Talk:USS Liberty incident/Archive 2

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Incident?

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

An incident is: 1. A definite and separate occurrence; an event. 2. A usually minor event or condition that is subordinate to another. 3. Something contingent on or related to something else. 4. An occurrence or event that interrupts normal procedure or precipitates a crisis: an international incident.

The word to use here is 'attack', as in 'The attack on USS Liberty', nothing more, nothing less. Knutars 10:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Statement of the USS Liberty Veterans Association

Without changing anything the author wrote in his account we feel a 
clarification is in order.

At a little after 2pm in the afternoon of June 8, 1967 the USS ''Liberty'' was 
attacked by at least three unmarked Israeli Mirage aircraft. Those aircraft used 
rockets, cannon and machine gun fire to target the ship's communications and 
defensive capabilities. Each of the ship's 4 gun tubs and each of the ship's 
antenna mounts sustained a direct hit by either rocket or cannon fire.

After the Mirages had finished their attack we were hit by slower Mystere 
aircraft armed with napalm.

The aircraft were followed closely by three torpedo boats who fired five 
torpedoes at the ship. One struck the ship on our starboard side killing 25 men. 
The torpedo boats then slowly circled the ship while firing from close range at 
''Liberty'' crewmen who ventured topside to help their wounded shipmates.

Some have argued that napalm is ineffective when used against a ship. Combine 
napalm with the slow circling of the ''Liberty'' by Israeli torpedo boats as 
they fire upon ''Liberty'' crewmen and the Israeli refusal to offer immediate 
aid upon cessation of hostilities and some have concluded that the intent of the 
attackers was to leave no survivors. Indeed, that is what would have happened 
had their scenario been carried out to its completion.

And, let's not forget their use of helo-borne assault troops.

Let me spend some time addressing the above claim that "Subsequent ten American 
commissions of inquiry and three Israeli ones have all concluded that the attack 
was conducted because of USS ''Liberty'' being confused with an Egyptian vessel, 
and failures of communications between Israel and the US."

The legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry has said publicly that the 
Court of Inquiry was a sham whose conclusions were dictated by Washington.

The President of the Court of Inquiry and his legal counsel concluded that the 
attack was deliberate but reported falsely that it was a tragic accident because 
they were ordered by Washington to report falsely and "officers follow orders" 
said the Counsel to the Court.

That report can be found in the July 26 issue of Navy Times and in follow-up 
issues.

Washington directed that the Court conclude that the attack was a tragic 
accident, despite the fact that the Court determined that it was deliberate. So 
the Court of Inquiry was a sham.

Of the ten US investigations cited, only the fraudulent US Navy Court of Inquiry 
bothered to interview survivors. The others either did not look into 
deliberateness at all -- examining peripheral issues such as the adequacy of 
communications and of command and control -- or were merely reports to their 
bosses which summarized the results of the fraudulent Court of Inquiry Report. 
So nine of those ten investigations were poisoned fruit of the poisoned tree, 
which was the first investigation.

One has to ask why is there controversy in the first place?  If the attack has 
been the subject of some 10 US investigations why are there any questions 
remaining outstanding at all? Surely all of the questions and alleged points of 
controversy are very basic and would be included in even a rudimentary 
investigation. Do you think, perhaps, if someone were to actually read the 
reports they claim were of the attack would find out that they weren't 
investigations of the attack at all?

An addition to the recommended reading list is ''A History of Israel'' by Ahron
Bregman (ISBN ). The publisher tells readers that "There is a rare
extract from a radio exchange between air control and Israeli pilots on the
fourth day of the Six Day War, showing that the Israelis did realize that the
ship they were bombing was the American USS ''Liberty'', but still went on to
attack it." 

'''Joe Meadors'''<br>
''Vice President''<br>
[http://www.ussliberty.com USS Liberty Veterans Association]<br>
joe@ussliberty.com<br>

This is just another myth!

During the Six Day War in 1967, the USS Liberty was sailing in Israeli territorial waters and was UNMARKED.

It refused to identify itself to the Israelis They considered that this ship might be a warship belonging to the armed forces of one to the countries at which it was at war. So, not knowing that this was an American ship, the Israelis attacked it. Right after the attack, the Liberty identified itself, but by then it was late. The Israelis offered all possible help in treating the injured, and they even compensated the families of those who were unfortunately killed and wounded.

This was a very sad story in the relations between the two allies, the United States and Israel.

But the attack was in error, the ship was not marked and refused to identify itself, and the Americans understood and accepted the Israeli apology and compensation.

To claim anything else is just to stir up animosity and to falsify the facts.

And that is a plot to cover up the dastardly terror being waged around the world by radical Islamic terror groups, like Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hisb'Allah and El Aqsa Brigades.

The ship was not UNMARKED, If I can clearly see GTR in the small picture then the Israeli torpedo boats saw them too. Anybody can tell that this is not a warship. By the way, that was a very poor job at apologetics.

