USS Liberty attack

 

 

 

 

- SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

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SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE REPORT

By Lloyd T Vance and Simon Gavin

(of the Australian Bureau of SEANEWS.org - )

For Immediate Release:- 1st August 2008

(SEANEWS-Australia )

_________________________________________________________________________

The Attack on the USS Liberty

Forty years ago today on thursday 08 june 1967 the zionist state of israel mercilessly and relentlessly attacked the united states naval ship called USS Liberty.

This year marks those 40 years since the USS Liberty deliberate attack by Israel which was A RAW Act Of War, South East Asia News is pleased to tell the men’s story and let them be heard after all these years.

The more research is done into a false flag attack of this nature, the more one understands exactly how devious and evil the planners are and how expendable American lives really are to the Israelis.

Lyndon Johnston was the President at the time him and with this information alone it would been enough to have his entire cabinet should taken out for impeachment, prosecution for treason for the betrayal of American Military citizens they displayed by letting Israel off the hook and covering up this War crime.

Even to this day Israel has such a control over all facet of American life, from the White House, US Government and Government Depts, US Senate and Congress are paid off by AIPAC the Jewish Lobby in Washington

What ever Israel wants Israel gets, they have America and Americans paying them money every year, over the last 60 years Israel has wormed their way into America’s back pocket – wallet – cheque book

South East Asia News is glad to bring you the men’s story of the USS Liberty Attack

Lloyd T Vance and Simon Gavin
South East Asia News (Australian Bureau)
ozboy@southeastasianews.org and webmaster@fastmail.fm

 

The guys who were on the Liberty need to be heard.

Some of these guys have kept silent for 40 yrs.

They were threatened with prison if they ever told their story.

They are telling it now.

Israel deliberately removed the IDs from their planes, ships, helicopters, etc., and attacked the Liberty with full intentions of killing everyone on board.

They wanted Egypt to get the blame.

Israel adopted major arrogance after doing this without so much as a slap on the hand claiming that since they got away with this, they can do anything to the US and get away with it.

Johnson, who was acting as president, knew it was Israel attacking and did NOTHING!!
He would not even allow the navy to come to the Liberty's rescue after the attack.

The people of the US need to know that Israel is not our friend.

They never have been.

 

 

On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel.

The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it.

Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public.

This USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.


The Attack


The USS Liberty incident was an attack on June 8, 1967, upon the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy intelligence RECON ship while was in international waters about 12.5 nautical miles (23 km) from the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, north of El Arish, when it was suddenly and without warning was attacked by Israeli fighter planes and torbedo boats.

 

After surveying USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost hourly aircraft over flights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked the ship in international waters without warning.

USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship nine hours before the attack by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter.

Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, our ship was not a military threat to anyone.

The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact us.

Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded.

The ship, a $40 Million Dollar state of the art signals intelligence platform, was later declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap.

 

The attack proceeded in broad daylight on clear sunny day as the Liberty displayed the American flag. The attack went on for two hours, according to Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On that June day in 1967, the weather was beautiful... Clear and sunny, visibility unlimited... the LIBERTY, an elaborate state-of-the art intelligence gathering platform, was in international waters off the Gaza strip and was flying the Stars and Stripes. Israeli reconnaissance planes flew overhead for hours. Pilots and ship's crew waved to each other. Then, inexplicably, unmarked Israeli aircraft began attacking the ship. The defenseless LIBERTY radioed for help. Two aircraft carriers in the Med responded by launching fighter aircraft. Unbelievably, they were recalled by the White House. RADM Geis, then commanding the carriers in the Sixth Fleet, called Washington personally to confirm the order. SecDef McNamara came on the line, then President Johnson. Johnson indicated to Geis that the aircraft were to be returned, that he would not have his allies embarrassed, and that he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship. Geis, like any good sailor, recalled the aircraft.

site: home.cfl.rr.com page: home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The USS Liberty was attacked but not sunk on June 18, 1967, while on a Reconaissance mission off the coast of Egypt. Israeli aircraft, then torpedo boats, pounded into them wave after wave in what the Israelis and 10 official U.S. commissions described as a tragic accident, a case of mistaken identification of the American ship as a much smaller, horse transport boat of Egyptian registry.

