Len Colby

Citation I couldn’t find this supposed quote on the Net? Who is/was “Mike” Ditto the context question re: the Feldman quote Feldman was alternatively known by the christian name of 'Mike' or 'Myer' Thanks for filling me in but since the quote and even snippets of it get zero hits on Google it seems that no one else (besides you) claims Kennedy or Bartlett said this. Yes and other than the fact that the Israelis placed a cardboard plaque with his name on it next to a garbage dump and the unelaborated comments of a single disgruntled ex-CIA agent I don’t remember seeing any evidence of such claims. So the memorial erected by Israel to honour Angleton was situated next to a garbage dump and featured a mere cardboard plaque? Can you cite a reference for this? Yes those famed Israel apologists Alexander Cockburn… http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?Progr.../?ProgramID=106 …and Victor Marchetti. http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p305_Marchetti.html What about him? Well, he was a true friend of Israel. The funds and weaponry he provided for Israel allowed them to emerge as the regional superpower by the mid-sixties. Do you disagree? I not that familiar with the details but I believe that weapons sales to Israel started under JFK, grew under LBJ but only became widespread under Nixon. The Israeli’s main arms suppliers at the time were France and the UK. Even if true can you provide evidence that this is evidence of his putting ahead of the US’s. It was the height of the Cold War and it was SOP to back the enemies of countries backed by the Soviets.

No that seems to be true. Produce evidence that this was due to the reason you proposed rather than the reasons I did He doesn’t seem too popular on this forum:http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ghlite=%2Bhersh Although not really part of the “mainstream” JFK community Fetzer listed him as a “special case” along with the likes of Specter, Posner and his “arch-enemy” our very own Josiah “Tink” Thompson http://assassinationscience.com/specialcases.html Leading JFK researcher and history professor David Wrone in his review of his Kennedy book entitled “SHAME ON YOU, SY, FOR THAT AWFUL BOOK ON JFK” wrote: “[Hersh] has prostituted his nation's history… Hersh does it with a corruption of scholarship perhaps unparalleled in recent times. He uses not a single source note, but employs caption notes that refer to many books and no pages, so a reader cannot easily check his truthfulness. Hersh has corrupted the facts. On major issues he is coy, strongly using suggestive language with a statement of fact where none exists. Sources are often made up to fit his perceived beliefs…” Wrone used words and phrases like “putative accounts” “Hersh's false presentation of his foreign policy” “bad…scholarship”, “subterfuge”, “Hersh's framing of JFK”, “falsifies the reality” “libel” in other parts of the review. http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/wrone/Dark_Side_review.html The Columbia Journalism Review (considered the most important academic journal of journalism in America) wrote: “But Hersh's attributions generally fall short of normal journalistic yardsticks. More important, many of his conclusions are weakly substantiated by his research and highly questionable.” http://archives.cjr.org/year/98/1/books-hersh.asp Edward Jay Epstein one of the first people to challenge the LNT wrote: “But how, even with his legendary investigative skills, did Hersh manage to recover these new memories from Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968? Hersh did not interview Robert Kennedy before his death, and Hersh does not list any source for these interior thoughts in his documentation. Nor could he have gotten it from Kennedy's own writings, since they don't contain them or even make reference to such matters. Hersh must have invented these facts. Such license may serve to expand the universe of creative journalism, but it unfortunately does not produce credible history. When the pretensions of "helping the nation reclaim some of its history" fade away on scrutiny, this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy.” http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/hersh.htm "This book is a fiction and we don't intend to comment any further on this maliciousness and innuendo." Senator Ted Kennedy “[Hersh is] the most gullible investigative reporter I've ever encountered." Arthur Schlesinger "[Hersh’s book is] a pathetic collection of wild stories." Theodore Sorensen http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/coms...00405200943.asp History professor Athan Theoharis in his review of the book for America’s leading history journal noted that “Little, if any, documentary evidence is cited.” http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L You’ve got the burden of proof backwards can you prove he said it? Considering the condemnation of Hersh’s scholarship on the book from so many sources I’d say the chances are about 50/50 that he said it. Who does Hersh claim told him this 30 years after RFK’s death or was another unverifiable anonymous source? How reliable was he (or she)? What was the context? What led Kennedy to (supposedly) say this? It doesn’t seem that the President believed this or at least if he did felt that it prevented him from carrying his duties at the White House which had nothing to do with military or foreign affairs. If true it would undermine it, if he put another nation’s interests ahead of the US’s while serving under JFK that would have been a betrayal of trust. If I were one of the Kennedys and believed what RFK (supposedly) did I wouldn’t want him as my attorney.

Why does the Conspiracy section here, which usually includes controversial, informative, and possibly some of the better discussion/debtae on salient current affairs spend so much ink on the NASA hoax? It seems that half of the recent posts on page 1 are dedicated to some issue related to the apollo program or space travel in general. The energy spent on this topic at this forum could almost power a space mission to escape velocity. I would like to suggest that a separate section be dedicated to the apollo 'hoax'. This is a forum for POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES .... Apollo was a POLITICAL CONSPIRACY .. Therefore it belongs here on this forum ... Copying and pasting articles is NOT trolling , And I never said that is. Many members frequently cut and paste articles Mike Hogan, Sid Walker, Peter Lemkin and Douglas Caddy come to mind but they don’t “continuously [start] new threads on the same topic”, rather they post articles on a wide variety of topics and when they post articles on the same topic do so in the same thread. Normally they don’t seem to be posting these articles in lieu of making an argument it’s more along the lines of ‘here’s something interesting you might want to read it’. In Sid’s case the cutting and pasting is part of his argument. I doubt that even my most consistent "opponents" (Jack, Sid, Mike Hogan, Mark Stapleton, and Fetzer) would say that is what I do here. The problem is that by starting so many threads you push other topics off the 1st page. If a separate section isn’t started you should refrain from starting so many threads but rather make new posts on existing ones and before doing so ask yourself “is this adding anything new to the discussion or is it a rehash of what I’ve already posted ad infinium?” Another suggestion is that you reply in a more meaningful way than saying ‘This crap from Clavius’ to rebuttals before advancing new points (let alone rehashing ones you’ve presented numerous times already). If two people with such disparate (and desperate -LOL) views on just about everything as Sid and I agree that your behavior is xxxxx like perhaps you should consider the possibility that it is. EDIT - typo (see below)

