>>Israel didn't fight on the side of the US in the Gulf War because it was forbidden to do so -- the US didn't give them the friend-or-foe codes to make sure of it.<<
Until recently, I reserved judgment about the attack on the USS Liberty - until I visited the National Cryptologic Museum and saw the display there. If you recall, a recent book, Body of Secrets, claims that the NSA had a surveillance plane flying over the Liberty at the time, intercepting communications from Israeli planes and ships, and that if the intercepts were made public, it would prove that the attack was deliberate. The NSA won't admit it, but the display at the NSA museum about the USS Liberty incident was enough to tip the scales for me.
Unlike, say, the Air and Space Museum, the NSA museum doesn't get a lot of visitors. It's way outside the Beltway, small, hidden behind a gas station, but it's right off the NSA grounds. My guess is that most of the visitors are NSA employees, family, and contractors.
The display about the attack on the Liberty states that Israeli planes flew reconnaissance over the ship for two hours before attacking. The ship was flying a very large American flag during that time, and was in transit, so the flag would have been unfurled and visible. There's no way in hell the Israeli planes didn't see that flag. They shot down the flag, and the captain ordered that another American flag be raised during the attack, and the attack continued after the second flag was raised.
The people at the NSA are not stupid enough to state, publicly, that Israeli planes deliberately strafed an American ship and Israeli vessels deliberately torpedoed an American ship, but the implication is clear. Johnson let the Israelis save face for political reasons, but people in the intelligence community knew the truth.
Israel is Israel's friend. |