Egyptian mass murder

Excised text:

As examples, they bring the claim that the ship was attacked to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, and applying a quote describing the execution of 5 Palestinian guerillas wearing Egyptian uniforms (an act allowed under rules of war) to "prove" the mass murder of 150 Egyptians. However, other killings of Egyptian captives were also reported in mainstream media sources (e.g. TIME, Oct. 2 1995), including an incident in which Retired General Arieh Biro admitted shooting prisoners, and the discovery in the Sinai of mass graves containing about 90 civilians and soldiers.

What does that mean? I followed the bit about the Golan Heights, but then it lost me. What is the author trying to say? -- Tim Starling 07:24, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

It means that the Israelis attacked the US spy ship to hide from their "ally" that they were massacring Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai desert. [1] --Hebranaut 02:57, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Must have had some good pair of binoculars on that ship, then.Gzuckier 17:23, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm somewhat certain Israel's systematic execution of Egyptian POWs took place in Qana. Read The Massacre in Qana and its Context, which quickly being eradicated from the Internet, and Did Israel Wittingly Shell A U.N. Base In Qana?. Adraeus 06:42, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apart from anything else, the Kfar Qana incident occured in Lebanon, almost 30 years later.--Eyl 17:27, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And in this incident, there were no POWS involved. It was an artillery attack which damaged (intently or not, as your pleasure) a UN compound. Sometimes I feel that anti-semites are so frustrated at the treacherous reluctance of Israeli authorities to manufacture enough atrocities for them, that they turn down the focus knob until whatever facts are there become atrocious enough. Unlessimwrong

Investigations? What Investigations?

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have removed the following text from the article because there is undisputable evidence that the statement is absolutely false it its entirety, and has never been backed up:

"Since the attack on the USS Liberty ten official U.S. investigations and 3 or more official Israeli investigations have concluded that the tragic event was a case of mistaken identity."

I have replaced it with a correct, undisputable fact:

"Although it has been stated that there were thirteen investigations that all exonerated Israel, this is absolutely false in its entirety. Three were Israeli investigations, and the fact that the attack was a mistake was a given; the investigations were to decide whether or not anyone in the Israeli Defense Forces should be tried on crimes (no wrongdoing was found). All five U.S. congressional investigations and four other U.S. investigations were not investigations at all. They were reports, whereas all evidence admittedly came from a single investigation: The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry. In addition, the majority of those nine U.S. reports have nothing to do with the culpability of the attack; rather, they discuss communications failures, etc. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry is the only investigation on the incident to date. It was hastily conducted, in only 10 days, even though the court's president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, said that it would take 6 months to properly conduct. Furthermore, the court's legal counsel has stepped forward and stated that Washington ordered him and Kidd to falsely report that the attack was a mistake (his statement says that he and Kidd believed that the attack was deliberate)."

The evidence: http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/commentary/travesty/biglie.html. If it gets reverted, there will be a POV dispute.

Signed,

The same Liberty Researcher who previously answered all of those questions in italics above.

According to the JPost interview with Yiftah Spector [2] (one of the pilots), he testified before a senator's investigation after the incident. As I assume senators don't participate in Naval Courts of Inquiry, this would suggest there was at least one senatorial investigation, which did not consist solely of a rehash of earlier reports.--Eyl 13:58, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If there were any investigations—real investigations, not political interviews titled "investigations"—the USS LVA would not exist in its present state. Adraeus 23:08, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Let's go through the Congressional "investigations" (by Liberty researcher 03:22, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC))

These never happened:

House Armed Services Committee investigation of 1991/1992 — the farthest it became of was a series of letters from Israeli-side A. Jay Cristol and a representative

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1979/1981 — rules of this committee require that all inquiries follow a report. Even as an intelligence committee it only has to include insensitive information, no report (even a "skeleton" report with almost no information) has ever been released and as such no report has ever been conducted

These would not have Spector in it:

House Armed Services Committee Review of Communications — nothing more than a review of communications, I doubt that Spector would be called to this one (plus, it was the House, not the Senate)

House Appropriations Committee meeting of April and May 1968 — a budget meeting that only explored the lost messages (i.e. why were we spending money on something that didn't work right? or: can't we spend money to make a better communications system?); also a House meeting, not a Senate meeting

Committee on Foreign Relations meeting of 1967 and Senate Armed Services Committee meeting of 1968

The following from http://www.wrmea.com/archives/December_2003/0312014.html

"...were hearings on unrelated matters which clearly skeptical members used to castigate representatives of the administration under oath before them. Typical questions were, 'Why can't we get the truth about this?' They were not 'investigations' at all, but budget hearings, and reported no conclusions concerning the attack. They did not exonerate Israel..."

While both were Senate investigations, there was no reason for Spector to be at these.