Mark wrote: Please cite evidence for this claim. Even IF true this could have been due to embracement over US errors or perceived errors (only ordering the defenseless ship away from a combat zone at the last minute, misrouting those orders, failure to provide an escort etc,) LOL so now Hersh is a reliable source regarding the Kennedys? Normally he is pilloried by JFK researchers. What context was statement made in what lead RFK to say this? Who was the source of the quote? In any case Feldman as deputy assistant council to the White House wasn’t exactly a high official especially regarding military/intelligence/foreign affairs. Didn’t RFK say his brother liked Feldman? Citation I couldn’t find this supposed quote on the Net?Who is/was “Mike” Ditto the context question re: the Feldman quote Yes and other than the fact that the Israelis placed a cardboard plaque with his name on it next to a garbage dump and the unelaborated comments of a single disgruntled ex-CIA agent I don’t remember seeing any evidence of such claims. What about him?

According to the Liberty’s captain the following sequence of events took place when around the time of the torpedo attack 1) With the Israeli boats and the Liberty approaching each other at high speed he ordered a crew member to fire a machine gun at them. 2) He noticed that the flag had been shot down and ordered a new one raised, it was raised sometime before the torpedo attack 3) When the Israelis were about 2000 yards (1800 meters) from the American ship they tried to signal it but it was impossible to understand the signal because the view was blocked by smoke and flames. Around the same time they were signaling an Israeli flag was spotted. He gave a cease fire order but the gunner misunderstood and “fired a short burst at the boats” a second machine started firing on its own due to the fire despite being unmanned “fire from machine gun 53 was extremely effective and blanketed the area and the center torpedo boat”, he though the Israelis must have felt they were under attack. 4) Only at this point after having tried to signal without response and being fired on did the Israelis return fire first with their machine guns then torpedos. 5) He also testified that “immediately after” the torpedo hit the Israelis offered assistance but it was refused this was at 1427 the air attacks had begun around 1403, the ship had been under attack for less than half and hour not an hour as frequently stated. 6) A little after 1500 Israeli helicopters approached the Liberty but were waved away (not in quoted text below). According to the NSA intercepts, the CIA report and the main Hebrew linguist on the intercept plane the helicopter crew and their control tower were still trying to identify the nationality of the ship but thought it was Russian till they spotted the American flag: [Emphasis mine, except for last names in original [39] refers to the page number source - http://www.ussliberty.org/ncitext.htm . The captain’s version of events was in close (but not exact) correlation to that given by the Israelis (http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/evidence/israel/idfhr.html ), it differs significantly from that of James Ennis but he (Ennis) was below deck due to injuries] I told a man from the bridge, whose identity I do not recall, to proceed to mount 51 and take the boats under fire…When the boats reached an approximate range of 2,000 YARDS, the center boat of the formation was SIGNALING TO US. Also, at this range, it appeared that they were flying an Israeli flag. This was later verified. IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO READ THE SIGNALS FROM THE CENTER TORPEDO BOAT BECAUSE OF THE INTERMITTENT BLOCKING OF VIEW BY SMOKE AND FLAMES. At this time, I yelled to machine gun 51 to tell him to hold fire. I realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack had been conducted in error. I wanted to hold fire to see if we could read the signal from the torpedo boat and perhaps avoid additional damage and personnel injuries. THE MAN ON MACHINE GUN 51 FIRED A SHORT BURST AT THE BOATS before he was able to understand what I was attempting to have him do. INSTANTLY, ON MACHINE GUN 51 OPENING FIREMACHINE GUN 53 BEGAN FIRING AT THE CENTER BOAT. From the starboard wing of the bridge, 03 level, I observed that THE FIRE FROM MACHINE GUN 53 WAS EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE AND BLANKETED THE AREA AND THE CENTER TORPEDO BOAT. It was not possible to get to mount 53 from the starboard wing of the bridge. I sent Mr. LUCAS around the port side of the bridge, around to the skylights, to see if he could tell QUINTERO, whom I believed to be the gunner on Machine gun 53, to hold fire until we were able to clarify the situation. He reported back in a few minutes in effect that he saw no one at mount 53. AS FAR AS THE TORPEDO BOATS ARE CONCERNED, I AM SURE THAT THEY FELT THAT THEY [39] WERE UNDER FIRE FROM USS LIBERTY. At this time, they opened fire with their gun mounts and in a matter of seconds, one torpedo was noted crossing astern of the ship at about 25 yards. The time that this torpedo crossed the stern in believed to be about 1426. About 1427, without advance warning, the ship sustained a torpedo hit starboard side forward, immediately below the waterline in the vicinity of the coordination center… IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SHIP WAS STRUCK BY THE TORPEDO, THE TORPEDO BOATS STOPPED DEAD IN THE WATER and milled around astern of the ship at a range of approximately 500 to 8?0 yards. ONE OF THE BOATS SIGNALED BY FLASHING LIGHT, IN ENGLISH, "DO YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE"? We had no means to communicate with the boat by light but hoisted code lima india. The signal intended to convey the fact that the ship was maneuvering with difficulty and that they should keep clear. According to the captain his ship maintained a bearing of 283 degrees and the Israeli MTB’s approached at 135. If I’m not mistaken if the Israelis had been on a track of 103 degrees (283 – 180) they would have been heading head on in the Liberty’s direction and thus were approaching at 32 degrees. The letters ‘GTR’ were 4 feet (1.2 meters) high and the number ‘5’ eight feet (2.4 meters) high [ http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/arguments...llmarkings.html ]. Question for Evan could a combination of the angle, distance, fire and smoke made identification of the ship difficult? Is it reasonable to assume they would have stopped trying to identify ship after being fired upon? And might use of captured MiG’s have been a better choice? Some had already been flown by Israeli pilots. According to the Israelis this information was “scrubbed from the board” after an 11:00 AM shift change. Question for Evan (or others) Does this sound reasonable to you? Perhaps you could check with some “old timers” I imagine such a practice would have been abandoned worldwide after June 1967. Slight correction the “official story” was that these orders only reached the Liberty AFTER the attack due to misrouting. The captain said that he took the dangers of being so close to a combat zone into consideration but decided stay close to shore to improve intelligence gathering. Might the location have added to the confusion? Is it common for neutral ships to be so close to combat area? Since the canal was closed I doubt any active shipping lanes would have been in the area. Don’t forget that at this point the Egyptians (and Jordanians) had been vanquished and the Syrians (and Iraqis) had their air forces wiped out. The only assistance that would have been useful to the Israelis was ground troops against the Syrians, I don’t see how and “Egyptian” attack on an American ship could have used to justify deploy US ground forces against Syria especially during the Vietnam War. Even if it could I doubt they could have been deployed fast enough to be useful, the Israelis achieved their objective (capturing the Golan Heights) in two days.

