USS Liberty: Accidental or Deliberate?

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Friday, August 18, 2006 03:16
VIEWED: 5591
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CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, August 12, 2006 1:55 AM

In a recent discussion about Israel here in RWE, I asked whether the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a mistake or an intentional attack. The answer was, "A mistake." I was dumbfounded. This was the first person I had ever "talked" to who believed the USS Liberty was a mistake, just another case of accidental friendly fire. In the back of my mind, I guess I had always assumed that anyone who knew about the USS Liberty would "know" it wasn't an accident.

So now I am naturally curious if that person is the only one here who thinks it's an accident, or there lots of you out there? What do RWErs think?

Here is some background info on the USS Liberty, if you need to read up before making up your mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
Lots of links both pro and con.

From the survivors of the attack:

Quote:
During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 174 were wounded. . .

Israel claims they mistook our ship for the out-of-service Egyptian horse carrier El Quseir and that we brought the attack upon ourselves by operating in a war zone without displaying a flag. Not so. We were in international waters, far from any fighting, and flew a bright, clean, new American flag. . .

"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

(Read more here.)
http://www.ussliberty.org/index.html

From an author (Judge A. Jay Cristol, former U.S. Navy carrier pilot, and a lecturer for the Department of Defense on the Law of Naval Warfare) defending the attack as an accident:

Quote:
the United States had publicly announced to the world at the United Nations Security Council only two days before June 8, 1967 that it had no warships within hundreds of miles of the combat zone. The chain of reactions were started by an Israeli army report of explosions at El Arish. Since Israel controlled the air and the ground, they made the assumption that they were being shelled from the sea and a warship was in eye view. In view of the U.S. public announcement, it seems more logical for the Israelis to have assumed that a haze grey warship sailing within eye view of the ongoing combat was an enemy vessel rather than a U.S. ship. . . .

(Read the rest here.)
http://hnn.us/articles/369.html

-------
"Maybe she's a lazy hooker. They can't all have hearts of gold and good work ethics." -- Jaye in Wonderfalls

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, August 12, 2006 3:04 AM

As usual, let's boil it down to one single question, then.

If it was a case of mistaken identity, why did they jam US Armed Forces radio frequencies during the attack ?

No accident, I say.

-Frem

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, August 12, 2006 2:05 PM

Another point. Even with accidents, someone is held accountable for whatever mistakes were made, esp when the accident involved the extent of damage and casualties as the USS Liberty. The accidental attack lasted 75 minutes and resulted in Capt McGonagle earning a Medal of Honor. A Medal of Honor!! (How many of those have been awarded for conduct under friendly fire?)

Here is Israel's response for their "mistake":

Quote:
To sum up these last counts, my conclusion is that in all the circumstances of the case, the conduct of anyone of the naval officers concerned in this incident cannot be considered unreasonable, to an extent which justified commital for trial. http://www.ussliberty.com/excuse.htm

Our soldiers died and were wounded without a single person answering for it. Doesn't anyone care?

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, August 12, 2006 4:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
As usual, let's boil it down to one single question, then.

If it was a case of mistaken identity, why did they jam US Armed Forces radio frequencies during the attack ?

It’s unclear that Israeli jamming occurred. Contrary to common myth, this is not a resolved issue, and remains controversial with some problematic discontinuities in the evidence. Though it appears quite certain that the USS Liberty did experience a communications failure, and that could have been caused by the Israelis either deliberately or unintentionally. It could also be the case that a preexisting communications problem resulted in the attack.

Although, another even more pervasive question which has never been provided a satisfactory answer either. Why would the Israelis deliberately attack the US? Some suggestions given have been the assumption that the Israelis were attempting to blind the Americans by attacking an intel boat. First of all, why did the Israelis call off the attack short of sinking the Liberty? The only way to carry out such a ruse is to completely sink the Liberty so that no one is left to testify to the action; in fact what the Israelis did do was immediately call off the attack and go to the US embassy and apologize. Another answer has been that the Israelis were attempting to draw the Americans into the war against the Egyptians, but once again, why then go to the US embassy and admit the attack.

I've never been convinced that it was anything other then an atrocious mistake.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

BIGDAMNNOBODY

Saturday, August 12, 2006 4:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by canttakesky:
Another point. Even with accidents, someone is held accountable for whatever mistakes were made, esp when the accident involved the extent of damage and casualties as the USS Liberty. The accidental attack lasted 75 minutes and resulted in Capt McGonagle earning a Medal of Honor. A Medal of Honor!! (How many of those have been awarded for conduct under friendly fire?)

IMHO, The victims of the friendly fire incidents should all get Medal's of Honor.

Quote:

Here is Israel's response for their "mistake":
Quote:
To sum up these last counts, my conclusion is that in all the circumstances of the case, the conduct of anyone of the naval officers concerned in this incident cannot be considered unreasonable, to an extent which justified commital for trial. http://www.ussliberty.com/excuse.htm

Our soldiers died and were wounded without a single person answering for it. Doesn't anyone care?

Of course people care. Unfortunatly friendly fire incidents occur all the time in combat situations. As stated above by Finn, What could possibly be Israels rationale for deliberatly attacking their greatest ally? That would be akin to Germany attacking the Russians during WW2. I think we all know where that got Herr Hitler.

Please read the following information about the friendly fire incident in Afghanistan and tell me if Canada should stop being an ally to the U.S.A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_friendly_fire_incident

Fairly similar situation where the 'firees' did nothing wrong and the 'fireers' were not really held accountable.

De-lurking to stir stuff up.

