← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 12014 | Posts: 12 | Started: 2004-01-24
2004-01-24 01:22 | User Profile
American Free Press: [url]http://www.americanfreepress.net/01_21_04/Admiral_Says/admiral_says.html[/url]
Admiral Says USS Liberty Crew Left to Die by Lyndon Johnson
By Adm. Thomas Moorer January 24, 2004
After State Department officials and historians assembled in Washington, D.C. to discuss the 1967 war in the Middle East, I am compelled to speak out about one of U.S. historyââ¬â¢s most shocking cover-ups.
On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked our proud naval shipââ¬âthe USS Libertyââ¬âkilling 34 American servicemen and wounding 172. Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government.
U.S. military rescue aircraft were recalled, not once, but twice, through direct intervention by the Johnson administration. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamaraââ¬â¢s cancellation of the Navyââ¬â¢s attempt to rescue the Liberty, which I personally confirmed from the commanders of the aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, was the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my entire military career.
To add insult to injury, Congress, to this day, has failed to hold formal hearings on Israelââ¬â¢s attack on this American ship. No official investigation of Israelââ¬â¢s attack has ever permitted the testimony of the surviving crew members.
A 1967 investigation by the Navy, upon which all other reports are based, has now been fully discredited as a cover-up by its senior attorney. Capt. Ward Boston, in a sworn affidavit, recently revealed that the court was ordered by the White House to cover up the incident and find that Israelââ¬â¢s attack was ââ¬Åa case of mistaken identity.ââ¬Â
Some distinguished colleagues and I formed an independent commission to investigate the attack on the USS Liberty. After an exhaustive review of previous reports, naval and other military records, including eyewitness testimony from survivors, we recently presented our findings on Capitol Hill. They include:
ââ¬Â¢ Israeli reconnaissance aircraft closely studied the Liberty during an eight-hour period prior to the attack, one flying within 200 feet of the ship. Weather reports confirm the day was clear with unlimited visibility. The Liberty was a clearly marked American ship in international waters, flying an American flag and carrying large U.S. Navy hull letters and numbers on its bow.
Despite claims by Israeli intelligence that they confused the Liberty with a small Egyptian transport, the Liberty was conspicuously different from any vessel in the Egyptian navy. It was the most sophisticated intelligence ship in the world in 1967. With its massive radio antennae, including a large satellite dish, it looked like a large lobster and was one of the most easily identifiable ships afloat.
ââ¬Â¢ Israel attempted to prevent the Libertyââ¬â¢s radio operators from sending a call for help by jamming American emergency radio channels.
ââ¬Â¢ Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned lifeboats at close range that had been lowered to rescue the most seriously wounded.
As a result, our commission concluded that:
ââ¬Â¢ There is compelling evidence that Israelââ¬â¢s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.
ââ¬Â¢ In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United States.
ââ¬Â¢ The White House knowingly covered up the facts of this attack from the American people.
ââ¬Â¢ The truth continues to be concealed to the present day in what can only be termed a national disgrace.
What was Israelââ¬â¢s motive in launching this attack? Congress must address this question with full cooperation from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the military intelligence services.
The men of the USS Liberty represented the United States. They were attacked for two hours, causing 70 percent of American casualties, and the eventual loss of our best intelligence ship.
These sailors and Marines were entitled to our best defense. We gave them no defense.
Did our government put Israelââ¬â¢s interests ahead of our own? If so, why? Does our government continue to subordinate American interests to Israeli interests? These are important questions that should be investigated by an independent, fully empowered commission of the American government.
The American people deserve to know the truth about this attack. We must finally shed some light on one of the blackest pages in American naval history. It is a duty we owe not only to the brave men of the USS Liberty, but to every man and woman who is asked to wear the uniform of the United States.
2004-01-24 02:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel]American Free Press: [url]http://www.americanfreepress.net/01_21_04/Admiral_Says/admiral_says.html[/url]
Admiral Says USS Liberty Crew Left to Die by Lyndon Johnson
By Adm. Thomas Moorer January 24, 2004 [/QUOTE] Heck, even Magician at LF admits the Liberty was attacked on purpose. I remember at the time even in the mainstream press that's what was pretty well assumed.
