In my last post, Chas left this comment:
If you spend any time on Basef Right X, you might see posts like this:
Google: "USS Liberty" pic.twitter.com/ADSVKisV0t
— Connor Boyack ? (@cboyack) November 2, 2023
Or maybe this:
https://twitter.com/MiscStuff084/status/1720528545401676159?s=19
The USS Liberty incident another antisemitic conspiracy theory that the Based Right latched onto to justify their Jew hatred.
The USS Liberty incident is the most studied friendly fire accident in military history.
On June 8, 1967, right in the middle of the Six Day war, the USS Liberty was on patrol in the Mediterranean, in international waters, off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
It was a spy ship. It’s job was to record all the radio transmissions in the area during the Six Day War.
It was in a waterway that had previously been used by the Egyptian Navy and at the time was not flying the US colors.
There was an explosion of munitions on a beach in Israel, and the IDF suspected it had been shelled by the Egyptian Navy.
The Israeli Air Force spotted a ship in range, and misidentified it as an Egyptian vessel and opened fire.
The location of the USS Liberty was radioed to Israeli Navy patrol boats.
There is some debate to if the USS Liberty fired upon the Israelis or if it was ammunition cooking off in a fire, but the patrol boats launched torpedoes, one struck the USS Liberty.
As a result, 34 US sailors were killed and 171 were wounded.
The USS Liberty identified itself, at which point the Israelis called off the attack and immediately offered assistance, which was rejected.
The US Navy, IDF, US Congress, and Knesset all investigated, as well as a number of historians in the private sector.
The US Government released all radio communications prior to and during the attack on a FOIA.
The conclusion by all parties was that the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident caused by confusion in the middle of a war in which Israel was attacked on all sides by seven Arab nations.
The Israeli government paid $3.2 million to the families of the dead sailors, $3.5 million to the wounded sailors, and $13 million to the US Navy for damages to the ship.
It was a friendly fire accident between allied nations during a war and Israel paid restitution.
End of story.
Except for the Jew haters who want to sever ties between the US and Israel.
They claim that the attack was deliberate.
They generally give one of three justifications.
The first is that the Jews hate white Christian America and simple wanted to attack Americans.
This is just naked bigotry and Jew hatred. It also fails to explain why Israel admitted fault and paid restitution.
The Second is that they wanted to draw America into the war on its side and make it look like an attack by Arab states.
The logic of Antisemites isn’t logic, so they fail to explain how Israel attacking a US ship while flying Israeli colors and speaking Hebrew would trick the Americans into thinking they were attracted by Arabs and join the war on Israel’s side.
The third is the USS Liberty has recorded evidence of an Israeli war crime in Egypt.
Except that supposed war crime didn’t happen and no evidence for it was released with the other radio traffic from the Liberty.
This conspiracy theory usually digresses, when these points are brought up, that the Jews and/or Israel secretly owns or bought off Congress and the Department of Defense and that’s why they say it was an accident and are not telling the truth that it was a deliberate attack.
The Based Right continue to bring this incident up to try and prove the Jews hate the United States and the US should abandon Israel as a friend and ally.
Friendly fire incidents happen.
They are tragic.
In 1966, the US Coast Guard Ship Point Welcome was attacked by US Air Force aircraft, killing two Coast Guard sailors.
In Desert Storm, another fast paced war in the Middle East, 24% of all US casualties were friendly fire.
There were a number of high profile friendly fire incidents in the GWOT.
The US Air Force killed five Green Berets by bombing them.
US Army Ranger and former NFL player Pat Tillman was killed by US troops when an IED was mistaken for enemy mortar fire.
The US has killed allied troops as well.
We dropped JDAMs on both Canadian and British military units in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These incidents are always explained as having occurred during the fog of war.
But the one time an Israeli friendly fire incident against an American ship occurs, it’s the result of malicious action and evidence of the evil of the Jews.
The USS Liberty has entered the Canon of Antisemites and the people who bring it up now do so in bad faith.
OK J. Kb, what’s your point… As a protestant New Yorker, I grew up with Jews, some I liked and some I smacked the crap out of for calling me a shit gentile… We non Jews can help Jews or we can turn our backs on them, personally I don’t really care… I call the shots as I see them. Don’t say that Israel hasn’t kicked America in the balls a time or two. Of course in all honesty, I have to say I have a lot more respect for the Israelis than Jews in America… I sure I don’t have to name names of some of the more pathetic Jews in American politics… Still l’chaim..
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/httpturcopoliertypepadcomthe_athenaeum200710what-i-know-abohtml.html
Neither an accident nor relevant today.
During WWII there were 53 incidents of friendly fire. I suspect that’s a low count because ground troops didn’t care if a plane had Allied insignia if it was strafing them, and pilots had problems telling Shermans from Tigers at altitude and/or speed.
