gun fire from the ship. He consulted an Israeli identification guide to Arab fleets and concluded the ship was the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir. Another of his boat captains reached the same conclusion. Based on that identification, the gun fire and what he considered an evasive response to his signal, the commander ordered the attack to proceed.

The commander of the torpedo boats realized that the official assumption was wrong - he realized that the Liberty was not a destroyer nor any warship of any kind.

He stopped his attack pending identification.

He consulted his book on enemy vessels (yes, a real book which was used in modern times for captains to identify a ship's type by its silhouette).

It looked closest to an Egyptian ship 'El Quseir', so he attacked. His 2nd on the other boat also agreed that this was the 'El Quseir'.

The Israeli torpedo boats attacked with cannon fire and launched five torpedoes at Liberty. One hit Liberty on the starboard side forward of the superstructure, creating a 39 X 24-foot (7.3 m) hole in what had been a former cargo hold converted to the ships research spaces and killing 25 servicemen

So what happened after the attack?

When the ship was confirmed to have been American, the torpedo boats returned to offer help; it was refused by the American ship. At about 4 pm, two hours after the attack began, Israel informed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv about the incident and later provided a helicopter to fly a U.S. naval attaché to the ship.

McGonagle received the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. medal, for his actions. It was awarded at the Washington Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy. The Medal of Honor is generally presented by the President of the United States in the White House. This was not to be the case for the USS Liberty recipient.

So, Captain McGonagle of the late USS Liberty was given the highest decoration - the Medal of Honor - for his conduct during the incident. It was not given to him personally by the president, though - as happens usually.

This was a bone thrown to the dog - "here, take this bone, now shut up and wag your tail".

Investigations followed.

All of them pointed to the case of mistaken identity, as well as negligence on the part of the Israelis (but the gross negligence of radio contact procedures of the US Navy was omitted, natch).

What did Congress do?

For the most part, the senators were dismayed about the attack, as expressed by Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper: "From what I have read I can't tolerate for 1 minute that this [attack] was an accident."

Also, there was concern about obtaining more information about the attack, as expressed by the committee's chairman: "We asked for [the attack investigation report] about 2 weeks ago and have not received it yet from Secretary Rusk."

Secretary McNamara promised to arrange fast delivery of the investigation report and concluded his remarks by saying: "I simply want to emphasize that the investigative report does not show any evidence of a conscious intent to attack a U.S. vessel."

So, the USA's Secretary of Defense was in effect TELLING the Congressmen 'nothing happened here, move along now'.

Critics -- including an active group of survivors from the ship -- assert that U.S. congressional investigations and other U.S. investigations were not actually investigations into the attack; but, rather, reports using evidence only from the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, or investigations unrelated to culpability that involved issues such as communications. In their view, the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry is the only actual investigation on the incident to date. They claim it was hastily conducted, in only 10 days, even though the court’s president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, said that it would take 6 months to conduct properly.

So, admiral Kidd has stated before the official Navy investigation began that it would take at least 6 months - and then took all of 10 days to come to the conclusion that of "nothing happened, move along now citizen".

So much for the official story.

Lets move on to actual reality now.

Former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk:
"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous"

"In 2002 Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, ended his own silence on the work of the court of inquiry, saying its findings were intended to cover up what was a deliberate attack by Israel on a ship it knew to be American. He has prepared and signed an affidavit in which he claimed that Admiral Kidd had told him that the government ordered Kidd to falsely report that the attack was a mistake, and that he and Kidd both believed the attack was deliberate."

Here is what he wrote in 2002:
"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as 'murderous bastards.' It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident."

Of course, "there is no record of [admitral] Kidd ever publicly expressing such opinions."

Which of course must mean that Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, has simply lied, right?

Nothing to see here, citizen, move along now.

If you have read my blog, you realize that I hold Mr. James Bamford, an unofficial historian of the National Security Agency (the one that officially does not exists, and as I proved in my previous blog article, has rooms at every major communication providers in the USA - Sprint, Verizon, you name it - in order to process every phone call and email ever made in the USA).