Israel's reaction seems harsh, but you've got to admit, even Israeli's probably didn't think they'd be able to get away with this one if the crew survived to tell about it.
I wonder if anyone has ever written a book on the Liberty incident.
2004-01-24 04:08 | User Profile
Is it true Lady Bird was chewy?
2004-01-24 04:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Heck, even Magician at LF admits the Liberty was attacked on purpose. I remember at the time even in the mainstream press that's what was pretty well assumed.
Israel's reaction seems harsh, but you've got to admit, even Israeli's probably didn't think they'd be able to get away with this one if the crew survived to tell about it.
I wonder if anyone has ever written a book on the Liberty incident.[/QUOTE]
Not that it really matters but I happened to have an argument with Magician about this very matter and he does not admit that the Liberty attack was purposeful. He maintains it was accidental mistaken identity.
2004-01-24 05:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Not that it really matters but I happened to have an argument with Magician about this very matter and he does not admit that the Liberty attack was purposeful. He maintains it was accidental mistaken identity.[/QUOTE]While it seems I've heard him argue the opposite - that the Liberty was spying for America and that Israel had to take it out for their own safety.
Not that shifting between the two positions, especially when one isn't working, would be beyond him.
2004-01-24 08:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Heck, even Magician at LF admits the Liberty was attacked on purpose. I remember at the time even in the mainstream press that's what was pretty well assumed.
Israel's reaction seems harsh, but you've got to admit, even Israeli's probably didn't think they'd be able to get away with this one if the crew survived to tell about it.
I wonder if anyone has ever written a book on the Liberty incident.[/QUOTE]
Several. Oldest and best:
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0972311602/qid=1074931985/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-1361626-5723918?v=glance&s=books[/url]
2004-01-24 08:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]I wonder if anyone has ever written a book on the Liberty incident.[/QUOTE] At least one of the survivors wrote a book about it, although I haven't read it myself. It's called Assault on the Liberty. The author is James Ennes, Jr.
Also, a guy by the name of James Bamford wrote a book called Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. One of the chapters in Bamford's book is about the Liberty attack, as the USS Liberty was an NSA ship.
The following website, which is run by survivors of the Liberty attack, also provides a great deal of useful information and convincing testimony:
[url]http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/[/url]
2004-01-24 15:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust] Not that shifting between the two positions, especially when one isn't working, would be beyond him.[/QUOTE]
No it certainly wouldn't.
2004-01-24 18:17 | User Profile
[SIZE=4][B]Lying about the USS Liberty Continues[/B] [/SIZE]
The following are excerpts from my book.
[QUOTE]During the Middle Eastern war in 1967 the most under-reported and dishonestly reported event in American history since the end of the Second World War occurred. The American Navy ship, the [I]USS Liberty[/I], was attacked by the Israeli Air Force. The American Navy lost 34 men dead and had 171 wounded. What multiplied the disgrace and moral cowardice on the American side was the behavior of the United States Congress. A reading of the Congressional Record showed that not once in the year following the treacherous attack did any of the 535 senators and congressmen bring up the attack by Israel. The power of the Jewish lobby was never more convincingly displayed. The assault soon lost the interest of the American press. [COLOR=Red]Not only did the mainstream press lose interest, the magazine of the Veterans of Foreign Wars refused to do a long article on the attack. They succumbed to financial pressure of cancellation of advertising pages and did not print the piece.[/COLOR] The [I]USS Liberty [/I] newsletter published by their crew claimed one of the goals of the Jewish War Veterans was to prevent hearings on the attack.
In 1989 when the village of Grafton, Wisconsin accepted a donation of $400,000 to finance the construction of a local library with the condition it be named in memory of the USS Liberty, a clamor arose. Jewish organizations in Milwaukee protested the name as an insult to Israel, and the director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council argued the [I]USS Liberty [/I] had become "a symbol of anti-Semitism". As rather indicative of the attitudes of the established American press, the Milwaukee Journal chided the village elders for not seeing their errors and asked that the rest of the community "make the needed mid-course correction". Affluent white America with no stake in placing themselves or their children in harm's way had made their case very strongly.