Who says? If there was a conspiracy to put the Liberty in the line of fire, then who knows how many (or how few) were involved. How can you possibly state that had there been a conspiracy, then all the aforementioned must have been involved. Suddenly you're an expert on conspiracies? FWIW, I don't necessarily believe that there was a conspiracy to place the Liberty in jeopardy from the American side but I think it's possible. The above people would have to be involved for Sid’s theory to be viable, they are the ones responsible for the Liberty being where it was without escort or gave the Israelis a reasonable excuse for misidentifying the ship (i.e. they were told there were no US ships in the area), the NSA people because they recorded Israeli radio transmissions of the attack. So you suspect that all of the above would conspire to destroy their country’s best signals collection ship and kill hundreds of their colleagues in pursuit of a rather intangible goal of another country? Do you have any indication they “placed Israel's interests ahead of those of the US”? Can you cite examples of high-level US officials at the time who did so? Then refute them. In Oz Dorothy could go back home by closing her eyes, clicking her heels and repeating what she desired, Goebbels also said that if you repeat something enough times people will believe it. Such tactics don’t cut it here - its not enough to say repeatedly something ‘doesn’t hold’, you need to say why. Then respond to my previous points, one could argue the British “would never confuse” a flotilla of six of their own ships for a flotilla of German navy ships, especially after four years of war but they did. Of course you and Sid have failed to respond to several of my points however I did reply partially: - I’m not the only one who takes my position so it’s not a ‘me against them’ scenario. - Rusk admitted to not having studied the incident or read the official reports, - Clark Clifford who they try to make appear supports their position concluded the attack was accidental, - The ship’s captain believed at the time the attack was accidental. They quote him as having said 30 years later that he was no longer sure it was “a pure case of mistaken identity” 1) there is no independent confirmation of the quote 2) it is vague, since we aren’t given the full quote it is even more difficult to understand exactly what he meant and why he changed his mind (if he actually had). As to some of the others: - The cite “former NSA director…William Odom” in 2003 but don’t tell you that at the time he was a professor of government at West Point and didn’t join the NSA till 1985. - They also cite Bobby Inman in 2003 who didn’t join the NSA (as director) till 1977 and incorrectly identify him as a former CIA director (he was deputy director for about a year). - However a 1981 NSA report* concluded the attack was due to mistaken identity and in 2001 (in response to Bamford) a NSA spokesman said the “claim that the NSA leadership was `virtually unanimous in their belief that the attack was deliberate' is simply not true,"** * http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/ ** http://web.archive.org/web/20040401082004/...sa24apr24.story - Helms said “I had no role in the board of inquiry that followed, or the board's finding that there could be no doubt that the Israeli's knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty”. But the board (in which played no role) actually came to the opposite conclusion, i.e. the attack WAS accidental. http://www.thelibertyincident.com/docs/CIAreports.pdf - They quote Admiral Thomas Moorer as telling the Washington Post "To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn't identify the ship is ... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument." 1) I couldn’t find the quote in the Post’s archives http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost...ncedsearch.html 2) He didn’t say directly he though the attack was intentional, if he had presumably they would have quoted him as saying so, might he have concluded like Clifford that the attack was due to gross negligence? That’s most of them; if you want to bring up some of the others I’ll reply. Although it would out me at a very distinct disadvantage so do I, but if it becomes a 4 to 1 debate don’t expect me to be able to keep up.