Several books and a BBC documentary tried to prove that USS Liberty was attacked on purpose. They are backed in this position by some representatives of the US intelligence community. Critics claim that many of them include incorrect assumptions and use fuzzy reasoning. For example, they claim that the ship was attacked to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights. When evaluating the merits of this theory, one must balance Israel's need to keep a possible war crime secret, versus the probably more serious consequences of attacking an ally.

Mention of "possible warcrimes" is not backed up by any reference and seems out of place. There is no reference to Israeli war crimes in the Six Day War article. Can anyone cite a reference or should this be removed?

Certainly. See http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/mass_graves/. There is another possible war crime -- Israel's claimed illegal occupation of the Golan Heights, West Bank, etc.. If it wasn't self-defense as claimed, but rather for territorial acquisition, then that'd be a war crime. (Don't include the other possible war crime in the wiki article, as this is very much a shaky argument, although I am formulating a thesis on it, and a paper on it should be completed in the future.Liberty researcher 04:09, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just the fact that something is illegal, doesn't automatically make it a war crime, even if Israel did it (unfortunately for you). Israel's reason for conquering the Golan heights was that they are a geographically elevated area to the Gallilee, (look at a map) and the Syrians have been using the elevation advantage to shell Israeli villages below for several years. If Israel wanted territory only for expansion, it would have been much better advised to capture southern Lebanon, which was then a cakewalk in comparison to the well fortified, elevated Golan heights of 1967. But Israel didn't invade Lebanon until attacks started coming from it in the 1980's.

If you forget the red rag that is the name Israel for a while, and concentrate on objective evaluation of its actions: it consitently occupies territory in self defence after attacks on its civilians have been mounted from it, since 1948 it was always the same story. It is the official strategy of the Israeli army- to transfer the war to the enemy's ground as quickly as possible, since Israel doesn't have quite the land assets and the neighbors of the United States to play with. You can always claim that Israel exploited attacks as a pretext for land expansion, but you can't deny that there were attacks on civilians. And no one forced the Arabs to provide such pretexts for their punishment again and again over 50 years, pretty expensive pretexts it seems to me, Perhaps they weren't mere pretexts.

Lastly, I would be interested in what an outcry you would have made if the United states would have evaporated an Israeli intelligence ship that dared to sail 13 miles "in international waters" (sounds like a holiday cruise on Lake Geneva doesn't it?) off the Cuban coasts in on a particularly internatonal day, say October 27 1962, with or without a flag. This is the same situation guys. The USS Liberty took a profound military risk (or did a great screwup) going in a warzone it didn't belong in for intelligence collection on an ally such as Israel (or an unthreatening non-ally such as Egypt), and you can't always expect to come out of that scratchless. Being a superpower doesn't entail you to jog on an icy lake and then sue the weather.User:Unlessimwrong

Sorry for taking a while in response, Unlessimwrong. I'm sorry, where do you get your logic to say "Just the fact that something is illegal, doesn't automatically make it a war crime"? Murdering POWs is illegal and a war crime. I'm not even going to debate that one.

And now an argument on why not to take over the Golan Heights? Come on, there are much better things to talk about. How about the Sinai until 1973? Gaza, East Jerusalem, and West Bank until, well, now? I'm not even going to start on the rant of Israel conquering a holy city and then moving its capital there.

"It consitently occupies territory in self defence after attacks on its civilians have been mounted from it" -- that may by the most Zionist talk I've heard in a while. This talk is not reserved for this thread; move your Zionist feelings to [Zionism] or [Israeli-Palestinian conflict]. I'm sure they'll be plenty of people there to debate you on your theories.

Lastly, America wouldn't be stupid enough to evaporate an ally's intelligence ship, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis (that would have created quite a stir). Furtheremore, those events are incomparable. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the result of aggression against the U.S., while the Six-Day War and every other major Israeli conflict from 1949 on was the result of agression BY Israel, not against it. So motives for each even are entirely skewed. Plus, your logic is all off. You CAN expect to come out without scratches -- a non-threatening non-ally and an ally? No problem, we should easily be able to gather evidence! Using that excuse only shows how inept Israel was when they committed a war crime against the United States, end of discussion.--Liberty researcher 00:37, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So wait - you are saying that Israel murdered American POWs? You do understand how logic works, correct? You chastise Unlessimwrong for his comments about things not being war crimes just because they are illegal, as murdering POWs is a war crime. Fair enough - not what he was talking about of course, but no need to bother with that little detail. You then go on to state in a very QED-ish fashion that Israel committed war crimes against the US. As attacking a warship engaged in military espionage during a time of war is about as far from a war crime as one can get, I can only assume you are referring to the murder of POWs, as it is the only thing you have argued is a war crime. So I would be very interested in reading the story of the American POWs murdered by Israel. I was unaware of this incident and would very much be swayed by a retelling of it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.255.171.210 (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

The article says this: "Several books and a BBC documentary tried to prove that USS Liberty was attacked on purpose." Tried to prove? Why not "concluded?" Ellerslie.

