USS Liberty: Accident or Cover-up?

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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First of all, if you assume that, you are calling all the American veterans quoted in the Tribune article liars for testifying that they saw/heard radio transmissions that show the Israelis confirmed the ship as American.

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Confirmed? Perhaps they saw an American flag but given the facts that:
1. False flag tactics in naval warfare is considered a legit tactic.
2. The USA told the UN/Israel that no US ships were in the area...then

Attacking this ship in a warzone should not have been unexpected. Again WHAT WOULD BE THE MOTIVE FOR ISRAEL TO ATTACK THEIR CLOSEST ALLY? No one can provide a rational answer to this question.... Care to answer this question?

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Which side do you think is lying and why?


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Both positions are not mutually exclusive.

I'll try once more:
A = False Flag Tactics can be used in naval warfare
B = USA tells Israel there are no American ships in the Area
C = Israel is at war and sees a ship in a warzone that is not suppose to be there.

A + B + C = Attack That Ship regardless of whether they see an American flag or not
Got it? You can not refute A, B, or C. Since you can't refute these three points nor give a motive why Israel would attack their closest ally then you can not support this silly assertion..... There also might be a D.
D = Israel Flight Leader was a trigger happy fool. In which case it is:
A + B + C + D = The result we got

[bills217]

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Confirmed?

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Yes - confirmed. Read the testimony. There is no mention of false colors, nor has there ever been, on the part of the Israelis. Why do you keep using it as an excuse when even they won't?

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Both positions are not mutually exclusive.

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Felix - are you reading my posts? Have you read any of this thread?

An American flag flying on the ship and an American flag NOT flying on the ship ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Logic FTW!

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As has already been mentioned in this thread, TWICE, an Israeli pilot testified to slowly circling the ship TWICE, before any shots had been fired, and not seeing any flag. So the "heat of battle" thing doesn't cut it. The weather was perfect and the flag was easily large enough to be seen (that was the whole purpose of the flag in the first place) from that distance under those conditions - all the Liberty survivors have testified to it.

The fact of the matter is, either the Israeli pilots or the Liberty survivors are lying - the two testimonies directly contradict in many facets and are totally irreconcilable. These "oops my bad" defenses of Israel require the Liberty survivors, every one of them, to be lying.

Which side do you think is lying and why?

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[bills217]

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Again WHAT WOULD BE THE MOTIVE FOR CHARLES MANSON TO KILL ALL THOSE PEOPLE? No one can provide a rational answer to this question.... Care to answer this question?

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innocent imo

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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Yes - confirmed. Read the testimony. There is no mention of false colors, nor has there ever been, on the part of the Israelis. Why do you keep using it as an excuse when even they won't?

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You have shown me NOTHING so far that the Israelis were 100% sure they were attacking an allied ship. They had doubts but decided to conduct the attack anyway because they had intelligence there were no US ships in the area.

Nor have you provided a motive why the Israelis would do so. You try to compare the cool rational Israelis with Charles Manson. This analogy was unpersuasive last week.....and it is unpersuavesive today. With regards to having a cold hard rational foreign policy, the Israelis are the best in my book. To claim or imply the Israelis decided to conduct a Charles Manson like blood-fest puts you on par with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Give me a rational motive on why the Israelis would do such a thing. The motives I've read so far on this thread are laughable...

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An American flag flying on the ship and an American flag NOT flying on the ship ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Logic FTW!

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Logic? Quit moving the goal posts.
You claimed that either the Israelis were lying or that the US sailors were lying. I reject this false choice and say both could be speaking what they see as the truth...

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As has already been mentioned in this thread, TWICE, an Israeli pilot testified to slowly circling the ship TWICE, before any shots had been fired, and not seeing any flag. So the "heat of battle" thing doesn't cut it. The weather was perfect and the flag was easily large enough to be seen (that was the whole purpose of the flag in the first place) from that distance under those conditions - all the Liberty survivors have testified to it.

The fact of the matter is, either the Israeli pilots or the Liberty survivors are lying - the two testimonies directly contradict in many facets and are totally irreconcilable. These "oops my bad" defenses of Israel require the Liberty survivors, every one of them, to be lying.
Which side do you think is lying and why?


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If anything this shows the Israelis were TRYING to identify the ship before attacking it. The identification efforts were mixed but since Israeli intelligence said there were no American ships in this warzone, the order was given to attack... The USA should have forewarned the Israelis there were sending sips in the area. They did not. Being a former military officer, I can say we rely on intelligence to know the location of friendly units which are adjacent to us. If we see military forces in an area where they are not suppose to be, we can engage them and shoot them up. In battle the person that shoots first is usually the one that lives. So being the first to pull the trigger is very important. The Israelis did the same thing that I would have done had I been in charge...

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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that's simply not true. go to ussliberty.org or whatever, they discuss several theories. some advocated by chairman j.c.s. moorer and others, who undoubtably know more about stuff than us.

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The motives I've read so far on this thread have been laughable. I addressed these whacked-out motives on another post on this thread...

I ask again. Can ANYONE provide me with a plausible motive why the Israelis would attack their closest ally? I don't expect an answer.....

[CORed]

I don't know a whole lot about the incident, other than what I have read here and the one linked article, but I have to favor it being a mistake, for the reason that, as Felix has pointed out, there is no plausible motive for destroying the ship. I think there is some possibility, as I said in an earlier post, that at some point during the incident, somebody in the Israeli command realized that they had attacked an American ship, and tried to cover it up by sinking the ship and killing the American survivors. This is pretty far-fetched, but it would account for the claims that pilots told superiors that it was an American ship and were ordered to destroy it anyway. However, I think it is far more likely that the pilots simply were not believed.