The picture atop the article was taken the day after the attack: the boat is listing, burnt to brown, and pock-marked with holes from ordnance up to and including 40mm cannon shells. Obvious from the below picture is the damage from several torpedoes. Not visible are the victims, 34 Americans of whom were killed, another 174 wounded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amidst the confusion of battle between zionist and arab forces — in what would come to be known as the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria—the United States had ordered the USS Liberty an Intelligence recon vessel and other surveillance sea assets into coastal waters off Egypt. According to the statements from crew members of the imperiled ship, Israeli Defense Forces aircraft made as many as eight recon passes over it. From The Politics of Anti-Semitism comes this account (with added pictures) based upon recollections by the men who were on the USS Liberty the day of the Israeli attack.

 

The Israeli attack killed 34 U.S. servicemen and wounded at least 173. The attack was the second deadliest against a U.S. Naval vessel since the end of World War II, surpassed only by the Iraqi Exocet missile attack on the USS Stark on May 17, 1987, and marked the single greatest loss of life by the U.S. Intelligence Community.

 

The official explanation for the attack is that it was a case of mistaken identity. That explanation is undermined by the following facts:

• The ship was clearly identified with an American flag.
• The three Israeli Mirage figher-bombers that attacked the ship were unmarked.
• The Mirage jets jamed the communication frequencies used by the ship.
• The jets strafed the ship at close range, where the details of the ship would have been cleary visible to the pilots.
• The attack included multiple waves of air assaults.
• The torpedo boats strafed survivors in life boats, an international war crime.
• The two aircraft sent by the US 6th fleet to defend the Liberty were recalled.
• The recall order was confirmed by the White House.

While one theory holds that the attack was perpetrated by Israel acting alone, another theory puts responsibility on the Johnson administration.

Israeli Pilot Claims Attack Was Intentional

Fifteen years after the attack an Israeli Pilot who was ordered to participate in the attack came forward, approaching Liberty survivors and former Congressman Paul N. McCloskey. The pilot relates that he identified the ship as American and informed his superiors, but was told to proceed with the attack. When he refused to do so, he was arrested on returning to base.

Captain Ward Boston's Statement

Although there were several purported inquiries into the attack by various federal agencies, these focused on issues such as communication, and avoided the issue of culpability for the attack. The only investigation that wasn't so circumsribed was that of the U.S. Navy Court, but even it was apparently compromised. Although the court’s president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, predicted that it would take six months to properly conduct the investigation, the Court took only 10 days. The legal counsel to the Court, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, prepared a signed affadavit claiming that Admiral Kidd was ordered by superiors to falsely report that the attack was a mistake. Boston's full statement follows.

 

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.


The Betrayal of American Veterans

Americans who volunteer for military service effectively write a blank check, payable to the United States of America for an amount "up to and including my life."

The United States, in turn, promises to spend these checks responsibly.

That bargain implicitly includes a promise by the United States to protect them and to seek retribution against anyone who harms them.

In the case of USS Liberty, the United States has failed to keep its promise.

'Loss of Liberty' dramatically proves, beyond any doubt, that the attack by Israel on June 8, 1967 against the US naval intelligence gathering ship USS Liberty, in which 34 Americans were killed and 171 wounded, was deliberate.

The video first lets Israeli officers make their totally unconvincing case that the attack was a 'tragic accident' when the Israelis mistook the much larger and differently configured USS Liberty for the totally unlike Egyptian ship El Quseir.

This filmed testimony by dozens of USS Liberty survivors demolishes Israel’s 'tragic accident' claim.

Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer are representative of the honoured high-ranking Americans supporting the condemnation of deliberate aggression against the United States by 'ally' Israel.

'Loss of Liberty' makes clear that then-President Lyndon Johnson conspired with Israel and its Israel-First supporters inside the US government to support the 'tragic accident' scheme.

Johnson was bogged down at the time in the Vietnam War, and thought he needed Israel Lobby support.

Still, Johnson’s behaviour is as unforgivable now as it was then.

 

 

Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry's investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr.,Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) I, Ward Boston, Jr. do declare that the following statement is true and complete: For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them. However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth. In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the brutal attack on USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th. The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, president of the Court, and I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's official investigation into the attack, despite the fact that we both had estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry into an attack of this magnitude would take at least six months to conduct. Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander-in-chief, Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), at his headquarters in London, had charged Admiral Kidd (in a letter dated June 10, 1967) to “inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with the armed attack; damage resulting therefrom; and deaths of and injuries to Naval personnel.” Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered a vast amount of evidence, including hours of heartbreaking testimony from the young survivors. 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. I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of “mistaken identity.” In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol's book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack. It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out. I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the court's findings. Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to “put the lid” on everything having to do with the attack on USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of it again. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent off to Washington. I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript, is now missing and has been excised. Following the conclusion of the Court of Inquiry, Admiral Kidd and I remained in contact. Though we never spoke of the attack in public, we did discuss it between ourselves, on occasion. Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an American ship. In 1990, I received a telephone call from Jay Cristol, who wanted to interview me concerning the functioning of the Court of Inquiry. I told him that I would not speak to him on that subject and prepared to hang up the telephone. Cristol then began asking me about my personal background and other, non-Court of Inquiry related matters. I endeavored to answer these questions and politely extricate myself from the conversation. Cristol continued to return to the subject of the Court of Inquiry, which I refused to discuss with him. Finally, I suggested that he contact Admiral Kidd and ask him about the Court of Inquiry. At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol's claims of a “close friendship” with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty. Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior conversation. These “notes” were grossly incorrect and bore no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard to believe that these “notes” were the product of a mistake, rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that I disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that he was wrong. Cristol made several attempts to arrange for the two of us to meet in person and talk but I always found ways to avoid doing this. I did not wish to meet with Cristol as we had nothing in common and I did not trust him. Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and murdering American sailors, whose bereaved shipmates have lived with this egregious conclusion for many years. Dated: January 9, 2004 at Coronado, California. Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) Senior Counsel to the USS Liberty Court of Inquiry   LINK TO: CAPT. WARD BOSTON INTERVIEW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virtually none of the survivors of the incident characterized it as an accident, affirming repeatedly that it was a deliberate, concentrated, prejudicial, unprovoked attack to blind a United States asset that could otherwise have detected the military operations Israel was about to mount against its Arab enemies. Official reports say the attack lasted no more than 15 minutes. Survivors claim the attack lasted well over an hour.

From the Jewish Virtual Library, which stands on the conclusion that the incident was a grievous accident cause by both Israeli and American errors, Mitchell Bard writes this: "None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world."

From the other side of the dispute come explanations ranging from the quite reasonable to the perilously inflammatory. Interested readers may derive a sense of the bitterness of some former service personnel in the scathing critique of official investigations, originally published in the January 16, 2004, edition of Stars and Stripes, by former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Thomas Moorer.

Why the USS Liberty incident occurred that awful day in 1967 will never be known. What happened that awful day in 1967 is without any doubt: an American military ship was attacked, the vessel was destroyed, 34 of its naval personnel were killed, and 174 more were wounded.

As much as the survivors, their families, and other interested parties might want it to be otherwise, the reason behind what happened is not particularly important in light of the compelling lesson to be learned from the incident, a lesson for all time in matters of war and even of peace. The lesson is this:

No rational nation acts against its own interests: intentions are irrelevant; all that matters are capabilities. Wage war and build peace upon this premise, and both the accidents and the treacheries of your allies will be neither frequent nor unexpected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/

bal-liberty1002,0,3053738.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

 

Here's a classic quote from good ole Bill Buckley on news coverage of the incident.

I bet he's glad to see the latest coverage: "Is the Liberty episode being erased from history. So it would seem...What has happened to our prying journalistic corps and our editors, normally so indignant of attempted suppression of the news?...We believe that a joint select committee of Congress should investigate the strange case of the USS Liberty..."--William F. Buckley, journalist and publisher, National Review, June 27, 1967

 

 

"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 " -- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk

"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty." -- CIA Director Richard Helms

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship." -- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby

"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"
-- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson

"The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's 'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error." -- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31)

"A nice whitewash for a group of ignorant, stupid and inept [expletive deleted]." -- Handwritten note of August 26, 1967, by NSA Deputy Director Louis W. Tordella reacting to the Israeli court decision exonerating Israelis of blame for the Liberty attack.

"Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers. -- Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy (retired), USS Liberty Survivor

"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American." -- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry

That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency -- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident -- 5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate -- David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings

"It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity." -- Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1997

"To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn't identify the ship is ... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument." -- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15, 1991, p. 14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As if all this informtation is NOT ENOUGH

There is still the points about the USS LIBERTIES final resting place:

 

-BALI

Just jump from the pebble beach at Bali’s north-eastern coast at Tulamben and swim out for 15-25 metres and look down. Besides the swarms of interesting small and medium-sized fish - you can see the wreck lying on the ground, starting in just 5 metres of depth.

 

 

 

 

 

The USS Liberty is about 120 metres in length and was torpedoed by a Japanese Submarine in 1942, but is sitting at it’s spot only since 1963, when an eruption of Bali’s volcano Gunung Agung let it slip from its resting place onshore to its present position.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nomad4ever.com/2007/04/19/

the-fascination-of-wreck-diving-the-7-seas/

 

 

 

 

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