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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chalu2 who wrote (5099)	9/28/2001 12:31:25 PM
From: Noneyet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

A little more of the truth that you chose to ignore. home.cfl.rr.com A SURVIVOR SPEAKS Jim Ennes I find it very strange that some Americans can argue endlessly that the attack on the USS Liberty was a tragic accident and not the deliberate attack on a known American ship that survivors know it to have been. A point that baffles me (and my shipmates) about that view is that the Israelis did NOT stop firing when they drew close enough to positively identify us as American. I was lying in a stretcher in a starboard passageway just inboard of the wardroom and almost directly over the torpedo that exploded. I remember very clearly the warning that torpedo boats were approaching followed by the explosion, the ship lifting away from the blast, then settling back to starboard and the very real fear that it would continue to settle until it rolled over and sank. Moments later the torpedo boats approached within fifty feet of the ship. One boat stopped alongside and trained a heavy machinegun on a man who was standing alone on a hatch on the main deck, but did not fire even though the man gave the boatmen the finger. Then a boat moved to within fifty feet of the fantail where the ship displayed her name in large letters in English painted on the hull and her GTR5 numbers in even larger letters. The boatmen clearly examined those markings and can hardly have failed to see other very distinctive American markings and the American flag that flew from the mast. Yet, even though the Israeli government claims it was at that point that they offered help, never firing at us again after the torpedo explosion, this is not so. Almost every man on that ship recalls -- as I personally recall very clearly from my position outside the wardroom -- that the torpedo boats then circled the ship for a long time firing at close range at anything that moved. Men trying to aid their wounded shipmates on deck were fired upon. Men fighting fires were fired upon and recall seeing their fire hoses punctured by machinegun fire. This went on for several minutes. At one point the boatmen concentrated their fire near the waterline amidships, presumably hoping to blow up the boilers to hasten our demise. Finally they pulled a distance back from the ship. We figured they were waiting for us to sink. And then at 3:15, forty minutes after the torpedo explosion and in response to orders from the bridge to prepare to abandon ship, men launched the only three life rafts that seemed still usable. The boats quickly drew closer, machinegunned the liferafts and then took one aboard after the machine gun fire severed a line that had tethered it to the ship. At this point, apparently in response to messages in the air from the Sixth Fleet promising (falsely) that aircraft were en route to our aid, the boats left the area. It was another 75 minutes later, about 4:30, that they finally returned to signal, "Do you need help?" Now that is not my recollection alone, but is the recollection of nearly every man in the ship. It is one of several reasons that we reject the Israeli claim that it was a "tragic accident" in which they identified us as American even while the torpedos were in the water, never fired again, and immediately offered help. Our Congress, much to our dismay, has from the beginning accepted "at face value" the Israeli claim that they never fired again after the torpedo explosion. Survivors have never been allowed to testify to the contrary, either to Congress or to the Court of Inquiry. Of course there are many other reasons for us to disbelieve the Israeli version of events. Among them, for instance, their contrived claim that the aircraft were called in by the torpedomen after we were picked up on radar from over 30 miles away (well beyond their maximum radar range) and mistakenly plotted to be moving 32 knots when in fact we were moving at only 5 knots. Or their claim that the numerous Israeli reconnaissance aircraft that we saw circling us all morning at very low level were actually high in the sky carrying troops to the front and were unaware of our presence below. Or their claim that they mistakenly identified us as the Egyptian cavalry's 40-year-old horse carrier El Quseir, when in fact El Quseir had been out of service for years which must have been well known to the Israeli Navy. All those and other things convince us that the Israeli account is not true. Yet I think most convincing of their deliberate intent is that they continued to fire for forty minutes after examining our markings from as close as fifty feet away, did not offer help until nearly two hours after the torpedo explosion, and then lied about it. So we are convinced that they are lying about virtually the entire prelude to, conduct of, and aftermath of the attack. Together, these things have convinced every man on that ship including her commanding officer that the attack was deliberate. Yet despite these things a few Americans seem to accept the preposterous claim that the attack was a mistake and that firing stopped with the torpedo explosion. One can accept and understand this attitude from an Israeli, as he would have a natural tendency to believe his country's version of events and to disbelieve contrary versions -- especially since he has no personal experience to draw upon. But how can an American disbelieve the virtually identical eyewitness reports of scores of surviving fellow Americans and accept instead the undocumented claims of the foreign power that tried to kill them? That is very difficult to understand or to accept. The typical Israeli reaction is that we are liars or antiSemites, which of course we are not. We are American sailors honestly reporting an act of treachery at sea. At the very least we deserve your courtesy and understanding. Jim Ennes, Survivor

To: chalu2 who wrote (5099)	9/28/2001 12:38:08 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