Good question Len! You weren’t being sarcastic with me now, were you Sid? If not I’m glad we can finally agree on something.

bump

Not at all. It relies on no more than the collusion of those whom we already KNOW colluded when they helped promote Israel's cover story about the Liberty No it requires the collusion of: - The JCS who ordered the ship there - The various people involved in the move (Hot absolutely necessary but if the move was not justified they might have raised questions.) - Admiral Martin who refused the captain’s request for and escort - Admiral McCain and his subordinates who failed to pass on the order for the ship to stay 100 nautical miles from the coast. - The people who told the UN and the Israelis there were no US warships in the area - The people who refused the Israelis’ request for a Naval Attaché (this and the previous item being essential for the “cover story”). - The NSA people involved in over flights who overheard radio communications. - And yes all the people you THINK were involved in the cover up Quite an impressive list what motivated them to participate in a conspiracy to murder hundreds of their colleagues? They had all volunteered for a dangerous profession that does pay that well so bribes and/or threats doesn’t seem very likely. I don’t know of any mysterious deaths and 40 years later no one (except Ward Boston) has said anything. So why was there no effort to disguise the Israeli participation. They had a good number of MiG’s* (none Egyptian but presumably they could have been repainted). Why were the Israeli boats fly their flags, offer assistance to the Liberty and only fire upon it AFTER it fired on them? ** Why did they call off the attack?*http://home.comcast.net/~anneled/Defections.html ** http://www.ussliberty.org/ncitext.htm It was off a portion of “the Egyptian coastline” controlled by Israel who had reached the Suez Canal, but you misunderstood my point which is not that Israel would have been blamed but rather that people would have questioned why the Israelis didn’t intervene or save any of the crew if they had been close enough to witness the attack. But now that you bring it up people could have questioned how and why Egypt, whose air force had virtually been destroyed had only a small navy and whose closest position was 100 miles away, attacked the Liberty.

Doesn’t continuously starting new threads on the same topic by cutting and pasting from web pages repeating the same “evidence” and usually failing to respond to rebuttals in any meaningful way constitute trolling? If not what does?

“How was Lee Harvey Oswald identified?” Depending on what you believe LHO was either arrested with a gun near where a cop had been shot and killed or had somehow been set up to arrested near the shooting with or without a gun. ”How were the "19 Arab hijackers (15 from Saudi Arabia)" identified?” Their names were on the flight manifests some had their seat numbers identified by stewardesses. ”Did any of the above get a chance to plead innocent in a fair court of law?” Irrelevant but suicidal terrorists opt out of the fair trial option. ”Did the real culprits come forward early to confuse matters with full and frank confessions?” Irrelevant and in the case of 9-11 the “real culprits” killed themselves making confessions rather difficult we do have however what are supposedly their “martyrdom” videos. “the world would have been told that Eygpt dunnit - by the Johnson Administration ("We are shocked and angered")” In the other cases there was a rational story about how the suspects were identified. That’s missing here. Your theory depends on massive collusion by high-ranking officials who had little to gain (among other defects). “by the Israelis ("we watched in horror"...)” And people could rightly have asked why the Israelis, who had total control of the air space and ships in the area, hadn’t done anything. In any case it would have been the Israelis’ word against the Egyptians’ and would depend on low level people in the NSA and perhaps CIA to have been “in on it’ as well or at least to have kept quite. Since the Egyptians wouldn’t have a plausible motive it would have been presumed to have been an error or a rouge operation. The case of the USS Stark is instructive. It was presumably misidentified as Iranian by an Iraq pilot who fired two missiles into it killing 37 sailors. There was very little uproar and the incident is all but forgotten today. All in all it’s a very convoluted and improbable theory requiring the cooperation of many, who had nothing to gain, in the murder of their colleagues and rather intangible benefits and great risks for the people behind the plot.

They were both reinforced concrete buildings and had nowhere near the floor space of the other buildings. 7 WTC was a trapezoid about 329/310 x 130 feet (144 diagonally) [about 43,200 sq. feet per floor] and had 1.9 million sq. feet of rentable office space http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf pg. 3 Each floor of the east tower of the Parque Central in Caracas was 20,450 square feet. It didn't have a central core its structure was totally different from that of 7 WTC http://www.nfpa.org/categoryList.asp?categ...5/Cover%20Story Floors of the Torre Windsor in Madrid were about 40 x 25 meter (1000 sq meters) or about 11,000 sq feet it had only 29 flors above ground level. http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/r...res/default.htm So they had half and a quarter the floor space respectively Another problem with 7 is that it had a very unusual framing system due to - being built over an existing electrical sub-station - having been expanded horizontally - having the city emergency command center added to it Thus many of its columns didn’t go top to bottom requiring transfer trusses. (see the FEMA link above). While it like the Windsor had central cores structurally they were very different. And in case you haven't been following the news a highway overpass near San Francisco collapsed a few days ago due to a hydrocarbon fire. Its steel frame is said to have melted but that probably means it weakened to the extent it could no longer support its own weight. But wait "inside jobbers" say hydrocarbon fires cann't do this. It is obviously the work of the MIC, PTB, MIBH, NWO, CIA, NSA, PNAC, WGBH, AARP and shape-shifting Illuminati! http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...BAGVOPHQU46.DTL

Uuuuuuh Sid both buildings (Madrid and Caracas) were concrete framed and were much smaller than the WTC according to the "official theory" it was the WTC's long trusses that did it in. Speaking of which you have yet to address the obvious bowing of perimeter columns in both towers. Actually the Madrid building was partially steel, it had steel perimeter columns which weren't fire protected. They started collapsing after about an hour and took the floor slabs they helpped support along with them. Let's also not forget that both of the concrete buildings were so badly damaged they had to be destroyed. This old news on this forum, try and keep current!