Statute miles or nautical miles?

Something never mentioned anywhere above.

Where it says that both sides agree that Liberty was 13 miles from the Sinai coast...Nautical miles, or statute miles? If I remember correctly, that's rather important: 12 nm was pretty much settled on at the time as the limit to territorial waters, wasn't it?

Also, something that seems odd....13 miles...Isn't that well within range of shore fortifications (such as at El Arish) as used at the time? From memory, it certainly rings a bell as being well within range, at least of shore-based missiles. Which would raise a question of what the hell anyone would expect to happen to a bystander (whether or not an intelligence ship can ever be innocent is a question for others) in what would be called a rather well-known war zone. (I highly doubt that Lloyd's was accepting claims for any damage recieved in the area!) I mean...A war was happening just over the horizon. Wouldn't it seem logical for those fighting to think "No neutral would enter a war zone. Ergo, if it's here, there's no way it's neutral"? --134.198.82.71 00:46, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

just with simple calculations, I believe they were 13 nautical miles from the coast, or 15 statute miles. They were in international waters (undisputed) which was 12 nm. But 13 statute miles is only 11.3 nm, so it must have been 13 nm (the number 13 is undisputed). Liberty researcher 18:55, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"No proofs that the recordings exist"?

According to the Jerusalem Post story, (the) recordings exist and the reporter actually listened to them. Are we questioning the press now? Why not just say what the report contains: "transcripts of radio traffic recordings from the attack presented by the IAF to the Jerusalem Post"? 85.250.73.236 18:58, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The only proof that recordings exist is hearsay. AJ Cristol transcribed the recordings in his book The Liberty Incident, but so much of his book is controversial (and so much more proven wrong) that many do not believe him. The recordings are Appendix 2 of his book. Just take a look at Appendix 1 listing the investigations, and then read Terence O'Keefe's article. Actually, his first appendix is self-incriminating, in that the conclusions he lists most of the time have NOTHING to do with culpability of the attack. How he can say that thirteen official investigations have cleared Israel is beyond me. Okay, end of tangent.

In the 1987 Thames film (which, by the way, will be under great controvesy along with Cristol's book come June 10, 2005 -- wait and see), there is a reenactment of the recordings, and the reenactment is in Hebrew. This begs the question: why not just play the recordings? Until the hard evidence is produced, there is no proof that the recordings exist. Hearsay is not proof.--Liberty researcher 00:10, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Out of sequence events? Strafing by torpedoe boats and McGonagle testimony

"About twenty minutes after the attack of the aircraft, the ship was approached by three torpedo boats bearing Israeli flags and identification signs. Initially, Captain McGonagle, who perceived that the torpedo boats "were approaching the ship in a torpedo launch attitude," (http://www.ussliberty.org/torpedo.htm) ordered a machine gun to engage the boats. After recognizing the Israeli standard and seeing apparent morse code signalling attempts by one of the boats (but being unable to see what was being sent, due to the smoke of the fire started by the earlier aircraft attack), McGonagle gave the order to hold fire. This order was apparently misunderstood in the confusion, and two heavy machine guns opened fire. Subsequently the Israeli boats opened fire and launched at least two torpedoes at Liberty (five according to the 1982 IDF History Department report). One hit Liberty on the starboard side, forward of the superstructure, creating a large hole in what had been a former cargo hold converted to the ships research spaces causing the majority of the casualties for the incident. The torpedo boats approached Liberty and strafed crewmen (including damage control parties and sailors preparing life rafts for launch) on deck. (see below for disputed details)."

I think somebody misunderstood the link given cited. According to the link given, the strafing occurred before the torpedo hit the ship, and after the torpedo hit the torpedo boats stopped "dead in the water" according to McGonagle

They stopped "dead in the water" according to McGonagle. Other survivors (such as ones not ready to pass out from their wounds) said that the torpedo boats gunned the lifeboats and the firefighters. Captain Ward Boston (the JAG officer of the NCOI) said in his affidavit that such testimony was exised in Washington after he certified and submitted the record. --Liberty researcher 00:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Where is this theory presented?

"Among the theories presented as to why Israel carried out this action is that Israel may have been trying to get the US involved in the conflict on Israel's side, by convincing the US that Egypt was the aggressor."

where is that theory presented?

The theory is presented throughout the article, and in its extreme in Operation Cyanide. I think that Operation Cyanide is a bit too conspiratorial, but it is possible. The main theory is that Israel tried to quickly sink the Liberty and leave to trace as to who did it, then blame the Egyptians (maybe even produce evidence showing that it was the Egyptians). I could be wrong, but this is detailed in the article. --Liberty researcher 00:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

furthermore I don't know who would present it. Israel had already destroyed everyone elses air force and was clearly winning and mopping up by the time the Liberty was attacked.