Here is what he says.

James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, in his 2001 book Body of Secrets, proposes a different possible motive for a deliberate attack: to prevent the discovery of a massacre by the IDF of Egyptian prisoners of war that was supposedly taking place at the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. In 1995, mass graves of Egyptian soldiers were discovered outside of El-Arish, and IDF veterans have admitted that unarmed civilians and prisoners of war were murdered in the 1967 War.

Israeli soldiers murdering Egyptian civilians and soldiers in cold blood in 1967?

Oh, that's right - that is another un-story, but that un-story is for another blog post.

Finally, this theory:

In 2003, journalist Peter Hounam wrote Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III, which proposes a completely different theory regarding the incident. In an attempt to explain why there was no support by U.S. forces as backup, Hounam claims that Israel and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson had secretly agreed on day four of the Six Day War that Liberty would be sunk with complete loss of life. The attack would be blamed on Egypt, allowing the U.S. in turn to attack Egypt, thus helping out Israel. However, according to Hounam's theory, because the Liberty did not sink after two hours, the plan was quickly reversed, Israel apologized for the case of mistaken identity, and a cover-up put into place.

So the Liberty was to be sunk with the total loss of life (this explains the napalm attack - first and last time this was ever done in modern war at sea), blaming the Arabs and involving the USA on the side of Israel.

This is of course outlandish and...

Wait, what is this BBC documentary?

"Dead in the Water" - part 1 on youtube (there are 7 parts in all).


"The BBC documentary (2002) claims that the Liberty incident provoked the launch of nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. It is claimed in the theory that they were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not sunk with all hands, and that Israel was responsible"

Yes, you did read that right.

The (failed) American nuclear attack on Egypt will be covered in the later version of this article.

Here is the website of the USS Liberty survivors - www.gtr5.com.

The Cover Up
Despite a near-universal consensus that the Israeli attack was made with full knowledge that USS Liberty was a US Navy ship, the Johnson administration began an immediate cover-up of this fact. Though administration officers continued individually to characterize the attack as deliberate, the Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. They concealed and altered evidence in their effort to downplay the attack. Though they never formally accepted the Israeli explanation that it was an accident, they never pressed for a full investigation either. They simply allowed those responsible literally to get away with murder.

Obviously, the investigative journalist Peter Hounam, the BBC and the USS Liberty survivors are all crazy and need to be discounted on account of being conspiracy nuts.

CBS News, Did LBJ Cover For Israel?.

A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident.

We already covered this America hater claiming that "President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident".

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."

Obviously Captain Ward Boston hates America - how dare he imply that he was ordered, by Secretary of Defense and the president of USA no less, to conclude "the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.""

Obviously this man is not a patriot as he smears his own country, and worse, our greatest ally Israel.

Why did he do it?

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.

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 in the world would our government put Israel's interest 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.

""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"


""Why in the world would our government put Israel's interest ahead of our own?" Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference."

Good question.

David Lewis of Lemington, Vt., was on the Liberty when it was attacked. In an interview, he said Israel had to know it was targeting an American ship. He said a U.S. flag was flying that day and Israel shot it full of holes. The sailors on the ship, he said, quickly hoisted another American flag, a much bigger one, to show Israel it was a U.S. vessel.

"No trained individual could be that inept," said Lewis of the Israeli forces.

In Capt. Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a cover-up. Later in a phone interview from his home in Coronado, Calif., Boston said Johnson may have worried the inquiry would hurt him politically with Jewish voters.

About American planes from those aircraft carriers.

This is the most interesting part of the incident in all of this.

BBC documentary "Dead in the Water", part 3of 7:


The pertinent part starts at 3:58 minute mark on that youtube video.

On the USS America, airplanes were launched to protect the USS Liberty.
Two bombers and their escort.