No one thinks the Army Air Corp had some sort of conspiracy against the ground troops. That didn’t start until the Air Force was founded.
The Liberty was previously positioned by Cyprus, because that was a great place to listen to radio traffic from the Arab Capitals. It sailed to the NEW position off of the Egyptian Sinai Coast, so the NSA could listen to shorter range Egyptian tactical radio signals.
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One theory was that Israel attacked the ship because they were afraid if the United States knew the Israelis were kicking Egypt’s asses out of the Sinai, the US would demand an immediate cease fire. At this time, Nasser being Nasser, was still lying his ass off, and claiming Egypt was bombing Israel and advancing victoriously on Tel Aviv, even though the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian Air Forces were destroyed, and the Egyptian Armies were fleeing afoot from the Mitla and Giddi Passes.
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Just think? If LBJ had called for a ceasefire stopped it at the “1967 Three Day War”? Israel never would have captured the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. Jerusalem and the West Bank would still be Judenrein.
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And in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Syrian Armored Divisions pouring down off the Golan Heights would have devastated Northern Israel, and Israel would likely have nuked Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad to stop the War. Maybe Amman too.
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Or I am completely wrong?
Now let’s talk about the Pueblo and North Korea and what happened to it a year later.
All of these fifth dimensional chess theories overlook that LBJ was a fucking bigot, and that if there was a inkling that the Israelis knowingly and deliberately attacked the United States, any support the US had for Israel would be dropped like a hot rock.
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Half the support Israel got in the 60s and 70s was only because the Arabs were aligned with the Soviets and Israel was a strategic ally in the region. This was long before suppprting Israel as a Jewish state became part of the conservative evangelical dogma.
I’m with you on this subject. It just doesn’t add up that Israel would attack its most ardent supporter. However J.Kb, I have intimate personal involvement in my family which goes back to the late 1920s in a what eventually became known as a Jewish charity organization which culminated immediately after November 9–10, 1938. Kristallnacht. ‘The night of the broken glass.’ Thought you might like to know this fact.
J. Kb – I read (a number of years ago) another explanation for the attack: that the US ship was listening in on the Israelis and passing thereal-time info on to the Arabs and. I don’t remember any proof being provided with the assertion.
Occam would favor just another case of “friendly fire” (it happens).
I haven’t heard that one. That makes even less sense because the Arabs were a proxy for the Soviets at that time, so the US would be passing Intel to the Soviets.
Of what possible use would such information be to the Soviets? Why would we even care if we did know that they would know? But the IDF was beginning to shift significant forces from Sinai to the Syrian and Jordanian fronts. If the Egyptians had realized that, they might’ve decided they weren’t quite as beat as they thought.
FWIW, my father was a career US Navy CT (cryptologic tech). We were on Guam at the time, but I later met a master chief who had been one of the lucky unwounded on the Liberty (2/3 of the crew was killed or wounded). He had no doubt it was a deliberate attack on a known American ship because of the extra-large American flag they had raised (one not normally flown because if its size), replacing the normal-sized one. Yes, they most certainly were flying American colors, and in fact the Israelis had positively identified it as GTR-5 Liberty 3-4 hours before the attack. The master chief was especially bitter about life rafts being machinegunned. He said he didn’t know why they were attacked, but said, “There was no fucking way they didn’t know who we were,” and that the investigations, such as they were, were more about burying it than getting to the truth.
I think it was friendly fire, but a particularly egregious example of the kind of “cowboy”, gung-ho style leftists the world over love to associate with the US military. It was a sustained attack by 2 waves of planes with 30mm cannon, rockets, and napalm, then 3 torpedo boats at close range with cannon, machineguns, and torpedoes (only one hit).
I also knew another CT my dad worked with (father of a friend) who had been on the USS Pueblo. I never heard anything directly about that because my father had strictly warned me against ever asking him any questions about it. He could get kind of agitated, apparently. Looking back, he’d have been diagnosed with PTSD today. That was another Navy clusterfark, even less excusable than the Liberty being where it was unescorted. And so the Navy tried to pin the blame on the captain. So, yeah, I find it all too easy to believe servicemen will be shafted if politics seem to require it. Read Col. Jack Broughton’s book, “Going Downtown: The War Against Hanoi And Washington” for some examples.
And still I went into the Air Force, and my brother went into the Navy. I believe in the country and the Constitution, but our government makes dumpster fires smell nice. But I wouldn’t recommend the military to anyone anymore if they have any options, but for more reasons than just the rot at the top they were already displaying in Vietnam.
Uhhhh huh.
”…and at the time was not flying the US colors.”
You got a source for that?
Wikipedia says the ship was flying its colors, and I’ve found a survivor’s quote claiming that the signalman raised the larger holiday colors due to the regular flag being damaged over multiple attacks and flyovers.
