On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked an American ship, killing 34 and injuring 174 Americans. The US government responded by covering it up.
Fifty-one years ago today Israeli fighter aircraft and torpedo boats tried to sink the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship stationed off the coast of Egypt during Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria. Israel was unable to sink the USS Liberty, but did manage to kill or wound almost the entire crew. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 174 were wounded.
There are two explanations for the attack. As Washington has blocked every attempt at an investigation, we do not know which one is correct. Perhaps both are the reasons for the attack.
One is that Israel, which was committing a war crime by mass execution of Egyptian prisoners of war, was fearful that the USS Liberty’s surveillance had discovered the crime. The other is that Israel fearing an unfavorable outcome of the war that Israel had initiated intended to blame the attack on the USS Liberty on Egypt, thus bringing the US into the war on Israel’s side.
I have written about this attack a number of times, having interviewed sailors and officers on board during the attack, an officer, Captain Ward Boston, who was ordered to produce a cover-up, and Admiral Tom Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Frustrated at Washington’s coverup, indeed, Washington’s complicity in the crime, upon retirement Admiral Moorer convened the Moorer Commission to set the record straight.
The Moorer Commission concluded:
“That there is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.
“That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the US Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack.
“That surviving crew members were threatened with ‘court-martial, imprisonment or worse’ if they exposed the truth; and [the survivors] were abandoned by their own government.
“That there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history.
“That a danger to our national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation.”
You can find my articles on my website or online as well as the proceedings of the Moorer Commission.
The most disturbing thing about the Israeli attack is that when the Liberty’s distress signal reached the fleet commander and US Navy fighters were launched to drive off the Israeli attackers, the White House ordered the fleet commander to recall the American jets. Frustrated by his inability to defend the US Navy from murderous assault, the fleet commander used open radio to scare off the Israelis by announcing that US fighters were on their way to the Liberty’s rescue. This caused the Israelis to immediately call off the attack and to issue an apology that it had mistaken the USS Liberty, which was flying a massive American flag and had USS Liberty in tall letters, as an Egyptian ship.
On orders from the White House, Admiral McCain, Senator McCain’s father, ordered a cover up. The Liberty’s crew were ordered not to mention the event. It was two decades before one of the Liberty’s officers, then retired, wrote the story. American taxpayers, who were shelling out billions of dollars from their desperate needs every year to enable Israel to purchase the US government with the billions of dollars hapless Americans are forced to hand over to Israel, knew nothing about the attack for 20 years.
If 51 years ago Israel had such power over the US government that the White House itself refused to protect an American ship from Israeli attack and then covered up the attack in order to give Israel a free pass, just imagine how much more control Israel has achieved over the US government in the past half century. If you have any doubt that Israel rules America, just look at Nikki Haley’s subservience to Israel in the UN as US ambassador, or at President Trump himself defying the entire world and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Just look at Trump, on Israel’s orders, unilaterally disregarding the Iranian nuclear agreement signed by President Obama and upheld by all other signatories, in the hopes of creating a pretext for an American attack on Iran that serves only Israel’s interest. Just look at the extraordinary groveling at Israel’s feet of the entire US Senate and House of Representatives who unanimously pass Israel Lobby sponsored laws and resolutions. Just look at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, National Public Radio, MSNBC, and so on who serve as megaphones for the voice of Israel.
Every American, especially those superpatriots who wrap themselves in the flag, should be totally ashamed that their government is nothing but an adjunct of Israel.
This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org on June 8, 2018.
The crew of the USS Liberty is the most decorated crew since World War II and among the most decorated for a single engagement in the entire history of the United States Navy. Virtually unarmed, the LIBERTY was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats on 8 June 1967.
34 US Sailors and Marines were killed and 174 wounded.
The attack on the USS Liberty remains the only incident of damage to a major US ship since the sinking of the USS MAINE in Havana Harbour in 1898, prior to the Spanish-American War, that has not been investigated by the US Congress.
“We Americans and the USS Liberty” was taped at the USS LIBERTY VETERANS Association’s 50th reunion featuring a few of the Liberty veterans who taped important messages to Americans regarding LBJ’s cover-up and PTS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mahZ2IOXAeo
Learn more at LIBERTY CENTRAL II:
https://thearabdailynews.com/?s=USS+LIBERTY
People should read Peter Hounam’s excellent book, ‘Operation Cyanide’.
It appears that not only did LBJ cover the attack up, but that he had colluded with the Mossad to get Israel to attack the Liberty, which he would order to sail off Egypt.
Israel’s job was to sink the ship, and leave no survivors (they even machine-gunned liferafts in the water); the attack was to be blamed on Egypt, and the US was going to nuke Egypt in ‘retaliation’.
Nuclear-armed A4’s were on the way to attack from the US Sixth Fleet, and other nuke-armed planes were on the way from a US base in North Africa, and were recalled when only three minutes from their targets.
See also “USS Liberty: Dead In The Water”.
Though still classified here in America, the people of the UK all know the truth about the USS Liberty
https://youtu.be/kjOH1XMAwZA
The USS Liberty, a Navy spy ship, was fired on by unmarked Israeli planes – it was so bad the lifeboats with injured were even shot up. For anti-semites this was a field day for propaganda. But the BBC got hold of the classified files, and what came out of them was beyond anyones fantasy.
The U.S. had been fighting in the 6 Day War illegally with American pilots. We were involved but no one knew. The ship had lost communication after being fired on and LBJ ordered a plane to take off in retaliation with an atomic bomb to Cairo. However, there were survivors on the USS Liberty and they patched the radio back together.
They began broadcasting on all channels that Israeli planes had attacked them, killing most onboard. LBJ relunctently called the plane carrying the bomb back.
Still, it would take days for anyone to come to the boat to help the dying and survivors.
Days.
All were sworn to secrecy. The BBC documentary here is 64 minutes long and proves there are conspiracies- but usually not what the conspiracy freeks think they are. Did LBJ try to engineer a attack and blame it on someone else? had he ever done this before? Google, GULF OF TONKIN SECOND ATTACK NEVER HAPPENED. That attack led to hundreds of thousands being sent to Vietnam. Over 1 million dead.
https://youtu.be/kjOH1XMAwZA
The material in this documentary is classified in the U.S., however, it is not in the UK. This is an open source, and therefore legal for me to post. I do not post classified documents. It is interesting to note that if we had dropped nukes on Cairo Russia would have entered the war and it would have dragged on for years. Once Israel threatened to attack Egypt’s dams the war ended quickly and Egypt never tried it again.
I remember reading about the attack back when I was still living in the States. I left in 1968.
The author so anti-Israel that he states Israel started the war “…the war that Israel had initiated …”, completely ignoring the 3 weeks of war before Israel took any military action.