The BBC documentary claims that the bombers were armed with nuclear weapons and their target was Egypt - for whom an official story was all ready that they have attacked an American ship and killed our "brave heroic sailors".

There was only one snag - some of the USS Liberty crew dared to survive the airplane launched missiles, being napalmed, and Israeli torpedos.

The planes started because Egypt was the presumed attacker, per the BBC documentary.

"They had launched 'Ready' aircraft", was the message flashed by US Navy communications, Tony Hart, Naval Communications supervisor. "The launching of the 'Ready' aircraft, you understand, that is typically the launching of the nuclear armed aircraft".

Here are "Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on USS Liberty", off the USS Liberty survivors web page, quoting the actual government document.

(and the authors of the Inquiry are all America hating, commie liberals - such as ADMIRAL THOMAS H. MOORER, UNITED STATES NAVY, (RET.) FORMER CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF,

GENERAL RAYMOND G. DAVIS, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS, (MOH)*
FORMER ASSISTANT COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

REAR ADMIRAL MERLIN STARING, UNITED STATES NAVY, (RET.)
FORMER JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL OF THE NAVY HH

AMBASSADOR JAMES AKINS, (RET.)
FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA,

all America hating anti semites...).

Here is the full text shedding some more light on the matter:

Lieutenant Commander David E. Lewis, USS Liberty's chief intelligence officer (who was severely wounded in the attack) has reported a conversation with Admiral Lawrence R. Geis, the Sixth Fleet carrier division commander, who visited Lewis after he had been medically evacuated by helicopter to the aircraft carrier USS America. According to Lewis, "He (Admiral Geis) said that he wanted somebody to know that we weren't forgotten; attempts HAD been made to come to our assistance. He said that he had launched a flight of aircraft to come to our assistance, and he had then called Washington. Secretary McNamara came on the line and ordered the recall of the aircraft, which he did. Concurrently he said that since he suspected that they were afraid that there might have been nuclear weapons on board, he reconfigured another flight of aircraft - strictly conventional weaponry - and re-launched it. After the second launch, he again called Washington to let them know what was going on. Again, Secretary McNamara ordered the aircraft recalled. Not understanding why, he requested confirmation of the order; and the next higher in command came on to confirm that President Johnson...with the instructions that the aircraft were to be returned, that he would not have his allies embarrassed, he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship words to that effect."

With that, Admiral Geis swore me to secrecy for his lifetime. I had been silent up until I found out from Admiral Moorer that Admiral Geis had passed away.

So, the independent investigators found out that:
1) Airplanes were launched from the American aircraft carrier, armed with nuclear weapons
2) Those planes were recalled.
3) A new set of airplanes, this time without nuclear weapons, were launched to help the USS Liberty
4) The president himself, LBJ, acting through Secretary of Defense McNamara, recalled those planes, stating that "President Johnson...with the instructions that the aircraft were to be returned, that he would not have his allies embarrassed, he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship; words to that effect."

Screw the 34 dead and 170 wounded American sailors - we can't have us embarrassing Israel, for fucks sake!

But the (proven, by now) launching of nuclear armed bombers is what really hits me.

After all, it is in the records that nuclear armed bombers WERE launched... and then recalled hastily.

Is the BBC right that the American bombers targetted Egypt with their nuclear bombs?

After all, you do not drop nuclear bombs next to an American ship to help it out - it would obliterate that ship in the explosion!

So, either the nuclear armed American planes were launched by mistake - and then recalled - as the "independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on USS Liberty" suggests - or the BBC is right, and the planes were launched as part of a plan to involve America in the 1967 war on Israeli side.

The BBC has more proof for its theory.

The US Embassy in Cairo was told that an attack was coming.

"There was this message that the Navy was preparing to retaliate against Egypt for the attack on the Liberty," Richard Parker, political consul in the United States Cairo Embassy, "They thought it was the Egyptians who attacked it".

