Leaving the USS Liberty Crew Behind | Consortiumnews - 0 views
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By Ray McGovern On June 8, 1967, Israeli leaders learned they could deliberately attack a U.S. Navy ship and try to send it, together with its entire crew, to the bottom of the Mediterranean – with impunity. Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, a state-of-the-art intelligence collection platform sailing in international waters off the Sinai, killing 34 of the 294 crew members and wounding more than 170. On the 47th anniversary of that unprovoked attack let’s be clear about what happened: Israeli messages intercepted on June 8, 1967, leave no doubt that sinking the USS Liberty was the mission assigned to the attacking Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats as the Six-Day War raged in the Middle East. Let me repeat: there is no doubt – none – that the mission of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) was to destroy the USS Liberty and kill its entire crew.
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Here, for example, is the text of an intercepted Israeli conversation, just one of many pieces of hard, unambiguous evidence that the Israeli attack was not a mistake: Israeli pilot to ground control: “This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?” Ground control: “Yes, follow orders.” … Israeli pilot: “But, sir, it’s an American ship – I can see the flag!” Ground control: “Never mind; hit it!”
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Halbardier skated across the Liberty’s slippery deck while it was being strafed in order to connect a communications cable and enable the Liberty to send out an SOS. The Israelis intercepted that message and, out of fear of how the U.S. Sixth Fleet would respond, immediately broke off the attack, returned to their bases, and sent an “oops” message to Washington confessing to their unfortunate “mistake.” As things turned out, the Israelis didn’t need to be so concerned. When President Johnson learned that the USS America and USS Saratoga had launched warplanes to do battle with the forces attacking the Liberty, he told Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to call Sixth Fleet commander Rear Admiral Lawrence Geiss and tell him to order the warplanes to return immediately to their carriers. According to J.Q. “Tony” Hart, a chief petty officer who monitored these conversations from a U.S. Navy communications relay station in Morocco, Geiss shot back that one of his ships was under attack. Tellingly, McNamara responded: “President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors.”
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Former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern on the shameful cover-up of Israel's deliberate attack on the USS Liberty in international waters during the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel -- which initiated the surprise war of aggression -- seized Palestine, the Egyptian Sinai, and portions of Jordan. Although not discussed in this article, the generally accepted motive among those who accept that the Israeli attack on the LIberty was deliberate was to blind the U.S. military to Israel's actions during the war. The Liberty was a U.S. Navy electronic intelligence gathering platform.