You claim that cases of mistaken identity are often made, then cite the shooting of the KAL-747 and the Iranian Airbus. They're aircraft----they're not slow moving ships. Apples and oranges. The Airbus was shot down from a slow moving or stationary ship during peacetime, the Liberty was initially attacked by fighters flying at high speed. The view of a fast moving plane from a slow moving ship is probably similar to the converse (i.e. the view of a ship from a plane) . The Israeli jets were closer to the Liberty than the USS Vincennes but F14’s and Airbus 300’s are far more different in appearance than the American and Egyptian ships and the two planes would obviously have been quite familiar to the crew of the US ship (the USN used F14’s at the time) while the Israeli’s pilots presumably had never seen either ship before and didn’t even have photos to look at. I noticed to continue to avoid discussing the RAF’s attack on 6 Royal Navy ships at the end of WW2. Since you brought up speed the RAF’s planes would have been a lot slower flying than the IAF ones. That’s easy to say comparing side by side photos on your computer in your home during peacetime. The Israeli pilots were trying to identify a ship they had never seen before that they presumed to be enemy during a war. They didn’t have any photos to look at, they radioed descriptions back to the Navy’s command center and people there looked at photos in a book. You’ve yet to show that a “majority of naval officials and political figures” Think or though the attack was deliberate. Not any more desperate than your suggestion that my “support” of Israel colored mine, the main strike against him is that he admitted to not having studied the evidence. So replying to you is anachronistic?

I can't agree with that Len. Actually, I think Ron got the motive broadly correct in his earlier post: Before discussing motive, I wanted to see whether you - or anyone else - seriously wants to argue the attack was an accident. I suspected you'd want to hedge bets on that. Yes I think that’s the most likely conclusion based on the available evidence. There is no evidence the order went any higher than the navy’s war room in Haifa. The evidence doesn’t indicate that, as Evan and others have pointed out the MO of the attack and the types of weapons used does fit an attempt to sink the ship at least not a well planed one. If the ship disappeared without any survivors or a distress signal how would the “attackers” (Egypt) have been identified? Perhaps because the intention wasn’t to sink it or was but the attack was put together at the last minute and was called off when the ship identified. Luck courage and determination wouldn’t have kept it afloat if it had been struck by torpedoes below the waterline or been bombed, it hadn’t. 500 pound bombs could sink aircraft carriers* so could easily have sunk the much smaller and less well-protected Liberty. * http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_246183059.html , http://hnn.us/articles/369.html The so called pilot was anonymous so we have no way of knowing if he had an ax to grind or even if he really was an IDF pilot back then let alone that he participated in the attack. How far away were they? How experienced were they? Based on their distance and experience how many should have hit? Why weren’t more torpedoes fired? Is it your theory that all the torpedo men (but one) intentionally failed to hit their target and then all stopped firing but none has had the courage to come forward yet? Why didn’t they fire till fire upon? By that time, because it had already been savaged from the air, the Liberty was barely able to return fire. The torpedo launchers were firing at a sitting duck. Not exactly they fired upon Israelis with machine guns, the captain said that it was accidental, but yes they were relatively helpless. They should have been able to finish off the stricken vessel without much difficulty. Yet they didn't. Yes they could have but didn’t, which better supports the notion that wasn’t their intention. The very name 'USS Liberty' always seemed a strange co-incidence. How paradoxical, I used to think, that the Israelis just happened to attack a ship called 'Liberty'. I now believe the name was no accident. Like 9-11, this event was intended to have deep symbolic significance for a largely American ‘audience’. One can imagine a typical conversation between Americans circa 1970 had the false flag assault succeeded… (“Hate Arabs? Sure we do! Those bastards sank the Liberty!”) Groundless speculation, the only kind of ship they could have justified sending there would have been justification for sending to the area would have been an intelligence ship, according to the NSA it was one of only two in the area. http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/liber00010.pdf [PDF pg. 23] It would be interesting to know who sent the USS Liberty into the East Mediterranean at that crucial time. Who decided there should be no Hebrew-speaking personnel on board? The ship was ordered into the area by the JCS the order was coordinated by various other commanders. (see link above pg. 25) Actually there was a linguist on the ship who understood Hebrew*, but obviously the crew would have been formed before they were sent to the area. If any Hebrew speaking personnel had been ordered off the ship we would have heard about it. One would have to ask if the other signals gathering ship (the Valdez) in the area had the same technical capacity as the Liberty with personnel more fluent in that language. It also seems likely the US was more interested in what the Soviet allied Egyptians and Syrians were up to then their “allies” the Israelis. * http://hnn.us/articles/369.html In short... who set up the American end of this false flag operation? You would have to include numerous high-ranking military commanders and NSA officials, what would they have to gain from such an attack that would justify killing over 200 of their own men? Also it wasn’t a false flag operation since the Israeli planes and ships were clearly marked. Your theory is noteworthy because is does reconcile some of the contradictions of the intentional attack theory, however it does have a major shortcoming it envisions the attack as one planned well in advance however the way the attack was carried out (whether the ship had been correctly identified or not) indicates it was hastily organized.