A year earlier in 1988 a writer challenged an assertion that Israel had made adequate restitution for killing American sailors and noted the number of wounded had been dramatically understated in a newspaper article. This letter provoked a response by Mr. [COLOR=Red]Abraham Foxman[/COLOR], National Director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, an organization for American Jewry anxious to protect their claim to righteousness and innocence. Mr. Foxman asserted Israel did not attack the [I]Liberty[/I] deliberately, but rather it was all a mistake.
On November 6, 1991 in the Washington [I]Post[/I] newspaper columnists, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, gave a much different version of this sordid affair. After 24 years of silence American Ambassador Dwight Porter unburdened himself and revealed the truth. Porter, who was in the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, chose to make public the intercepts of radio communications between Israeli pilots circling the USS Liberty and Israeli Defense Force headquarters. The pilot of the Israeli Mirage fighter-bomber had radioed "It's an American ship". The reply from the Israeli headquarters told him to disregard the identification and attack the ship. Again the pilot pleaded, and again he was instructed to attack. He did so. The account of Ambassador Porter was substantiated by American-born Seth Mintz, who was a Major in the Israeli forces. Mintz, one of those who claim dual citizenship, was living in Houlton, Maine in 1991.
One of the attack dogs of the Israeli lobby, Abe Rosenthal of the New York [I]Times[/I], within two days had written a rebuttal. Mr. Rosenthal stated he had tried to get Ambassador Porter to give his version, but Porter did not return his call. However, the civilianized Mr. Mintz, a salesman of chemicals in the United States, did deny virtually everything attributed to him by Evans and Novak. Mr. Mintz denied stating the attack was "an outrage" and further stated: "I was misquoted, quoted out of context, used, abused and screwed". Mr. Rosenthal, using Mr. Mintz's testimony, then challenged the validity of the column by Evans and Novak. Some six months later it was revealed Ambassador Porter had not been home when the "one and only call" came from Mr. Rosenthal. Within three days of reading the column by Mr. Rosenthal Ambassador Porter had sent a letter confirming the essential facts as set down by Evans and Novak. Neither the New York [I]Times[/I] nor Mr. Rosenthal in characteristic duplicity chose to publish the letter disputing Mr. Rosenthal's wild and dishonest defense of Israel. This treacherous, cowardly and dishonest behavior long has been the norm for adverse reporting about Israel. What forced the public repudiation of Mr. Rosenthal's accusation was that it was coupled with a charge by Evans and Novak that Israel was illegally selling American military technology to China.
On November 9, 1991 the Washington [I]Post[/I] published a letter by Mr. Mintz in which he denied corroborating any of the charges by the columnists Evans and Novak. That a letter could be published within three days of a published column clearly indicated the gravity and concern by the Washington Post about the charges made. This had to have been a decision made at a minimum the editor's level and probably much higher, at the publisher's level. Presidents of the United States and United States Senators would have great difficulty in having a letter published within three days rebutting a charge in a newspaper. Within two days on November 11, 1991 on what was once remembered as Veteran's Day, Evans and Novak once again took the offensive and repeated the charge that the Israelis knew. They mentioned the news story dated November 7, 1991 in [I]Ha'aretz[/I], a prominent Israeli newspaper. This dispatch from Washington mentioned the grave concern Mr. Mintz had for all the media interest in him. Mr. Mintz told Ha'aretz he did not need the Mossad or Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence services, knocking on his door.
