Come on people, I was expecting more of a discussion about this than what I got, which is nothing.

Well, I haven't even ever heard of this, so give me a little while to read up. Then I'll come back.

Thanks for sharing.

Without that attack which killed American sailors, from our supposed friend Israel, they never would have taken the Golan Heights and we would not be in the enabler role we're now in.

Has there already been a post about this? I don't understand why no one is replying as it's a really interesting topic.

Anyone who blames isreal for anything will be branded as a Nazi SS fanatic so i understand nobody wants that...

We should have declared war on them for such an unprovoked attack.

Have a shot comrade John Nada and relax. People on this forum don't like to read long articles that make them think! They want it handed to them and clean cut.

Israel attacked an American ship without provocation off the coast of Israel. Even when the Israeli's learned it was American, they continued to fire. The U.S. tries to cover it up, and the surviving crew is sworn to secrecy.

Yup, sounds like Israel to me. You should hear some of the comments the civilians of Israel make about Americans... if you people would only open your eyes and see how truly evil they are.

Na Zdrowie!

I can't believe no one has got anything to say about this subject. You can talk all day about Matrix Reloaded but you have nothing to say about this? I am really starting to lose faith in this board. Come on people.

[Edited on 27-7-2003 by John Nada]

Again complete silence over the subject of the USS Liberty, what are you afraid of? Or despite trying to be smart can you not actually handle reading a proper essay? Is a 20 line article the most you can handle?

The USS Liberty incident can be attributed tot he "Fog of War".

If the USS Vincennes (an AEGIS equipped Navy cruiser) can accidentally shoot down an unarmed Iranian 747, I'm sure we can give the Israeli's the same benefit of the doubt.

Just what did the Israelis have to gain? Pissing off their biggest ally and supplier or arms and intelligence?

The Israelis were gonna do whatever they wanted to do, no matter who was watching. Our government has knowledge of massacres, murder, war crimes, and deceit at the hands of our Allies that is classified and will never see the light of day. This would have been no different. Do you really think our president at the time (LBJ methinks) would really care if the Israelis killed a bunch of Egyptian POW's? You gotta remember the times and the way of thinking back then.

It was a dirty, nasty, but necessary conflict. And I'm sure all sides did things they are not proud of. But there can be no logical reason for the conspiricy theories here. The potential backlash (which apparently still exists today in a limited fashion) would be to great to risk.

Refer to Occam's Razor: One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

I've always thought occam's razor was dull, pun intended. lol

But really, apply you're argument to the victims stories that a flag was displayed and the fact they were in international waters, the length of that attack, being denied a destroyer escort ship, etc, etc. And if the Israelis are capable of executing pow's why wouldn't they attack the US ship and cover it up???

IMHO, there's been coverup on the US and Israeli side: each story seems to conflict with the survivors.

Without that attack which killed American sailors, from our supposed friend Israel, they never would have taken the Golan Heights and we would not be in the enabler role we're now in.

Interesting position....

Surprisingly, I've been glancing at the forum all day at work, and this was the first I've seen of this thread. It was brought up before, mostly in the war forum... Suffice to say, it's now history, and nobody raised a stink at the time. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to remember it...when it did happen. Nice cover-up, is all I can say, but I'd love to know what the skinny behind it was...No doubt, behind the scenes, this cost Isreal a lot to hush up... If I was those sailors' family, I would have raised hell when it happened. Something tells me some serious hush fund was involved...

Originally posted by John Nada
Has there already been a post about this? I don't understand why no one is replying as it's a really interesting topic.

I agree it's an interesting topic, but I'm not surprised that a 35 year old story doesn't get much attention today. I can certainly understand the bitterness of the survivors. They got screwed twice, once by the IDF, and again by the US government for not honering their sacrifice properly.

I think your timing for bringing up this topic is interesting. Did you know that it was just this month, July 2003, that the NSA released new evidence on this incident?

There was a US spyplane in the region that recorded radio conversations to IDF helicopters dispatched to search for survivors. In the recordings, the Liberty is first identified as an Egyptian war ship, then as an Egyptian cargo ship, then the pilots are asked to determine if the ship is even Egyptian at all. The pilots were instructed to find out if the survivors spoke Arabic or English. When the pilots reported that the damaged ship was flying a United States flag, they were asked to find out if the ship was really American or not.

These transcripts support the official version of the incident, that it was an accident.

These transcripts match previous transcripts released by Israel back in the 80's, but Israel had been accused of doctoring those tapes. These new tapes come from the NSA, were made by United States Navy pilots and have never been handled by Israel.

Will this put the issue to rest? Probably not. The survivors of the Liberty are not likely to be satisfied, they still recieved pretty poor treatment from our government. The others, those that just like to criticize Israel no matter what they do, won't be satisfied by anything.

and does shed some light on it...

Of course, why now? You have to admit that the NSA's timing on this is rather suspect....

I've always held it as a mistake on the part of gun-happy pilots...seems to still be the case...