New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty

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greytraveller RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 1:22:56 PM

It is very possible that the Israelis engaged in a deliberte attack on an American ship. If so then one must wonder what the reason was??? Again, if so, then those responsible should be brought to justice. Odd that these revalations should be brought to light at this VERY critical time.

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Soylent Green RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 1:29:47 PM

I've encountered a couple of former US intelligence types who have stated unequivocally that the Israeli attack on the Liberty was deliberate and with full knowledge that it was an American vessel. Personally, I don't know the details of the incident so I couldn't possibly comment.

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11b10 RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 4:35:31 PM

I'm a little suspicious of the article.Though I only skimmed it,it offered no new evidence except a claim by Intel. people to have seen new documents.Where are they?Also they did not mention that the NSA had a second asset in the air that day.Here is a Link with some good documents and info if you want to hear the other side.http:www.thelibertyincident.com/documents.htm

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11b10 RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty(correction) 6/13/2003 4:40:02 PM

link

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Soylent Green RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 4:43:22 PM

I dunno mate, I'll keep an open mind on the matter. But then it's not like this is an opinion piece inthe New Statesman. It's Proceedings, it's harldy a hotbed of anti-semitism and Palestinian activism is it? Anyway, we'll see.

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11b10 RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 5:06:26 PM

Yes I know, sometimes they do stories just to fill space though.The USS Liberty story has turned into an Urban Legend, you really don't know what to believe.If the incident had to do with anything except the NSA the crew would probably know the true story.One thing for sure some of the crew are very bitter.I would like to see those newly declassified documents.

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Soylent Green RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 5:09:59 PM

Well it looks like we'll have to keep waiting if we want a definitive answer either way. I can imagine the crew would be very bitter, even if it was an accident. Dead mates are dead mates are dead mates.

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SGTObvious RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 5:28:16 PM

I put it up there with most "friendly fire incidents", which are rooted in human behaviour under stress. There is a very strong tendency for the mind to accept new information only in terms of the already accepted mental picture, adn this is even more pronounced during stress. I have seen people swear that that they saw things they did not, and with the passion of honest certainty. Memories are far more plastic than people realize. A simple test- any American has seen pennies all his life- but try and remember ALL the features of a penny and where on the penny they are located, right now, without looking at one. Not easy. Despite claims by various people that they know "exactly" what happened, the truth is, only a handful of people really do and they are Israeli. Having seen all the arguments, including Israeli radio traffic that repeatedly identified the ship as Egyptian, my educated GUESS is that some Israelis screwed up royally, but due to the tension and stress and human capacity for bias, thoroughly and completely ignored all the obvious information that the ship was not what they first thought it was. Then, unable to explain how they could have been so stupid, they tried to cover up not the attack itself (which they never hid, and openly apologized for)but the rather stupid way in which contrary evidence about the target was ignored. I have actually seen this happen in a US Army TOC (Tactical Operations Center). One officer makes one comment about something, and the next thing you know, it's being taken as established fact all over the place, all kinds of incorrect, assumptions are being made based on the one comment, and finally an NCO has to straighten it all out and say "wait a minute. Slow down. Bravo company is NOT at phase line Utah. Captain Jones only said they SHOULD be at phase line Utah." That said, there are a couple of alternate possibilities. A fear that the ship was passing data to Egypt at the time was not one of them- First, Israel was openly passing data on its movements to the US at the time, and second, at the time the Libert was positioned near an area which had long since been overrun by Israel- there would have been nothing of interest the Liberty could have reported. 1. There were Soviet intel ships in the area, and the Israelis mistook the Liberty not for the Egyptian vessel, but for a Soviet one, but were no way in hell going to admit that they ever intended to fire on a Soviet ship. 2. An order to "check out" the ship was botched, and a controller's ego got in the way of rationality. Not unusual in war, orders get messed up all the time. A US SF team in Afghanistan told an Afghan unit to be "ready" for a cavalry charge. This was changed to "make a cavalry charge" which by sheer luck occurred the moment a bomb barrage lifted, making it seem brilliantly timed. It caught the Taliban totally off guard even though it was within a minute of being a total disaster. 3. An actual target was near by, and was most likely the Egyptian ship the Israelis claim they mistook the Liberty for. The controller tracked both ships but gave the wrong location to the pilots, who for some reason didn't question it. 4. Confusion over Liberty's identity might have been deliberately caused by Arab or Soviet forces. The US had ordered its ships to stay beyond 100 miles from the coast, but neither the Arabs (nor apparently, the captain of the Liberty) was aware of this. THere would have been several ways of doing this, among them, keeping the American ship between the Egyptian ship and the coast, so Israelis ordered to attack the Egyptian ship would have always found the Liberty first. With a ship found along the confirmed path to a known target, and the US reporting that all of its ships were beyond 100 miles way, Facts are hard to come by and made scarcer by the wide use of this incident by groups/individuals with a specific political agenda, who offer their somewhat warped "secret knowledge" of the event. An example is the book "Assault on the Liberty" in which the supposed expert tells us that the US Navy sent planes toward the Liberty, but they had to be called back because they were F-14's (in 1967???) armed only with nuclear weapons. (??? I didn't make that up, the author did, tho!) The various investigations (10 American, 3 Israeli) reveal a number of blunders, mostly Israeli, and a few coincidences that can easily add up to a serious mistake in "situational awareness". For instance: The Israeli naval officers on duty in the shift before the attack had correctly ID's Liberty, but the board got erased when the shift changed. Just before the attack there was an explosion in Gaza, erroneously reported as shelling, but most likely ammunition exploding. Just before the attack, Liberty turned towards Egypt- as if it was an Egyptian vessel that had detected Israeli planes and was running. The principle American error was in returnign fire. If you are the victim of a targetting error, in no way, ever, return fire. If you are being shot at by a guy is maybe only 60% sure you are enemy, the moment you shoot he is 100% sure. The REAL irony- Arabs have always agreed that the attack was accidental. The US Navy could not have been deliberately attacked by Israel in 1967, according to Arab sources, because the US Navy was at the time actively helping Israel in the war effort! TO this day many arabs beleived Nasser had told the truth when he claimed 75% of the Israeli air force was shot down in the first day, and another 75% the second day, so it must have been American planes attacking! (Skippy is only the most recent in a long tradition)

