Chris Reuss wrote in answer to my remark:
The reports of the survivors offer little help as they didn't know anything about why the attack was made. Chris: "But they know that the US President ordered US forces to turn around." "That says it all." ------------------------------------- You are probably referring to messages that arrived during the attack. But, go back half-a-day. The entire US fleet was withdrawn 100 miles away from the fighting. Except the Liberty. That hung around on the edge of a ferocious war. Israel was fighting for its existence against 3 Arab nations. Air Force fighter-bomber pilots are intended to be aggressive. One notes that errors happen all the time in wartime. In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the "no fly" zone of Iraq (probably an Israeli trick). It's something you don't get into the middle of if you have any sense. And common-sense prevailed. If a flight of US planes came tearing in out of the west, there could have been dogfights and more deaths. In the middle of a full-scale non-US war!!! I got this from an interesting site I came across. It is: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/liberty .html 'The Joint Chiefs of Staff investigated the communications failure and noted that the Chief of Naval Operations expressed concern about the prudence of sending the Liberty so close to the area of hostilities and four messages were subsequently sent instructing the ship to move farther away from the area of hostilities. The JCS report said the messages were never received because of "a combination of (1) human error, (2) high volume of communications traffic, and (3) lack of appreciation of sense of urgency regarding the movement of the Liberty." The report also included a copy of a flash cable sent immediately after the attack, which reported that Israel had "erroneously" attacked the Liberty, that IDF helicopters were in rescue operations, and that Israel had sent "abject apologies" and requested information on any other U.S. ships near the war zone.' "Lack of appreciation of sense of urgency" Obviously, several US officers should have been court martialed or, at least, reprimanded. (Maybe they were.) It was a US communication foul-up. That says it all. But, why was the Liberty attacked by Israel? What a silly thing to do a ship belonging to Israel's principal ally. Well, something must be found to answer this obvious question. And you found it, Chris. You said: "This intelligence-gathering ship witnessed war crimes on the land (IDF executing Arabs POWs). The IDF tried to eliminate the witnesses." This advanced electronics intelligence ship was busy viewing an atrocity looking from sea level to an incident happening 12 to 14 miles away - as supposedly witnessed by one person, as far as I know. These Americans are magicians. Why this silly story is given credence is an indication of how little is the "evidence" needed by the conspiracy theorists. Third point refers to why the Liberty didn't leave with the rest of the fleet perhaps half a day before the attack. Apparently, this ship that could pick up an incident on the ground 13 miles away failed to receive the repeated orders to leave the area. Nonsense, or incompetence. The first Israeli pilot to reach the Liberty was interesting. "In October 2003, the first Israeli pilot to reach the ship broke his 36-year silence on the attack. Brig.-Gen. Yiftah Spector, a triple ace, who shot down 15 enemy aircraft and took part in the 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, said he had been told an Egyptian ship was off the Gaza coast. "This ship positively did not have any symbol or flag that I could see. What I was concerned with was that it was not one of ours. I looked for the symbol of our navy, which was a large white cross on its deck. This was not there, so it wasn't one of ours." The Jerusalem Post obtained a recording of Spector's radio transmission in which he said, "I can't identify it, but in any case it's a military ship." Spector's plane was not armed with bombs or, he said, he would have sunk the Liberty. Instead he fired 30mm armor piercing rounds that led the American survivors to believe they had been under rocket attack. His first pass ignited a fire, which caused the ship to billow black smoke that Spector thought was a ruse to conceal the ship. Spector acknowledged in the Post interview that he made a mistake, and said he admitted it when called to testify in an inquiry by a U.S. senator. "I'm sorry for the mistake," he said. "Years later my mates dropped flowers on the site where the ship was attacked." A sad error typical of what happens in wartime. The pilot knew there were no American ships in the area, knew that it wasn't an Israeli ship, knew it was a warship - so he attacked. And once an attack begins, it is hard to call it off. That's what the 10 official US inquiries found and I tend to believe them over assertions from those with a political axe to grind. Harry ********************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles. Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ********************************** > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Christoph Reuss > Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 3:12 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Futurework] with friends & gov't like these, who > needs al-Qaeda? > > Harry Pollard wrote: > > You must excuse me. I must have missed your answers. > > On 12-Jun, 19:22 +0200, I wrote: > > >> > The reports of the survivors offer little help as they > >> > didn't know anything about why the attack was made. > >> > >> But they know that the US President ordered US forces to > turn around. > >> That says it all. > >> > >> > >> > I can see no advantage to the Israelis in deliberately > >> > attacking an American ship. > >> > >> This intelligence-gathering ship witnessed war crimes on the > land > >> (IDF executing Arabs POWs). The IDF tried to eliminate the > witnesses. > >> http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0596/9605028.htm > > ("...US forces to turn around" refers to those who started coming to > the > rescue of the USS Liberty during the attack.) > > > As for your other question: > > > If Johnson had ordered all American warships to take > > station 100 miles away from the conflict, I wonder what the > > Liberty was doing there. Why didn't she leave with all the > > others? > > Your source answers this: > > "United States communication failures, whereby messages > directing the ship > not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the > Liberty." > > ( http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/liberty .html > 2nd para) > > HTH, > Chris > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~ > SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains > the keyword > "igve". > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca > http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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