There was just one snag though - those pesky USS Liberty crewmen have survived, and they clearly saw that it was Israeli and not Egyptian airplanes and torpedo boats which attacked it.

Ah, so it was Israelis who attacked our ship, and not the Egyptians?

No retaliation needed - recall those planes!

Israel is our friend and ally and obviously, it is allowed for it to murder 34 American sailors.

But the whole launching of nuclear armed planes IMMEDIATELY starting on their way to Cairo in response to the USS Liberty - where did the decision to launch those come from?

Who gave the order to kill thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Egyptians?

So lets sum up.

Here are the facts I think we can all agree on:
1) Israeli airplanes and torpedo boats attacked an American spy ship, in international waters, flying an American flag and with Western markings (not Arabic or Cyrillc Russian), after a first reconnaissance plane overflew it so close that both the crew of the Israeli plane and and the USS Liberty waved to each other, and on the "Israel's Central Coastal Command plot board" the USS Liberty was marked as a neutral - USA vessel.

2) Nuclear armed planes were launched from American aircraft carriers on a mission of nuclear retaliation - target unknown. Thinking logically, those (Israeli) torpedo bombers could not have been the target - after all, you don't use nuclear weapons to target a tiny torpedo boat with a crew of less than 50 people.

Cairo seems a decent guess as to a target.

3) The nuclear armed planes were recalled by Secretary of Defense McNamara. He did not allow any planes to launch, even conventionally armed ones, to fly to aid the USS Liberty.

In the BBC documentary, McNamara when interviewed states: "I don't know what happened, and I haven't taken the time to find out," but there are all of these claims about planes yada yada...

Question Mr. McNamara - you don't recall recalling nuclear armed US airplanes on their way to bomb Egypt?

Too bad the USS Liberty did not sink with a total loss of life - we would have had World War 3 in 1967.

Finally, the 3rd point that is covered in the Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on USS Liberty:

3. That the torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but the machine-gunning of Liberty's firefighters and stretcher-bearers as they struggled to save their ship and crew; the Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded;

A survivor of the USS Liberty on minute 9:30 of part 3of7 states to the BBC crew that one of the Israeli torpedo boats was "methodically machine gunning one of our life ratfs", after he saw that the USS Liberty's launched life rafts were on the water, either shredded and/or burning.

That is a war crime.

That is also what we can all agree on.


Make up your mind.

Deliberate attack to kill off the USS Liberty survivors, as a justification for already prepared and ready to launch nuclear armed bombers and kill hundreds of thousands of Egyptians?

Or a simple mistake of identity (with a few war crimes thrown in, such as the afore mentioned machine gunning of the life rafts).

We report, you decide.

Do your own research.

I will leave you with this.

BBC - Dead in the Water - The Attack on the USS Liberty 4of7


Go to the 6:28 minute mark.

Richard Block was at the time following radio intercepts during the attack.

Did you hear that correctly?

Did Richard Block, then US Intelligence analyst, say that?

Listen again.

Then see this - globalresearch.ca:

The transcripts Block remembered seeing "were teletypes, way beyond Top Secret. Some of the pilots did not want to attack," Block said. "The pilots said, 'This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?'

"And ground control came back and said, 'Yes, follow orders.'"

Obviously, an ex US Intelligence analyst who processed Beyond Top Secret radio intercepts during the Liberty Incident, as it happened, is mentally unstable, unreliable and hates America, and of course is an anti semite.

"The transcripts Block remembered seeing "were teletypes, way beyond Top Secret. Some of the pilots did not want to attack," Block said. "The pilots said, 'This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?'

"And ground control came back and said, 'Yes, follow orders.'""

This never happened.

It is an un-story, just like Mr. Nader questioning McCain's father involvement in the Liberty "investigation" whitewash.

But Mr. Nader is of Arabic descent - well, he is an un-story as well.

Search all you want - the only mention of this is to be found on the military.com webpage.

CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Reuters, Associated Press - this is an Orwellian un-story to them.