I thought you might be interested:
Sorry Nadine.. I remain unconvinced.
Since Ennes in his book confirms that the Liberty's flag was definitely flying, and we have confirmation that a reconaissance aircraft had managed earlier to accomplish what those Mirages and Torpedo boats later apparently could not (identifying the Liberty properly), I can't buy into the claim that they couldn't identify the ship. NO US Navy ship would run without flying the US flag under such circumstances.. And that's what the Israeli apologists would like us to believe, despite the attack occuring in daylight.
And besides... look at how they engaged this ship... After the Mirages strafed it, they took NO MEASURES capture it. They offered NO SURRENDER terms, but instead opted to form into battle formation and proceed with an uncessary torpedo attack, DESPITE not having been fired upon (until they clearly were intent on attacking it). No directive or warning for the crew of the USS Liberty to abandon ship was given..
Thus, if anything, the Israeli torpedo boat skipper is guilty of outright incompetence, if not criminal negligence of his duty obligations...
And one other point.. the USS Liberty issued a May-Day IN THE CLEAR.
A marine linguist on the Liberty claims that Israelis were jamming their distress signals, which suggests they KNEW WHO AND WHAT were sending those signals.
thewebfairy.com
Also, the Israelis apparently were planning on boarding the Liberty, sending two troop laden helicopters to the engagement area:
Q: Anything else you want to tell the folks of South Texas?
A: Adm. Kidd's U.S. Navy court of inquiry at Malta refused to enter into the record any testimony about troop helicopters. The Israelis sent in two of them to finish off the job. They were fully loaded with Israeli combat troops armed with automatic weapons. They backed off only when the USS Saratoga acknowledged our Mayday distress signal. When we tried to bring up the Israeli helicopters at the court of inquiry we were told, "You weren't asked that. Confine yourself to questions asked."
Here is a chronology of the events of that day:
geocities.com
Pay specific attention to the period between 10 AM thround 1PM, where the Liberty was reconnoitered SEVERAL times by Israeli aircraft flying at mast level.
The bottom line is that the Israelis knew enough to listen in on, and jam, the Liberty's mayday signals to prevent rescue from arriving. They had every chance to identify the ship, flying close enough to it, WITHOUT being fired upon by the USS Liberty (had it been Egyptian, wouldn't those reconnaissance aircraft had expected to be fired upon?)
And pay attention to the the actual attack at 2PM where the jamming ended long enough for radiation seeking missiles to be fired to destoy the Liberty's ability to communicate or intercept.
Call it a rogue operation Nadine by some Israeli muckety-muck, or offical act by the Israeli government, but it's not SOP to send troop carrying helicopters to the sight of a naval engagement unless they plan on boarding the ship. And since they machine-gunned the life-rafts, AGAINST the rules of war, they were not planning on taking survivors had they boarded that ship, and later permitted it to sink.
Thus, my opinion is that someone in the Israeli high command wanted the Liberty isolated, disabled, and boarded. The Torpedo Boats were sent to apply the coup de grace after the troop helicopters had departed with whatever intelligence they could gather.
That's my theory Nadine... I wish I could buy the one that Oren is providing, but I'll defer to those who were actually there as opposed to those who rely upon selectively declassified documentation.
After all, we've yet to see the actual communications traffic captured by NSA and other SIGINT assets (Israeli, Egyptian.. etc) declassified... And that would really be the best form of intelligence to analyze.
Hawk |