I completely agree. But just because Israel destroyed an air force does not mean that a few planes or boats existed. What motive would Egypt have had? Who knows; maybe Israel didn't think very far. One possible motive is that Israel thought that the Liberty was picking up communications of POW genocide war crimes in the Sinai (there is evidence of such) or perhaps ambitions of territorial aquisition and NOT self-defense (I can provide evidence of this as well). So, maybe sinking the Liberty and blaming it on Egypt, but then later apologizing and saying that they did it accidentally, maybe they thought that they were covering their butts in the long run. Heck, current Israeli PM Sharon was a general that may have been taking part in those war crimes -- sinking the Liberty was a small price to pay to save those generals from tribunals. --Liberty researcher 00:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The idea that the Liberty was attacked to hide evidence of war crimes motive makes no sense. There is no evidence of POW war crimes, and Egypt has never reported any such atrocities, despite being the party involved. And I hardly think that any Israeli general was at risk of tribunals because of conduct during the 1967 war, even if there had been executions of POWs. The lack of motive does really seem to be a problem in this case, requiring Israel to deliberately try to sink the ship, then notify the Americans of the attack. Some sort of explaination is needed to claim that this was intentional. --Goodoldpolonius2 00:31, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Considering Israeli planes and torpedo boats were clearly marked as Israeli, the attack was done in daylight, the surviving eyewitnesses were able to testify that it was not Egypt, etc. etc. Gzuckier 17:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey now, wait a second. Who says the planes and torpedo boats were clearly marked as Israeli? The survivors said that the planes were unmarked. And if those torpedo boats were going 35-40 knots, the flag would have been blowing straight back, and thus McGonagle was delusional when he said that he saw one. Heck, a lot of his recollections are off -- for instance, how can a plane be 5 to 6 miles out, altitude 6000 to 7000 feet, and at an angle of 45 degrees? And with regards to the surviving eyewitnesses, perhaps Israel tried to sink the ship? C'mon, they shot a torpedo at it. Of course they were trying to sink the ship. That would leave no survivors, wouldn't it? (It may leave a few, but they gunned the life rafts according to exised testimony -- see Captain Boston's affidavit). --Liberty researcher 00:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Number wounded to 173

The most objective way to estimate the number of wounded is to count the number of Purple Hearts awarded to survivors. Some survivors originally rejected their Purple Heart due to their dissatisfaction with their government. Some of these survivors have asked for their medals back over time. I have thus upgraded the number from 172 to 173 due to the recent award of an additional Purple Heart. --Liberty researcher 01:17, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I see. That's the only thing you wanted to change in the article, and not all those other POV changes you made? Fine, I'll change that number and assume the rest were simple errors on your part. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Woah there, I've already covered the investigations previously on this Talk page. The claim that there were at least 10 all concluding that it was not deliberate is by far the most POV thing on the page. I'm reverting back to my other changes, but I'll change it a little to please you. --Liberty researcher 06:44, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I’ll go over each change. If you want to revert them, let’s discuss it first, as all changes I made are thoroughly supported by all available evidence.

The introduction is reverted as it is a summary of the following stuff…
There were no flyovers on June 7; the only flyovers were on the morning of June 8. This fact is corroborated by Israel.
The ship was never on the coast of Israel! I removed a little too much here originally accidentally though, so this is a partial revert.
The standing orders claim has never been substantiated and is artificial at best. They knew that Russian trawlers in the area. Attack one of those and Tel-Aviv would have been turned into a nuclear wasteland.
Complete revert for Investigations on the attack as there were not 10 investigations.
Complete revert for American Investigations minus a spelling error.
the NSA only provided post-attack helicopter transcripts, nothing more.
The JCS report didn’t focus on communications failures, it only was communications failures. Read it; it draws no other conclusions and focuses on just communications.
“Critics assert…” is reverted. There is a controversy with the number of investigations. One side has produced solid evidence and the other side has produced zero evidence. I am simply presenting both sides as fair as all available evidence says.
I was simply adding an additional link (www.usslibertyinquiry.com), which a lot of documents or and other pieces of evidence.
I re-capitalized Six-Day War and changed 1950’s to 1950s.