Whatever one may think of the Israelis, I can't remember anybody, friend or foe, ever accusing them of being stupid, and intentionally attacking an American ship would have been monumentally stupid on their part.

[PLOlover]

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The motives I've read so far on this thread have been laughable. I addressed these whacked-out motives on another post on this thread...

I ask again. Can ANYONE provide me with a plausible motive why the Israelis would attack their closest ally? I don't expect an answer.....

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http://www.gtr5.com/faq-3.htm
not gonna copy paste since may hyperlinks in there.

I"ve provided plausible possible motives, CAN ANYONE prove any of them false? I don't expect an answer ....

[bills217]

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You have shown me NOTHING so far that the Israelis were 100% sure they were attacking an allied ship.

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Yes - confirmed. Read the testimony.

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You claimed that either the Israelis were lying or that the US sailors were lying. I reject this false choice and say both could be speaking what they see as the truth

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Israeli pilot: I circled the ship twice slowly and saw no flag of any kind.

All Liberty survivors: There was a flag flying that day same as always, easily visible in what was perfect weather from that distance.

Felix: They are both telling the truth LDO



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The identification efforts were mixed

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Yes - confirmed. Read the testimony.

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[bills217]

Felix,

I am really not interested in talking about the motive because it would just be speculation - I have no idea.

Frankly, it is readily apparent that no motive would ever be acceptable to you, by your simple refusal to consider the facts of the case, and frankly, your opinion on whether or not any motive is "rational" enough is not at all relevant. I'll take the opinions of everyone in the CIA and NSA over yours any day, and they all think and have always thought it was a deliberate, premeditated attack, as well as everyone in the LBJ White House (contrary to their public posturing).

Everyone watch while I continue to quote things that have already been quoted in this thread multiple times (albeit they come from nut job sources like the Chicago Tribune):

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William Odom, former NSA Director and retired Army lieutenant general, said on March 3, 2003 that on the strength of such data, the attack's deliberateness "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the agency.

On March 5, 2003, retired Navy Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, NSA director from 1977-81, said he "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli thesis. "It is just exceedingly difficult to believe that [the Liberty] was not correctly identified." Inman said his conclusions were based on his talks with NSA senior officials who had direct knowledge at the time. All four officials said they were unaware of any agency official at any time who dissented from the "deliberate," conclusion, based on the intelligence.


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You guys need to give the CIA and NSA a call and explain to them how easy it is for friendly fire to happen in these kinds of situations.

Something else I hadn't considered in regard to Felix's case that the Israelis were justified even if they saw the American flag because of false-colors issues - the problem with that is, not a single Israeli has ever claimed that this was the case or was even a consideration. One pilot even claimed (this is either in the wiki or the Tribune article) to have slowly circled the boat twice and not seen a flag of any kind. The problem is this flatly contradicts the eyewitness testimony of every single person on the boat that day.

The Israeli story is that there was no flag and that they confused it with a specific Egyptian ship - period. The testimony about the transcripts recording the Israelis as identifying and confirming the ship as American directly contradicts their story. If they saw the American flag but thought it was an Egyptian ship flying false colors, then why is every single one of them lying about it?

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[Felix_Nietzsche]

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I"ve provided plausible possible motives, CAN ANYONE prove any of them false? I don't expect an answer ....

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If you had taken a basic class on logic you would know it is irrational to prove a negative. Therefore it is impossible to prove:
*There is no god.
*There is no Santa Claus
*There is no tooth fairy
The burden of proof is on the person making the assertion....

1. "that Israel attacked deliberately because Israeli authorities believed that USS Liberty was relaying Israeli war plans to Egypt in order to assure the destruction of the Jewish State. That is patently ridiculous, but widely accepted even in Israel."
***Even this site admits this is silly...

2a. "1. The planned invasion of the Golan Heights which was set to start a few hours after Liberty's arrival in the area. When Liberty arrived, the invasion was postponed for 24 hours, Liberty was attacked, and the invasion took place the next day. Did they postpone the invasion until Liberty was out of the way and unable to report on the war?"
****Not plausible. There are limits of the intelligence a ship can gather on land forces. A well disciplined army like the Israelis would have minimize radio traffic before such an attack. Also the Golan Heights are in Syria, I thought this ship was attacked near Egypt. Besides, why would tthe USA sell out the Israelis to the Arabs?

2b. "It is possible that they were afraid that Liberty might learn and report to the United States that Israeli forces were executing up to 1,000 Egyptian Prisoners of War at El Arish at the very moment that Liberty was just 13 miles off shore. It is also possible that USS Liberty was attacked to prevent the ship from reporting a deliberate massacre of 14 Indian United Nations peacekeepers that took place in Gaza shortly before Israel's attack on USS Liberty.
*****The idiot that wrote this knows intelligence gathering from ships as he knows about fly crap. A ship like this does not have magic abilities to see these types of activities. This half-ass hypothesis might for the military ignorant which seems to be most of the conspiracy theorists in this post.

Like I said.....no one can provide a rational motive for such an attack. Some of the people of this forum don't even know which end of the barrel a bullet comes out of yet the assign super-powers to this spy ship.

BESIDES....the planes were armed with armor piercing bullets. If they wanted to sink this ship, they would have carried bombs. Fools!