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, August 12, 2006 5:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BigDamnNobody:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_friendly_fire_incident

Fairly similar situation where the 'firees' did nothing wrong and the 'fireers' were not really held accountable.

I beg to differ. From the link you posted:

Quote:
On September 11, 2002, the U.S. pilots, Majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach were officially charged with 4 counts of negligent manslaughter, 8 counts of aggravated assault, and 1 count of dereliction of duty. Umbach's charges were later dismissed. Schmidt's charges were reduced (on June 30, 2003) to just the dereliction of duty charge. On July 6, 2004 U.S. Lt.-Gen. Bruce Carlson found Schmidt guilty of dereliction of duty in what the U.S. military calls a "non-judicial hearing" before a senior officer. Schmidt was fined nearly $5,700 in pay and reprimanded. The reprimand, written by Lt. Gen. Carlson said Schmidt had "flagrantly disregarded a direct order," "exercised a total lack of basic flight discipline", and "blatantly ignored the applicable rules of engagement." Umbach was reprimanded for leadership failures and allowed to retire.

The Israelis didn't even have a trial. Doesn't anybody care?

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, August 12, 2006 5:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BigDamnNobody:
IMHO, The victims of the friendly fire incidents should all get Medal's of Honor.

I don't think you understand what Medals of Honor are for. It's the highest military honor in the land. You don't get it simply for being a victim, even if it is a atrocious accident. You have to DO something to earn it, something way above and beyond the call of duty.

Quote:
What could possibly be Israels rationale for deliberatly attacking their greatest ally?

If you really want to know, read the links I posted. If you have a critique of posited reasons, we can discuss them here.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, August 12, 2006 6:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
The Israelis didn't even have a trial. Doesn't anybody care?

There were two reasons why we prosecuted that Afghan friendly fire incident. First, there are few enough casualties in Afghanistan to make such prosecutions feasible, and secondly the growing political rift between Canada and the US, created a perception that the US had to offer Canada recompense. There were a lot of people in the United States who were very upset over the prosecution of these officers, since we’ve rarely prosecuted for friendly fire incidents. There were some 20,000 friendly fire deaths in World War II, I’m not aware of any trials. There has been many other friendly fire incidents since World War II, some of them pretty nasty, again this is the only one I know that was tried.

So, why Israel should be expected to try their soldiers for friendly fire incidents, I don’t know. No one else does. Some of the officers involved were forced to resign, which is probably more then normally happens. Although, maybe Israel should have held a trial, maybe that would appease some of the anti-Israeli sentiment. But I question that, and I suspect so did Israel. And I think they were more concerned about the morale of their soldiers and their population, which was suffering from near constant threat of attack by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Although soldiers were not prosecuted there were several investigations from 1967 to 1991, all of which concluded that the incident was a mistake.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, August 13, 2006 12:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
in fact what the Israelis did do was immediately call off the attack and go to the US embassy and apologize

The War Crimes Report filed by the survivors of the attack had this to say about the apology:

Quote:
By patching together different systems, the ship’s radio operators had ultimately been able to send a brief distress message that was received and acknowledged by United States Sixth Fleet forces present in the Mediterranean. Upon receipt of that message the aircraft carriers USS Saratoga and USS America each launched aircraft to come to the aid of USS Liberty. The reported attacking aircraft were declared hostile and the rescue aircraft were authorized to destroy them upon arrival. The rules of engagement, authorizing destruction of the attackers, were transmitted to the rescue aircraft "in the clear" (i.e., they were not encrypted).

Shortly after the Sixth Fleet transmission of the rules of engagement to its dispatched rescue aircraft, the Israeli torpedo boats suddenly broke off their attack and transmitted messages asking if USS Liberty required assistance. At the same time, an Israeli naval officer notified the US Naval Attaché at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv that Israeli forces had mistakenly attacked a United States Navy ship and apologized. The Naval Attaché notified the United States Sixth Fleet and rescue aircraft were recalled before they arrived at the scene of the attack.
http://www.ussliberty.com/report/report.htm

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Although soldiers were not prosecuted there were several investigations from 1967 to 1991, all of which concluded that the incident was a mistake.

Here are the results of another investigation.

Quote:
The "Moorer Commission" (Chaired by Adm. Moorer) investigated the attack and made the following findings:

"We, the undersigned, having undertaken an independent investigation of Israel's attack on USS Liberty, including eyewitness testimony from surviving crewmembers, a review of naval and other official records, an examination of official statements by the Israeli and American governments, a study of the conclusions of all previous official inquiries, and a consideration of important new evidence and recent statements from individuals having direct knowledge of the attack or the cover up, hereby find the following:

1. That on June 8, 1967, after eight hours of aerial surveillance, Israel launched a two-hour air and naval attack against USS Liberty, the world's most sophisticated intelligence ship, inflicting 34 dead and 173 wounded American servicemen (a casualty rate of seventy percent, in a crew of 294);

2. That the Israeli air attack lasted approximately 25 minutes, during which time unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on USS Liberty's bridge, and fired 30mm cannons and rockets into our ship, causing 821 holes, more than 100 of which were rocket-size; survivors estimate 30 or more sorties were flown over the ship by a minimum of 12 attacking Israeli planes which were jamming all five American emergency radio channels;

3. That the torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but the machine-gunning of Liberty's firefighters and stretcher-bearers as they struggled to save their ship and crew; the Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded;

4. That there is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew; evidence of such intent is supported by statements from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Undersecretary of State George Ball, former CIA director Richard Helms, former NSA directors Lieutenant General William Odom, USA (Ret.), Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN (Ret.), and Marshal Carter; former NSA deputy directors Oliver Kirby and Major General Jo

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