--Liberty researcher 07:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To begin with, you've misunderstood the process; if you want to insert changes into a highly charged article, you get agreement in Talk: first, rather than inserting and then saying "O.K., if you want to talk, let's agree in talk". Articles are the result of lengthy processes of negotiation and NPOVing, and earlier consensuses should not just be thrown out the window. Second, I've removed some of the blatantly obvious POV of your edits; for example, your changed a perfectly neutral introduction to one which said "Israel attacked the Liberty on purpose, they claims it was an acciedent, but they're wrong and lying, and all the evidence proves this". Second, you've inserted highly POV phrases into various article sections; e.g. "note how each are skewed to show exonoration of Israel". Finally, your insertion of extensive and selective quotations into the article is not appropriate; this isn't Wikiquote, summaries serve the article better. And we've been through all of this on the Talk: page before. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:03, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

marked/unmarked planes

The blanket statement in the article "Testimony of USS Liberty crew members unanimously describes the aircraft as having no identifying markings." is disputed here

Crew member Lloyd Painter claims in the documentary that he saw “unmarked jets, no markings whatsoever” pass over the ship, thus clearly implying that the attack was intentional and premeditated. Painter’s claim contradicts his sworn testimony before the Court of Inquiry, in which he makes no such assertion. Lt. Painter testified, under oath, that as the jets first strafed the ship (which would be before they passed over the ship) he was:

...

Thus, according to Lt. Painter’s sworn testimony he was looking at the Liberty’s gun mounts as the jets attacked, at which point he quite understandably “hit the deck.” When the first strafing run was over, Lt. Painter ran as fast as he could to his station below decks; he was therefore in no position to determine whether the attacking jets were marked or unmarked. At no point in his testimony did he claim that the jets were unmarked or even that he was in a position to tell. [emphasis mine]

...

And, while presenting Lt. Painter’s claim that the attacking jets were “unmarked,” the History Channel kept from viewers the fact that Signalman Russell David saw Israeli insignia on the attacking jets and reported this to the Captain. [3]

and more or less paraphrased here. So I'm going to be bold and remove that statement for the nonce. Gzuckier 18:41, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'll get some information on this and get back to you. Though you can't trust the NCOI -- I wouldn't be surprised if they removed any said references to unmarked planes... note Captain Ward Boston's statement.--Liberty researcher 04:39, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NSA declassification of Liberty documents

As of 2005, NSA has yet to declassify "boxes and boxes" of Liberty documents. Numerous requests under both declassification directives and the Freedom of Information Act remaing pending in various agencies including the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.

This was just added to the article. For sources: 1) I have and am aware of numerous requests with those three agencies (NSA, CIA, DIA), 2) I have had numerous telephone conversations with NSA's FOIA office ("boxes and boxes" is verbatim from one of the FOIA officers).

I did not want to say this in the article because it is unsubstantiated, but there is a possibility that more intercepts or useful evidence remain classified, whether they be recordings, translations, or summaries. The officer remembered scanning through the boxes for Cristol's request (the request by this time was a lawsuit), and she pulled out some things that would satisfy the request (i.e., there could have been more). Cristol could have persisted and forced them to look through every sheet of paper to find everything, but since they supposedly satisfied his thesis (even though they were post-attack recordings only)... --Liberty researcher 07:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

USS Liberty Survivors File War Crimes Report

The USS Liberty Veterans Association has filed a formal Report of War Crimes Committed Against U.S. Military Personnel, June 8, 1967 with the Pentagon. The Report deals with the 1967 Israeli attack on USS Liberty, a US Navy ship sailing in international waters. Of a crew of 294, 34 were killed and another 173 were wounded. The ship’s captain was awarded the Medal of Honor for keeping his crew alive during and after the attack. The LVA seeks to have a formal war crimes investigation opened by the Pentagon.

To read the Report as a PDF file, please go to: http://ussliberty.org/report/report.pdf

To read the Report as an HTML file, please go to: http://ussliberty.org/report/report.htm

--Jmeadors 16:46, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Online Discussion of USS Liberty Attack and Aftermath

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

In think most will agree that the "talk" secion of Wikipedia does not allow for the easy, ongoing discussion of any issue.

For those who would prefer to discuss the USS Liberty attack in an easier format and for those who would like to follow along in the discussion without participating you're more than welcome to visit the Forums sections of http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/

--USS Liberty Survivor 17:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I will probably end up in frustration on your discussion group. One of the key arguments made by those who claim that the Israeli attack on the Liberty was intentional is that it was a "false flag" operation, that the original intent was to sink the ship and blame it on the Egyptians. When someone is suspected of a crime, that person's criminal history is certainly of considerable importance. If there is evidence implicating someone of murder, a jury would certainly want to know if that person is known to have murdered before. In the case of Israel, it is an established and acknowledged fact that they engaged in extremely perfidious false flag bombings of American facilities in Egypt in what is known as the Lavon Affair. There is also very strong evidence that false flag bombings were employed by the Israelis in Iraq in 1950-1951 to stampede the native Iraqis into immigration to Israel. In fact, there were convictions and executions for the crime. That evidence is presented at [The Jews of Iraq]. The first time I put these links up they were taken down within hours by someone from Israel. I am not surprised that he would want to hide this history. I think that it is very relevant history, however, for any Wikipedia reader who needs all the information he can get to determine what happened that day that 34 American seamen were killed. Reggie Arton 12:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

First of all see WP:TALK so you can properly use the talk page and post the comments on the bottom of a talk page. Second you conclusions about connection between two incidents are original research see WP:NOR and WP:A.Shrike 17:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Information to be merged

Latest comment: 19 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Could someone please merge the following information into this article, as per vfd consensus? The other article in question has been redirected to this one to preserve the GFDL. -- Francs2000 | Talk 02:41, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

"Thirty eight years have passed since Israel attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967. The Israelis said it was all “an accident.” Thirty-four Americans died on the Liberty and 173 more were wounded. The Liberty’s Vets believe the assault was deliberate and have charged Israel with committing War Crimes."