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jbwill2 RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 6:27:38 PM

I tend to think that generally speaking, the most logical explanation usually has the best chance of being correct. I am quite dubious of the idea that the IDF knowingly torpedoed/shot up a defenseless US intelligence ship. It is more likely that it was a terrible example of "friendly fire." I do have major problems with the way some of the Liberty crewmembers have been treated, though. People are going to always be bitter over the issue of dead shipmates; I don't think it is appropriate for some commentators to condemn these understandably angry crewmembers as anti-Semitic. Also, why in the hell was the man (captain, I think) who was awarded the Medal of Honor not given the full deal? I have read that the Secretary of the Navy presented the medal privately...if the US decided to give this man such a great award, then why did they half-ass it? Again, I am very doubtful of the IDF intentionally doing anything malevolent to the Liberty.

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11b10 RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 7:20:27 PM

The answer to most of your questions jbwill2 is NSA,its a very big deal.There was another NSA asset in the air that day.In it was a SIGINT officer,who is of the opinion that it was a mistake.His name was Dr. Marvin E Nowicki,the way he tells it, in his own words is at the link I posted.Under the heading of Nowicki Documents.

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Condor Legion RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 10:25:50 PM

Holy Toledo! Sarge, I, (as usual), agree with everything you said and believe that it was a blue on blue accident... except... I have a hardcover copy of James M. Ennes, jr's Assault on the Liberty and he states on pg.77 that the American jets were F-4 Phantoms from the carrier America. Ennes is also pretty clear that he's not sure if the F-4's were actually nuclear armed, only rumors. Lastly, Ennes qualifies as at least some kind of expert, he was a ships officer on the Liberty during the attack... OTHERWISE, CL

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bsl RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 11:10:12 PM