No we're not. You haven't discredited or debunked any of the possible motives, imo. Your opinion ain’t worth jack (nor is mine) if you can’t say why you feel that way. What you describe is a self-contradictory argument not a circular one, let’s try and keep our terminology straight. But there are several problems with your argument.1) Your previous theory was that the attack was to cover-up the invasion of the Golan Heights, now after I’ve presented evidence that this is improbable your new theory was that is was “to divert attention from the…invasion”. This is a silly motive, Israel was already at war with Syria, outside of Muslim and Communist countries there was relatively little outcry when they attacked their neighbors, nor was there much outcry about the invasion. If they hadn’t been worried about the world’s or the US’s reactions to starting the war why would they be so concerned about reaction to the invasion they would attack a US warship? 2) You say the ships don’t look alike but Evan begged to differ they were ROUGHLY similar. The pilots were flying at high speed were over 1300 feet away and presumably didn’t have copies of ‘Jane’s Fighting Ships’ or a similar reference to consult in their cockpits, the people in Navy HQ did but they never saw the Liberty they were over 100 miles away in Haifa. 3) As to the flag whether or not it was visible is disputed. Owen handled the flag issue fairly well a while a go. If the links don’t work got the original post http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=60085 4) You also fail to distinguish between mistakes during the “heat of battle” and “fog of war” with what would have been a carefully laid plan. Misidentifying a ship fits in with the former but attacking the Liberty in the manner it was doesn’t fit with the latter. One must also consider group think and cognitive dissonance, they thought an arms depot had been shelled coloring their judgment. This is not dissimilar to the shoot down of an Iran Air airbus that was taking off by the USS Vincennes. Whose crew believed it was an F-14 fighter diving at them Or Soviet pilots mistaking a KAL 747 for a RC-135 5) You say such a mistake would indicate the IDF was incompetent because after 4 days of warfare they weren’t able to correctly identify a single ship from another country’s navy. How then would you classify they RAF? Which after 4 years of warfare misidentified 6 ships of their own navy for German ones leading them to sink two and damage 2 others (see earlier post for details and link). Since according to you theory they would have had time to plan the attack why not hide their identity by using their subs or MIGs or attack at night? It not really accurate to say there was “an almost unanimous consensus from experienced military officers, Government officials who had access to official reports and hard evidence” because the Navy, NSA, CIA, Clark Clifford and congress (on more than one occasion) concluded the attack was a case of mistaken identity. But of course the list of officials on sites like ussliberty.org is “almost unanimous” but they take some out of context, Clark Clifford concluded the attack was due to “gross and inexcusable failures” but wasn’t intentional* they however made it seem like he thought the attack was intentional**. * http://www.ussliberty.org/cliffor2.htm ** http://www.ussliberty.org/index.html Dean Rusk did say he thought the attack was intentional but after acknowledging “he never read the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry findings, the CIA Report, or the Clark Clifford Report” said, "I did not make a career of studying the evidence."* And since he opposed the creation of Israel MAY have been hostile to that country. http://hnn.us/articles/369.html The ships Captain said at the inquest he thought the attack was accidental (see ‘hnn’ link above) and said in 1997 "In many years, I have wanted to believe that the attack on the Liberty was pure error. It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity” which seems to indicate that he accepted that the attack could have been purely accidental for the first few decades after the attack but by 1997 no longer believed it was a “pure” accident whatever that means, perhaps if the only source of the quote on the Net would offer it in its entirety. http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm You speak disparagingly of McNamara, and but I doubt you normally consider the likes of Helms and Rusk credible, but I guess when you agree with them your assessment changes I’m not even the only member of this forum who disagrees with you Owen does (or did) and Evan seems to as well. Your classification of me as someone with “unbending loyalty to Israel” is false as well, I called that country’s murder of Egyptian POWs and Indian peacekeepers war crimes and previous condemned its recent invasions of Lebanon and Gaza. I could just as easily argue Sid and your obvious hostility to Israel colors your judgment. I’ll try to reply to Sid tomorrow. Edit - Photo url fixed

So we’re back to no real motive. Proponents of “theory 1” need to propose the Israelis had a secret that couldn’t be kept off HF radio so imperative for them to keep that they would take the enormous calculated risk of trying to sink the Liberty even though that secret might have been discovered anyway by NSA spy planes or the US embassies in the region which presumably had CIA and NSA stations. As since there was an ongoing war the Liberty presumably would have had hundreds of frequencies in numerous locations to monitor. The odds of them picking up “the secret” would have been minimal, probably far less than Israeli an attack on it backfiring. Once they explained the above, they can explain why: the Israelis made no effort to hide their identity by using submarines or captured MIGs or wait till nightfall. The Israeli torpedo boats did fire on the Liberty till it fired on them (according to the Liberty’s captain)

Sure. This type of multiple repetition of the same story - without any effort by other media to conduct independent, additional reporting - is what I'd call 'hard wiring'. <snip> It is much more applicable in the case of a (presumably) much smaller story, such as Mr Shapiro's New Zealand weapon's cache. If you know what you're looking for on Google - in this instance "Bernard David Shapiro", you can find it (that is, the same story 15 times). If you don't, chances are you'll never encounter it. That's what I call a sophisticated system of information control. It doesn't rely on blatant censorship or telling unbelievable lies. It relies on subtle censorship and occasional, much more believable lies, communicated to a rather dummed down populace bemused by the complexities of life in a confusing world and enervated by incessant incitements to consume. You’ve failed to establish the story really warranted anymore media attention than if got, without that your argument falls apart Great another anonymously written article from an obscure website that doesn’t cite any sources. As pointed out ad infinium thousands of foreigners were arrested or detained thousands of foreigners mostly on immigrations charges (expired visas, working with tourist visa etc) including about 200 Israelis, there is no real evidence any of them were spys.

Uuuuuh, you have head of wire services haven't you?