 "A nice whitewash for a group of ignorant, stupid and inept [expletive deleted]." 
         -- Handwritten note of August 26, 1967, by NSA Deputy Director Louis W. Tordella reacting to the Israeli court decision exonerating Israelis of blame for the Liberty attack.

"Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.

         -- Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy (retired), USS Liberty Survivor

"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American."

         -- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry

That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency

         -- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident

         -- 5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate

         -- David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings

"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous "

         -- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk

"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."

         -- CIA Director Richard Helms

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship."

         -- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby

"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"

         -- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson

"The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's 'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error."

       -- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31)

"It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity."

       -- Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, June 8, 1997

"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."

         -- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15, 1991, p. 14

It looks like Wikiquote material, at best. Highly selective stuff like that is inherently POV. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah; the NPOV response would have to be including the text of all 13 investigations that the above did not find agreeable. Not worth the effort, considering the article makes the controversy abundantly clear.Gzuckier 14:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Sources claiming attack was a mistake

Some of the items listed under the section of the page titled "Sources claiming attack was a mistake" are not "Sources claiming attack was a mistake" at all but interpretations of information that has been obtained.

Would whoever has tasked himself with the responsibility of updating this reference in Wiki please consider modifying this section to more clearly reflect what it, in fact, shows?

You might also consider mentioning the fact that we have filed a formal "Report of War Crimes Committed Against U.S. Military Personnel" with the Department of Defense. The DoD Directive under which this was filed requires the DoD to conduct an investigation of the allegations made in the Report. The text of that Report is available at our website -- http://www.ussliberty.com.

Also, it might be worth mentioning (although further research may be required to confirm) the fact that no other US military unit has had to file such a report simply to convince the US government to investigate the war crimes they were the victims of.

Warmest regards,

Joe Meadors

USS Liberty Survivor

R. Larry Weaver, Liberty survivor

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Concerning the book The Liberty Incident, reviewed in the August 2003 issue of Military History, in which A. Jay Cristol alleges the attack was an innocent error, I was a lookout on the bow before and during the attack on USS Liberty by Israeli air and sea forces. My general quarters station was on secondary con. I had to jump down on the fantail for protection. I would come out to check on incoming jets and each time I saw our flag full out--I did this about five to seven times. Then I came out too soon, and the pilot saw me and went straight aft. I was hit by rocket and cannon fire. It blew 2 1/2 feet of my colon from my body, and I suffered 101 shrapnel wounds. I had to use my blood to stop my flesh from burning. I was not expected to live overnight. I have had 27 major surgeries and still carry 60 pieces of metal in my body today. I had both knees and my left shoulder replaced. I have been an in-outpatient since 1967 and have not had a day without pain since that day.

I was only a seaman, but I would be glad to debate A. Jay Cristol any time and any place, but I want the press there!

R. Larry Weaver Oshkosh, Wis.

Source: Letters, Military History, 08897328, Dec2003, Vol. 20, Issue 5

Adraeus 12:22, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry Larry, was wounded and suffered, but the Israeli pilot was flying at 500 mph, just subsonic, and was hundreds of yards away. He "saw me and went straight aft"? Yeah. Sure. Scott Adler 21:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I also am sorry for your tragedy Mr. Weaver, however I find it disturbing that your story is posted on an anti-Israel website: WRMEA !

Hmmm, hidden agendas? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.131.184.152 (talk) 07:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

Hello? That posting was from User:Adraeus, not from Weaver, and he cites a letter published in a US history magazene. That's a valid source, according to Wikipedia guidelines. Would you pls talk about the facts, instead of assuming anti-zionist conspiracies everywhere? It's not Adraues' fault, and certainly not Weaver's, that the facts are not putting a positive light on Israel. 89.182.93.58 13:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Phillip K. Tourney's Letter to Colin Powell

Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Jan. 15, 2004

To Secretary of State Colin Powell:

I take this time to write you once again concerning the unprovoked attack on our ship, the USS LibertyAGTR-5, by the government of Israel and the subsequent cover-up that has continued for the past 37 years come this June 8th.

On Jan. 12, 2004, I attended a conference at the State Department as an official representative of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, being the president of the association and a survivor of the attack on our ship. I listened intently to the speakers on the panel. By the way, in my opinion, the panel was stacked toward the Israeli version of the "mistaken identity" theory. When the time came for questions from the audience I immediately got to the microphone, patiently and politely waiting for my turn to ask several questions of the panelists.

