You clearly don't place much weight on the testimony of the survivors, who reported that they were observed by Israeli aircraft for an extended period before the attack, at close range, by slow-moving aircraft, in clear weather, while prominently displaying an American flag, and that the "apologies and assistance" included machine-gunning lifeboats.
I guess the US Navy boys who survived the attack must be just a bunch of Arab propagandists. Clever of them to infiltrate the Navy, and to get themselves on that ship.
In any event, the point stands. If an Arab country had done that kind of damage to an American vessel and tried to cover their butts by claiming mistaken identity, nobody would have believed a word of it, and the repercussions would have been immediate and massive.
You just don't need much proof if it's bad and it's about Israel, do you?
I guess those accounts from the survivors got to me. Silly of me, really. I should know better than to trust a survivor's account over a secondary source report, especially when the sanctity of the most sacred of sacred cows is in question.
Ward Boston Jr., a retired Captain from the Judge Advocate General Corps, was the senior legal counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the attack. Here's what he has to say:
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.
I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors, who had ordered the attack, were well aware that the ship was American.
I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes, and heard testimony that made it clear that the Israelis intended there be no survivors. 10. Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded — a war crime.
Admiral Kidd and I both felt it necessary to travel to Israel to interview the Israelis who took part in the attack. Admiral Kidd telephoned Admiral McCain to discuss making arrangements. Admiral Kidd later told me that Admiral McCain was adamant that we were not to travel to Israel or contact the Israelis concerning this matter.
Regrettably, we did not receive into evidence and the Court did not consider any of the more than sixty witness declarations from men who had been hospitalized and were unable to testify in person.
Must be another of those Arab propagandists, I guess.
Or you could ask former Air Force intelligence analyst Stephen Forslund:
I finally feel the overwhelming compulsion to say something about what I witnessed. I do so with fear and discomfort because of the oath of secrecy we all took and the uncertainty over the legality of speaking out. What motivates me to speak is the fact that nothing I can add will harm our nation or compromise our intelligence sources at this late date. I can be written off as a liar or "conspiracy weirdo" or prosecuted if they want to admit that what I say is true...
On the day of the attack on the Liberty, I read yellow teletype sheets that spewed from the machines in front of me all day. We obtained our input from a variety of sources including the NSA. The teletypes were raw translations of intercepts of Israeli air-to-air and air-to-ground communications between jet aircraft and their ground controller. I read page after page of these transcripts that day as it went on and on. The transcripts made specific reference to the efforts to direct the jets to the target which was identified as American numerous times by the ground controller. Upon arrival, the aircraft specifically identified the target and mentioned the American flag she was flying. There were frequent operational transmissions from the pilots to the ground base describing the strafing runs. The ground control began asking about the status of the target and whether it was sinking. They stressed that the target must be sunk and leave no trace. The pilots stated they had made several runs and the target was still floating. The ground control station re-iterated that it was urgent that the target be sunk, leaving no trace. There was a detectable level of frustration evident in the transmissions over the fact that the aircraft were unable to accomplish the mission quickly and totally.
The aircraft eventually broke off and we received no further transcripts of the event. I have since learned in later descriptions of the attack that torpedo boats attacked the Liberty also. I saw neither intercepts nor analyses that addressed that attack. An hour or two later I was discussing the event with a team member and he stated they had received, during the time frame of the attack, an intercept of a US State Department message to Israel stating that the United States had full evidence of what had occurred in the attack on the Liberty...
Just another Arab propagandist? Or maybe that one was a confirmed anti-Semite? How about this one:
DECLARATION OF JAMES RONALD GOTCHER
I, JAMES RONALD GOTCHER, DO DECLARE UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY THAT THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS TRUE AND COMPLETE, AND BASED ENTIRELY UPON MY PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE GAINED THROUGH DIRECT OBSERVATON, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY STATED OTHERWISE:
1. My true, full, and correct name is James Ronald Gotcher, III.
2. I am a resident of the State of California.
3. On June 8, 1967, I was a Sergeant in the United States Air Force, assigned to the 6924th Security Squadron, Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam.
4. During the early evening (local time) of June 8, 1967 we received a CRITIC message, informing us that USS Liberty was under attack by Israeli aircraft. Shortly thereafter, we began receiving rough translations of the Israeli air to air and air to ground communications.
5. The next day, we received the final translations of the intercepts. There will virtually no difference between the two versions.
6. While I have a clear recollection of reading transcripts of conversations between pilots and controllers, I do not recall ever reading anything similar to the transcripts recently released by the National Security Agency concerning Israeli helicopter pilots.
7. It was clear from the explicit statements made by both the aircraft crews and the controllers that the aircraft were flying a planned mission to find and sink USS Liberty.
8. My understanding of what I read led me to conclude that the Israeli pilots were making every effort possible to sink USS Liberty and were very frustrated by their inability to do so.
9. Approximately ten days to two weeks later, we received an internal NSA report, summarizing the Agency’s findings. The report stated, in no uncertain terms, that the attack was planned in advance and deliberately executed. The mission was to sink USS Liberty.
10. A few days after the report arrived, another message came through directing the document control officer to gather and destroy all copies of both the rough and final intercept translations, as well as the subsequently issued report.
11. After the destruction of those documents, I saw nothing further on this subject.
12. I have read the translated transcripts, released by the Israeli government, which purport to be actual transcripts of the air to ground communications between the controllers and the attacking aircraft. I know this document to be a fabrication because I have read the actual intercepts and they were nothing like this. It is not possible that the differences could be due to different translations being used.
13. If called upon to testify, I am competent to testify to all of the foregoing on the basis of direct observation and personal knowledge.
Dated: September 2, 2003
Damn. Lots of those Arab propagandists out there.
Michael Orens goes into the incident in depth in Six Days of War.
Jim Ennes goes into even more depth in Assault on the Liberty. He happens to be a retired US Navy officer who was on the bridge of the Liberty during the attack.
That's not good enough for you, I know. The entire website put up by the ship's survivors, where all of these quotes were sourced, must be just the work of a bunch of anti-Semites and Arab sympathizers. How much proof do you need, if it's bad and about Israel? Is there enough proof in the world?
I'd be curious to know how some of the veterans on this board feel about the incident. |