SID WROTE: “Len, Would it be fair comment to say that your major argument against the proposition that the attack on the USS Liberty was deliberate, is that you believe the suggested motives for a deliberate attack (that you've reviewed) are implausible?” That’s a large part of it. I think any reasonable person would agree that if the Israelis intentionally attacked the Liberty they were taking an enormous risk, if the attack didn’t go as planned (which it didn’t according to this theory) it would have been impossible for them to predict the outcome with certainty, LBJ was weakened politically the Democrats had lost a good number of seats in congress in the 1966 elections, his approval ratings were low, his chances of reelection slim. Presidential elections were a little over a year away and LBJ’s challengers could have tried to make the incident a campaign issue. Nor would it have been possible to be sure the military would go along with a cover-up of the deaths of dozens or perhaps hundreds of their “brothers in arms”, 16 years earlier Macarthur had openly challenged Truman and only a few years earlier Maj. General Edwin Walker had been distributing propaganda for the anti-Semitic John Birch Society. The memories of the “Lavon Affair” would have been fresh in their memories. To take such an extraordinary risk they would have had to an extraordinary or a least a reasonable motive. Lack of a reasonable motive coupled with the fact they made no effort to conceal their identity and that the attack seemed more aimed to disable than to destroy the ship, all seriously undermine the intentional attack theory. Regarding that last point it seems hard to believe that the same air force which was able to destroy most of four countries’ air forces with their planes on the ground in few hours wasn’t able to sink a single lightly defended converted cargo ship in a similar time frame with help of torpedo boats if it had really wanted to. ”Do you have any other grounds for doubting the sworn testimony of so many US sailors, or the considered opinion of so many high-ranking US politicians and government officials?” For the most part nothing in they say proves the Israelis knew the ship was American, though they believe that was the case. I don’t doubt their testimony as much as I doubt the conclusions they reached. MARK WROTE: “Len, as for your request that I uncover documentation proving the date and time of the executions and evidence that the military command were cognizant, I respectfully submit that this is not necessary.” Your original theory was that the attack might have been to “conceal” the murder of the POW’s and UN peacekeepers. Such a theory would only make sense if: 1) the attacks happened at the same time as the attack on the Liberty or shortly before 2) the high command of the IDF were aware of them 3) we could reasonably expect the Liberty to have picked up evidence of these attacks and 4) in the case of 3) a reasonable explanation of why it would not have been easier and less risky just to have maintained radio silence. After you implied all three attacks were more or less concurrent (that was implicit in your theory) I showed the attack on the Indians occurred 3 days earlier and had long since been public knowledge, you seem to have abandoned the theory in relation to the POW murders as well. “FWIW, I think that the execution of the POWs at El Arish and the murder of the UN peacekeepers are quite plausible explanations for Israel's decision to attack the Liberty and divert attention from its actions.” This is a new theory from you, destroying the Liberty to prevent it from discovering or reporting Israeli atrocities is not the same as saying the attack was meant to “divert attention from” them and the 4 conditions above don’t apply however 2 new ones do: 1) Had the story ‘broken’ yet? and 2) If so was it causing Israel sufficient embarrassment for them to have taken such a risk? In the case of the POW murders the 1st condition wasn’t met, the story didn’t “break” till 1995, the case of the peacekeepers had broken but I’ve seen no evidence the story got wide attention or proved embarrassing for the Israelis. The fact that none of us seems to have heard about it till a few days ago reinforces the notion that the story didn’t get wide coverage. Judging by a search of the NY Times archive it didn’t http://tinyurl.com/39kk4k. According to a NY Times article the Indians were killed by “Israeli-Arab cross fire” http://tinyurl.com/3dnzf4 If they wanted to allay negative publicity a more logical scenario would have been to attack the ship with their captured MIG’s then send in Israeli boats and helicopters to “rescue” them. EVAN WROTE: “Len Don’t forget the LOS applies only to VHF and UHF transmissions. HF transmissions would be detectable by 'skip' across the ionosphere (though this has to be calculated; the LIBERTY may have been in a 'dead zone' for skip). So far, I can only find theory 1 having any plausibility” I can’t forget what I never knew How probable do you think it is the Israeli military used HF radios? From what I gather HF radios are less reliable than UHF/VHF ones since they are affected by climatic conditions. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the armed forces of a small country surrounded by enemies to use VHF/UHF instead? For theory 1 to be plausible we would have to assume that the Israelis were so dependant on HF radios rather than VHF/UHF and the ‘good ole’ telephone that they only way out was to attack the Liberty. Is it possible based on what we know to calculate if the Liberty could have picked up HF transmissions between Tel Aviv and the Golan Heights? There are other problems with this theory: 1) NSA planes were flying over the area. Obviously there wouldn’t have been any LOS problems with them. Sinking the Liberty would have done nothing to prevent the planes from detecting what the Israelis supposedly wanted to hide. 2) The Israelis had apparently previously informed the US of their plan to invade the Golan Heights. 3) If the Israelis had so much power over the US military and government as the “cover up” theory presupposes why would they care what the US knew? 4) Most “researchers” who back this theory claim that there was a ceasefire between Israel and Syria in place on June 8 and that the Israelis violated the ceasefire in order to conquer the Golan but falsely claimed the Syrians had violated it. The Liberty was attacked to cover up this lie. I) I have never heard about a mid-war ceasefire between Syria and Israel nor seen evidence as to which side broke it, if it ever really existed II) Since the US only played lip service to condemning Israel’s “pre-emptive” strike against its neighbors, why would the Israelis be concerned about discovery of a “ceasefire” violation to degree that they would feel motivated to attack the ship? III) Wouldn’t it have been easier to avoid using HF radios during Israel’s initiation of hostilities in the Golan? If the Israelis wanted cover up war crimes the Liberty might discover the broad daylight attack would make more sense. If it was to keep the ship from reporting about the invasion of the Golan Heights why not wait till nightfall when being identified would have been more difficult?