Three letters to the New York [I]Times[/I] of November 20, 1991 shed more light on what could be considered news and what was not. Evans and Novak, who were not published in the New York [I]Times[/I], had a videotape of a June 1991 reunion of the survivors of the USS Liberty during which Mr. Mintz appeared and confessed to the men of the USS Liberty that the Israeli Self Defense Force knew it was an American ship. Later Mr. Mintz repeated his assertion that Israel knew. What was somewhat more curious was the letter immediately below was signed by Mr. Mintz in which he denied making these remarks and stated the real truth lay with his remarks to Mr. Rosenthal. The revelation was the third letter by a member of the crew of the [I]USS Liberty[/I]. Mr. John Hrankowski told of how he and other crew members within two hours of the attack were forbidden to talk about it. Then he mentioned Mr. Mintz, whom he claimed he first met along with his wife in Washington in 1987, when 12 crew members including himself were invited by a film documentary company from London to comment on the attack. Mr. Hrankowski met Mr. Mintz again on June 8, 1991 at the [I]USS Liberty[/I] reunion where Mr. Mintz confessed to the survivors the same tale he told Evans and Novak. The production company had Mr. Mintz's story on film.
What has been so obvious was the consideration given by the powers in the American press to minimize any story which would lessen the image of Israel in the American media, or failing that to give a more forgiving spin. One must not forget that Mr. Rosenthal, once editor of the New York [I]Times[/I], did that sort of thing on a daily basis. It must not be thought he was alone.
Casually mentioned was Mr. Mintz's entry into the Israeli Self-Defense Force in 1965. One should be allowed to ask why he did not join the American army which was then engaged in Vietnam. Dual-citizenship does not mean dual loyalty. Mr. James Ennes, retired from the US Navy after 27 years, has pointed out the attack followed nine hours of close surveillance by the Israelis during which Israeli pilots circled the ship 13 times on eight different occasions before attacking. Radio operators in Spain, Germany, Lebanon and aboard the Liberty heard the Israeli pilots describe the ship as American, but they attacked regardless. Some fifteen years later one of the Israeli pilots held extensive interviews with then Congressman Pete McCloskey about his role. This pilot refused to obey orders to attack, and after he returned to base, he was arrested. One of the more intriguing sub-plots of the entire affair was that when the Liberty radioed for help, US Navy planes were dispatched, but ordered to return by Robert McNamara. Years later when accounting for his behavior during the war in Vietnam, McNamara failed to mention the attack on the [I]Liberty[/I]. Establishment reviewers did not notice. [COLOR=DarkOrange]Thirty years later McNamara told the American Legion he had no recollection of recalling American aircraft[/COLOR]. [COLOR=Red]Yitzhak Rabin then commander of Israeli forces denied his planes knew the ship was American. When Rabin died, President Clinton ordered American flags to fly at half-mast[/COLOR]. Aside from ex-chief of Naval Operations Thomas Moorer, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and precious few others, the Israelis and their bonded liars and spokesmen in the American media have gone unchallenged. The worst exhibition of American cowardice and duplicity has been in the American Congress where blood money of Jews has purchased allegiance to their cause and to the cause of Israel over concern for the lives of American servicemen.[/QUOTE]
Until a national record is made possible very little can be done to counteract the lies by Israel and their lobby in this country. Members of this forum are but a small drop in the bucket.
2004-02-07 00:13 | User Profile
This just hit the wires today:
[url=http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/6/04717.shtml]AP: Fmr. Chairman of Joint Chiefs Adm. Thomas Moorer Dies[/url]
WASHINGTON - Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, a Pearl Harbor veteran who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War, died Thursday. He was 91.
Navy officials confirmed his death. Moorer served as the military's senior uniformed officer from July 1970 until his retirement in July 1974.
[...]
2004-02-07 02:29 | User Profile
I served in the US Navy, active duty from 1968 to 1972. Moorer was CNO until 1970. It was an honor to serve under him. In 1970, I donââ¬â¢t remember what date, he was replaced with a much inferior officer, Elmo Zumwalt.
Enkidu
2004-02-07 03:31 | User Profile
Moorer was an honorable man. I'll miss him; others might be relieved. If the date on the top article is right that old salt was still throwing punches a couple weeks before his death. A good epitath for any sailor.
Zumwalt just killed himself with those Z-grams. Someone forgot to tell him that being Chief of Naval Operations means you don't have to win popularity contests anymore.