The Liberty incident is one of those controversies that will never be laid to rest, and will be exploited by the enemies of Israel. It's one of those things that has a wide circulation on the same internet sites that publish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, if you know what I mean. Here is something curious - an assertion that the Russians were considering assisting Syria and Egypt during the Six-Day War, which would explain why the Liberty carried a Russian translator. I haven't really read up on the matter - are the Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs and Isabella Ginor reliable sources? amber.ucsf.edu

To: chalu2 who wrote (5099)	9/28/2001 12:41:17 PM
From: Noneyet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

No evidence, not one shred. I would hate to be your client. Keep up your name calling and maybe someone somewhere will believe your account, that is that anyone who mentions the USS Liberty incident is a neo nazi. logogo.net In the fourth article of this series I described briefly the Israeli attack on USS LIBERTY. In this article I will outline some of the problems and contradictions in the Israeli accounts. (1) Problems with the radar sighting. In the Yerushalmi hearing, the Israelis tried to account for the fact that the MTB radar had showed the ship moving at 30 knots, but a short time afterward they identified the ship as the Egyptian El Quesir, which has a top speed of 15 knots. They speculated that "perhaps" the ship was part of a larger Egyptian naval squadron off El Arish which included a fast ship (seen on the MTB radar screen) and the slower El Quesir. By 1400 the faster ship had fled, leaving El Quesir lagging behind. The problem with this theory is that the Israeli planes arrived on the scene only 19 minutes after the radar sighting, and the alleged fast ship, even if moving at 30 knots, would have been only 10 miles away and visible to both Americans and Israelis. No one saw this phantom ship. (2) Air attack on the ship. The attack of the Israeli planes at 1400 poses the basic and fundamental question of this dispute. The Israelis insist in all accounts that the ship had no flag. They also claim that the orbited the ship repeatedly looking for a flag, but could find none and could find no other mark of identification. The testimony of the crew contradicts these Israeli claims absolutely. Crewmen insist that there was a flag, flying in the wind, and that the Israeli planes attacked straight on without orbiting. They also point out that photos of the ship taken before and after the attack show the identifying number plainly. Also, it is preposterous to claim that the ship would be moving in this area near a war and would show no flag. Cristol argues that the flag hung limp for lack of wind, and his work includes a negative photo of the ship taken during the attack from a nose cone camera. This photo shows a plume of smoke going straight up, and so Cristol argues that there was no wind. However, other Israeli accounts, and Cristol himself on another page, state that smoke from fires on the ship covered the ship above the hull and billowed out behind. This would indicate that there was ample wind to make the flag stand out. (3) Testimony of Dwight Porter. Dwight Porter was US ambassador to Lebanon in June 1967. He states that on June 8 CIA men showed him radio transcripts, translated into English, which recorded talk between an Israeli pilot and his home base. The pilot protests that the ship he is attacking is American; the home base orders him to attack anyway. Porter never saw the transcripts again, but stands by his story. (4) How long did the air attack last? The Israelis claim 12 minutes, the crewmen claim 25 minutes. (5) Dispute over the signals, discussed in Section Four. The Israelis claim that the ship signaled "AA"; the LIBERTY signalmen say that they sent only "USS LIBERTY, US Navy ship". Again there is an absolute contradiction between the testimony of the Israelis and that of the crewmen. (6) LIBERTY radiomen claim that the ship's radios were jammed, as mentioned in Section Four. Israelis do not discuss this. (7) Crewmen claim that Israelis sank the ship's liferafts, as mentioned in Section Four. Israelis do not discuss this. (8) Why did the MTB attack end? Israelis provide varying and vague answers on this; they "looked the ship over more carefully" or claim that finally the ship ran up a flag. Crewmen believe that it ended because the Sixth Fleet radioed to the LIBERTY, in clear and uncoded language, that planes were coming to the rescue. (9) When did the MTB attack end? Most Israeli accounts say at about 1440 (although others claim later times). The crewmen say it was 1515. The time when the attack ended, and the Israelis realized that the ship was American, presents another problem for the Israelis. Israel did not notify the US that it had attacked the ship until 1610. This means that there was an unexplained delay of either 90 minutes or an hour in this notification. Why the delay? (10) There is another Israeli eyewitness account, by Micha Limor, an officer on one of the MTBs. His story contradicts all accounts so far. Limor claims, first, that the MTB radar screen showed LIBERTY moving at 10 knots, not 30 as otherwise reported. (The ship was actually moving at 5 knots.) Limor describes a silent "ghost ship" with no one on deck, not responding to signals or even to gunfire. Other accounts tell of the "AA" signal from the ship, but here there is no signal at all. Other stories tell of men on deck firing at the MTBs, but Limor says that there were no men on deck. There was no response from the ship until after it was hit by a torpedo, and then the ship at last raised a flag. There are many contradictions and unexplained issues in Israeli accounts. In most instances, as in the case of Limor's testimony, the Israelis simply ignore the problems.