As far as the likelihood or possibility of mistaking an identification goes, let's keep in mind that in the last ten years or so, ***American*** forces have, mistakenly, attacked: 1)The Chinese embassy to Serbia/Yugoslavia, in Belgrade 2)A British APC detachment during the Gulf War (Bush 1) (As a result of this screw-up, a British civilian court actually indicted several American service personnel for homicide). 3)Several American and British aircraft, during the late fighting in Iraq 4)The Al Rasheed Hotel, in Baghdad, an incident reported across the entire Western world by the angry Western reporters actually in the hotel at the time we opened fire. 5)There was at least one incident during the fighting in Afghanistan of an American plane bombing an American position. This was during the rising at the military prison, when American Special Forces personnel were present helping our Afghan Allies put the rising down. 6)Similarly, you may recall the Canadian military killed by the American F-16 bombing, for which the American pilot was put up for a court martial. And, this barely scratches the surface of friendly fire and mistaken fire incidents. In fact, the dirty secret of warfare is that friendly fire is VERY common and that a LOT of people are killed, by mistake, often by their own military. And, if you think recent history is bad, consider that we've gotten MUCH better at avoiding these incidents. The incidence of friendly fire casualties during WW2 is certainly in the tens of thousands and may be much higher.

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bsl RE:New Naval Proceedings Article on USS Liberty 6/13/2003 11:20:33 PM

Having read the article, I'll add the following criticisms: 1)ID by air Sorry, but claims that it's easy to ID ships from the air or that the Israeli pilots couldn't have made a mistake fly in the face of AMERICAN military aviation experience. Read any decent history of American operations during WW2. Our own pilots OFTEN misidentified ships, from the air. So did the Japanese. It was extremely common. And not small mistakes. There is at least one famous instance - don't recall whether this was during the Battle of the Coral Sea or the Battle of Midwya, when someone managed to get an oiler confused with an aircraft carrier. 2)Couldn't have missed the flag - The evidence cited by the critics in the article doesn't support their own claims. The article cites gun camera footage from one of the Israeli jets showing smoke rising vertically, which pretty well counters claims that there was always wind blowing which would have caused the flag to display in the breeze, rather than hang out of sight.

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giblets 11b10 links 6/14/2003 4:40:27 AM

In the links reading the clifford clarke reprot, a couple of facts are pointed out, despite, 11b10 suggestions that the ships could be easily confused. The report states that the ships were widely different in size and structure. The aircraft made 6 straffing run, which are very short range, even in the gulf war, when a british warrior was attacked with rockets (suggesting a long range attack), the warrior is only about 20ft long (not 500). The other incidences given were all long range. So the aircraft flew over straffing, 6 times, the smoke would have taken time to rise up. Then helicopters circle the ship at less than 500yds (and cannot differentiate between two ships, one of which is 1/4th size of the other),a nd with a differnet structure. The second wave of aircraft noted that the shiip was not arab, as they has read the 10ft hight GTR-5 ont he fornt of the vessel, ytet they still sent some helicopters and torpedo boats, all of which closed on the ship. Even after this, no Israeli was ewver charged with the attack.

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SGTObvious Chinese Embassy bombing 6/14/2003 10:30:39 AM

I'm really quit surprised that a popular "conspiracy theory" hasn't popped up out of that one. Maybe it has in China. Given that China is not very friendly to us, (in fact sometimes drifts towards "hostile"), and we hit the intelligence section of the Embassy, 2 of the 3 dead being intelligence officers, I think the odds of the Chinese Embassy bombing being intentional are slightly higher than the Liberty attack being intentional. Not much higher, but better than zero. 11b10 posted some excellent links, which pretty much demolish the "intentional" theory. Especially the Sigint plane. If the Israelis were intentionally attacking the Liberty to blind our intel in the area, one must ask, why would they not also attack the other asset, which they clearly knew about- a big, slow SIGINT aircraft at 15,000 feet above the Liberty. (and more important since it had the hebrew speaking linguists aboard) Israel had total air supremacy, shooting it down "accidentally" would have been much easier than attackign the Liberty. And a question for the naval weapons buffs (If it's gray and floats, it's outside my area of knowledge): The Liberty took a direct hit from a Torpedo and SURVIVED? WWII era cruisers SUNK from single torpedo hits, right up to the General Belgrano. Smaller ships like destoyers just broke in two. What's up with that?

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