I’m not fully trusting this quote, and won’t trust anything until I read for myself a reputable primary source. It’s not unheard of for an enemy to fly a false flag either, but the truth over the ships presentation that day should not be bent either way.
Regardless, ypu have to think BIG picture. Since WW2 we have kept the peace on the seas.
Iran couldnt get a Frigate near…anything before getting dived on by a Prowler.
Saddam was a powerhouse prior to First Gulf War. Multiples of Ukraines defenses over a smaller area. Successful air campaigns against Irans AMERICAN aircraft. Thats why we went so hard on air superiority in the 1st gulf war. It was NOT a cakewalk. It was a well executed, never underestimate my enemy, clinic. It was a perfect game. It wont happen again for a looong time.
Isreal is the only country to successfully engage an American Naval vessel without help. Like c’mon, Isreal can put it DOWN. Also, theyre the reason why we have such good defenses. We want to have the best missiles and protect ourselves from friendly fire.
Also, where were their counterparts? Ya know the rest of the group? Not like we dont have a “Battle Buddy” system. What American leadership leaves a boat in contested waters? With no protection?
I was aboard the USS Liberty when the ship was attacked by the IDF on June 8, 1967 and serve my shipmates as Historian of the USS Liberty Veterans Association.
“The USS Liberty incident is the most studied friendly fire accident in military history”
The attack on our ship was neither “friendly fire” nor an “accident.” And the US government has never investigated the attack on our ship.
While some insist the US government has conducted any number of investigations of the attack on our ship, that claim is easily debunked by contacting the US government to request they provide you with a copy of a US government investigation of the attack:
There is no Congressional investigation for your Congressional Delegation to provide you with a copy.
No evidence of a Congressional investigation into the USS Liberty attack was found by the Historians of the US House of Representatives and US Senate.
The Historians of the US House of Representatives and US Senate couldn’t find any evidence of a law permitting an investigation of the USS Liberty attack.
The Congressional Research Service is unable to identify any US government investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty.
Unlike the attacks on the USS Pueblo, USS Stark and USS Cole and the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the US government has not investigated the attack on the USS Liberty.
The attack on our ship is the only attack on a US Navy ship since the end of WWII NOT investigated by the US government.
Read the accounts of 20 USS Liberty survivors who, like every USS Liberty survivor, are to this day still affected by the coverup of the attack by the US government.
https://www.usslibertydocuments.info/docs/uss-liberty-survivor-statements/
Two of those statements are from eyewitnesses who saw the Israeli torpedo boats deliberately machine gun life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship.
During the US Navy Court of Inquiry convened following the attack, retired Secret Service Agent Lloyd Painter testified under oath and is one of those witnesses. He learned much later that they removed his testimony from the Report of the Court of Inquiry.
Not redacted.
Completely removed. As if he did not offer his testimony on this issue.
You can learn about the War Crimes committed with impunity during the attack on our ship at https://ussliberty.com
Thank you for preserving the history and especially your service. I’m not surprised by the government’s lack of properly honoring this event but am deeply embarrassed by it.
Biden faces a Presidential election in less than a Year’s time. He’s doing horribly bad in the pre-election polling today. The Gaza Abomination Oct 7th War, it compares to the Covid-19 mass epidemic which destroyed the 3 amazing years wherein under President Trump’s fabulous leadership the President Made America Great Again.
I have worked in Gaza. Plus, my moving company assisted Israelis out of Gaza, in compliance with PM Sharon’s leadership tremendous decision. My moving trucks did not fly the orange ribbons of protest to PM Sharon’s unilateral decision. I witnessed the horrors of looking down from the edge of the cliff of that near catastrophic Civil War which took Israelis to the brink of a Lebanese or Syrian total destruction of our young nation.
Israel gave up all of Gaza to set up a Hong Kong model Island Palestinian State back in 2005. We gave them the famous Gush Katif organic farms and several amazing milk farms (assets which i personally saw with my own eyes) which consisted of an engineered rotating slab of cement, which floated upon a thin layer of water, which permitted milk-cows to independently depart from their milk stations, and return back to their pens.
This revolutionary milking methodology permitted, in about the same time-period of milking, approximately double the amount of cows in the same time-period, as it took in the standard T-bone milking system set-up, used across the world by dairy farms. These tremendous assets the Palestinians despised and immediately destroyed!
In the 2006 elections Hamas threw the PA, ie the Olso Accords out the window! Between 2007 to 2024 Hamas has attacked Israel four times resulting in Wars. The Hamas Charter calls for the total destruction of Israelis from the River to the Sea! Now we Israelis no longer feel generous toward these dune-coon rag-headed dhimmi Arab refugee pigs.
Palestine: 1922 to 1948 R.I.P. Ben Gurion named the Independent Jewish State – Israel in 1948. Gazans in the 2006 elected Hamas as the government of Gaza. Following the Oct 7th Abomination Israel invaded Gaza.