Yesterday I made a comment to my fellow debater and GOLO ‘arch nemesis’ mentor
that “I am on the side of those who are on Liberty's side.” Later I checked my profile since mentor and I often exchange thoughts within the comments sections of our respective profiles and I came across a curious query from strolling bones …
“how do you feel about the uss liberty?” “Feel” as it used in this case is somewhat misplaced as this question obviously is referring the U.S.S. Liberty Incident. This is an historical event relating to the Middle East and more specifically the Arab-Israeli Conflict. You should take particular note of the use of the term “feel” and that I was not asked about my ‘thoughts’. You should also correctly surmise at this point that the question comes from a liberal and probably carries the intent of playing “gotcha” if I do not answer in the politically correct manner. So, in preparation of delivering my blistering retort I decided to investigate my interrogator.
Upon viewing this intellectual powerhouse of a profile you are greeted with a gif image of our President morphing into Alfred E Neuman, the gap toothed “What – me worry?” guy from Mad magazine. I thought how witty and original to display such outside the box thinking and depart from the masses in assessing the President to be somewhat of a moron and thus boldly going where no mere liberal has gone before. Along with this masterpiece of internet meme humor we have this enlightened bit of instruction included… ‘CLICK ON THE IDIOTS PICTURE FOR THE FULL STORY’. I tried in vain to comply with this request but sadly could not as strolling bones was remiss in actually posting a photo of himself upon which I could click, but I digress.
Let’s examine the U.S.S. Liberty incident through use of that great time honored tradition of the Google search. I was familiar with incident from the 12 semester hours of Military History required in my ROTC program, but this was nearly 20 years ago. So for cut and paste goodness, please consider the following….
Excerpted from http://www.adl.org/israel/uss.asp
On June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, Israeli war planes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering ship, while it was on a surveillance mission off the shores of El Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula. 34 Americans died and 171 were injured. Israel claimed it mistook the Liberty for an enemy vessel. Several Israeli and U.S. investigations corroborated that claim. In 1999, moreover, a National Security Agency report from 1981 was released claiming that "the tragedy resulted not only from Israeli miscalculation but also from faulty U.S. communications practices." Since July 2003, this report has been available on the NSA Web site accompanied by a recording of radio communications between Israeli pilots made by a U.S. spy plane on the scene throughout the episode. The most thorough non-governmental treatment of the bombing is A. Jay Cristol's The Liberty Incident (2002). Cristol, a U.S. bankruptcy judge and former U.S. Navy lawyer, concludes that "the totality of evidence establishes that the attack on the USS Liberty was a tragic case of mistaken identity that resulted from a compounding of bad mistakes perpetrated by both the United States and Israel, and nothing more." He analyzes, and meticulously debunks, previous books, articles and TV productions that argue that the attack was intentional and government investigations only cover-ups.
Now as I recall form my study of this incident, the American administration of Lyndon Johnson carried as much of the blame as the Israelis. The Americans repeatedly told the IDF that there were no American ships within 100 miles of the area but in fact the Liberty was only 15 nautical miles from Israel when she was misidentified as an Egyptian ship operating in an area where a naval bombardment was taking place. When Liberty contacted the Sixth Fleet commander for assistance, the nearest ship to her was over 300 nautical miles away. The 6th Fleet had been moved away from the area because the Arabs had gone to the UN claiming that the US was participating in air raids with the IAF. This of course was an untrue accusation by the Arab forces, but even back then the democrats did not want to ‘offend’ the Arabs so they moved the fleet and subsequently left the Liberty on her own in a combat area of operations. Once the Israelis realized their mistake, they immediately called off the attack, contacted the US to tell of the error, and immediately started rescue operations.
Revisiting the original question to me, I will close by summarizing my ‘feelings’ about this event.
The fog of war is dense and deadly and history is full of so called “friendly fire” accidents. I ‘feel’ that this is but one of the many tragedies of such nature.
I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident (especially in the non-sequitur manner as posed to me by strolling bones) are conspiracy theorists of the lowest sort. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident do so to bash Israel, the only stable democratic state and pluralistic society in the entire Middle East. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident reveal them selves to anti-Semitic in their attitudes toward the greater issues at play in the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident are symptomatic of the failure to recognize that the Islamic Fascists are the enemy of all modern civilization. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident are typical of the leftist liberals who side against their own country’s best interest because it’s all the rage in Hollywood. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident show themselves to be ignorant of history and undeserving of the freedoms they so take for granted. I ‘feel’ that those who continue to raise the Liberty Incident do so as camouflage to hide their sympathy’s for the enemies of freedom. I ‘feel’ that the following line from strolling bones profile is more telling then he can begin to comprehend…
Twit: british slang word for an insignificant, foolish or annoying person.
So there you have it; how I “feel” about the U.S.S. Liberty