bump

If you restricted your research to sites that back the intentional attack theory most of the researchers you will be exposed to will back that theory. None of these theories makes sense either. Due to its location the Liberty would not have been able to have picked up signals from anywhere in pre-1967 Israel except PERHAPS areas bordering the Gaza Strip Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa would have been too far away let alone the more distant area surrounding the Golan Heights. It is even questionable if they could have picked up signals from the Gaza Strip or surrounding areas.Since radio signals work on line of sight (LOS), independent of the strengths of transmitter and receiver range is limited by the curvature of the earth because the waves will reach the horizon. Fortunately there is a simple formula for calculating the distance to the horizon, over water or level ground. It is the square root of the height of the antenna (or observer) in feet times 1.06 for nautical miles or times 1.22 for statue miles. Another words radio signals from an antenna 100 feet off the ground (or water) would cross the horizon 12.2 miles away (the sq. root of 100 = 10, 10 x 1.22 = 12.2) and the signals from an antenna 400 feet off the ground 24.4 miles away. But we have to combine the range of both the transmitter and the receiver so if a plane flying 200 above ground level would have to be with in 36.6 miles (24.4 + 12.2) of an airport whose antenna is 100 feet tall (or rather 100 above the altitude of the ground under the plane). This is a theoretical maximum assuming there are no intervening hills or other geographic features blocking the path and that the equipment is good enough. http://www.auf.asn.au/comms/vhfradio.html According to most sources the Liberty was 460 feet long. It appears that the height Liberty’s antenna (measured from the water line) was approximately 30% the ship’s length or about 140 feet high. The square root of 140 x 1.22 = 14.4 so the LOS from the top of antenna would have crossed the horizon 14 – 15 miles from the ship. The Liberty would have been about 95 miles from Tel Aviv, 110 from Jerusalem and 120 from Haifa (see map below). The antennas in those cities would had to have been tall enough to make up the difference. 95 – 15 = 80, 80 / 1.22 = 65.6, 65.6 x 65.6 = 4302. There would had to have been an antenna reaching 4300 above sea level for its signals to have been picked up by the Liberty’s antenna. The world’s tallest ever man-made structure was the Warsaw radio mast which was 2120 feet (646 meters) tall and it was only completed in 1974 (1). The highest point in Tel Aviv “is approximately 30 meters [100 feet - Len] above the Mediterranean Sea.” (2) 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast , http://www.smeter.net/daily-facts/5/fact7.php 2) http://jnfeducation.co.uk/?page=topics_israel See if you can provide documentation for the date and time of this war crime and evidence that it was carried out with the foreknowledge of commanders high enough in the chain of command to have ordered an attack on the Liberty. The easiest thing to have done would have been to maintain radio silence or delayed the executions till the ship left the area. This incident seems to have taken place on June 5th and was discussed by the Security Council the next day.http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/cd0beba...2c?OpenDocument http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/f0e5cf0...36?OpenDocument Well now we’re back to no “plausible motive”.

Hiw to explain the the strafing of lifeboats? (whether the vessel was believed to be American or not) My understanding (and please correct me if I am wrong) is that this is disputed. If it did occur, and under any circumstances, I could appreciate why it might happen but would still object to it. This is from A Report: War Crimes Committed Against U.S. Military Personnel, June 8, 1967, Submitted to the Secretary of the Army in his capacity as Executive Agent for the Secretary of Defense, June 8, 2005. The footnotes refer to the testimony of two surviving US sailors. I have no idea whether the accuracy of their accounts is disputed, or if the torpedo boat crews mistook life rafts for Eygptian warships. Perhaps the Israelis were using LSD at the time? It was the sixties, after all However, unless someone comes forward to refute these veterans, I think we may take it that the attacks on life rafts actually took place - and that at least some of the attackers behaved as though they intended to sink the ship and kill ALL of its crew. Its is also quite possible that the rather fragile lifeboats had been holed before being put in the water and in ‘fog of war’ the sailors thought they had been shot after. IIRC in Malta the crew counted dozens (or was it hundreds) of holes in the ship. Another possibility is that an Israeli gunner on his own or under orders from a superior fired on the life rafts without having orders to do so from land based commanders. Time permitting I will review the statements made by the sailors.

I also remember reading that somewhere - but I can't think where it was (though I haven't tried to find it as yet). Accounts I’ve read say they were carrying nuclear warheads (some say they had no conventional arms, but that doesn’t seem very likely) LBJ, or McNamara fearing a potential disaster order the planes to return

Possible, but I think unlikely. If this were the objective, then a far more effective strike would have been organised - using aircraft and surface vessels that would have been unmistakably non-Israeli. The Mirage III aircraft used in the initial strike were definitely linked to Israeli origin. Instead, they would have limited the strike to Mystere IVs, which might have been mistaken for MiGs. There are other problems with this theory: Why didn’t the Israeli’s attack at night when identification would have been more difficult. ? Or Better yet why not use their submarines, which would have made identification impossible? Why were the fighters (according to some sources) painted with the Star of David? The Israelis had captured about 8 MIG’s why weren’t they used? Why were the torpedo boats flying the Israeli flag? Why did they try to contact the Liberty? Why did they wait to fire upon the Liberty till (as the captain has admitted) till AFTER the Liberty had fired on them? The biggest hole it that by June 8, day four of the “Six Day War”, the Israelis had already achieved most of their objectives: They had captured the Gaza Strip, the Sinai and the West Bank; the Egyptians and Jordanians were in full retreat. The air forces air airfields of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq had been destroyed, the Israelis had no need for American fighters or bombers. They were positioned to take the Golan Heights which were inland, the Israelis had no use for additional warships. They could have used additional ground forces but how would an “Egyptian” attack on American ship justify deploying ground forces against Syria in a different ‘theater’? It is unlikely ground forces could have been deployed fast enough to make a difference.