My shipmate, Joseph Lentini, was the first person at the microphone and he was abruptly shot down by the moderator, State Department Historian Dr. Marc Susser. Josie Linen-Toth, sister of Lt. Toth, who was murdered aboard the Liberty, was also shot down by Susser. Mrs. Pat Blue-Roushakes, widow of civilian analyst Mr. Allen Blue, who was murdered by the torpedo explosion, was also in the audience. I was at the microphone, ready to speak. Susser abruptly called the conference over. The audience was outraged at him for not letting us all speak on the Liberty. I was shocked at Susser's attitude toward the Liberty's representative, not giving me even one minute to rebut the panelists' falsehoods and outright lies.

A.J. Cristol made very disparaging remarks about Admiral Thomas Moorer, as you know, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman along with yourself. Admiral Moorer is a 93-year-old American hero and a Liberty supporter. A.J. Cristol called Captain Ward Boston as much as a liar. Captain Boston is a Liberty supporter and a very respected JAGC officer. His certified declaration is enclosed. In brief summary, Captain Boston swears he was ordered by Lyndon Johnson and McNamara to over up the Liberty attack. In the court of inquiry Captain Boston's remarks have been removed or altered.

After speaking with many persons in the audience, it became apparent that they were appalled that Susser was totally agreeable with the Israeli side of events and lies concerning the Liberty attack. As a historian working for you and the citizens of this country at the State Department, Susser is an embarrassment. He could care less about the historical facts concerning the Liberty. When Susser didn't let the survivors get on record about what happened to us, he disrespected the dead heroes who served their country, their family members and the survivors, and this is unforgivable action on his part. We know what happened to us aboard the Liberty, and Susser is part of the cover-up by muting combat veterans in our own State Department. Firing or at least a stern reprimand is in order for Susser.

The survivors look forward to returning to the State Department for another conference on an even playing field with a moderator who will allow eyewitnesses to this crime to tell their story. T would like to thank all the panelists for being there, but a fair and balanced review of this piece of history was not to happen on this day.

Look forward to your response and thank you for your continued service to this great country.

Respectfully,

Phillip K. Tourney President USS Liberty Veterans Association

Source: Other People's Mail, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; Apr2004, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p59-61, 3p

Adraeus 12:24, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I find the NSA'S claim that the uss Liberty DID NOT carry out any radio interception while sailing along the Israely coast an insult to the intelligence. that the NSA would feel compelled to make such a self-evidently false claim only proves that that the interception doubtlessly performed by the Liberty was so fellonious that its exposure would damn the NSA. It has been ,not so recently, established that the Liberty was Conducting an intensive radio-intercept effort before it was atacked AGAINST Israel ,with the intercepted Israeli radio trafick rlayed to British intelligence facilities in Cyprus for an analysis which established the IDF's deployment in minute detail. this information was then given to Israel's enemies, all in the midst of war. Johnson orderd that this be done under the influence of the reptelian Aramco lobbists and the more oil-minded State Department creatures as a means of curring favour with the Arabs if so , then the USA through the Liberty was engaged in an act of war war against Israel, and a deliberate attack on the Liberty a legitimite act under international law as well as common decency, hence the NSA's reluctunce to have the matter "over investigated" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.218.121.3 (talk • contribs) .

If signal gathering in international waters is unforgivable, what would you call infiltrating a foreign government the way Israel's Mossad did to the United States? Being a good ally? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.140.103 (talk • contribs)

NPOV

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I knew nothing of this incident before finding it on this page. However, as I am reading it, it seems to me that it is not as NPOV as it could be. It seems some information, particularly in the first few paragraphs of the article, is being presented or suggested without any indication that it is not generally-accepted information. Its hard for me to tell which bits of information is coming from common knowledge, and what is coming from minority conspiracy-theorist viewpoints. The comment "Even some historians who are generally sympathetic towards Israel..." is especially dodgy, indicating unintentional bias. I think a disinterested historian with a good knowledge of both the generally-accepted facts--and the conspiracy/political/social views--should rewrite a summary of the incident. AaronWL 20:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC) OK, as I finish the article, I must strengthen my comments. The account of what happened is completely NPOV, adopting almost a patriotic storyteller additude at times. As I am not a historian, I leave it to others to figure out how to fix it--but please, fix it. This is not Wikipedia quality.AaronWL 20:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Aaron, thanks for your comments on the article.

Like you, I came across this article recently and felt that it needed some work. If you look at the editing history in the last couple of weeks, I think the opening has already become less POV than it was before. I haven't yet had time to comb through the rest of the article.

I think you are probably right about the comment about Bregman, "Even some historians who are generally sympathetic towards Israel...". Confession: I was the person who wrote that. My idea in writing it was to show that the historians who disagree with the Israeli position are not just ideologically motivated critics of Israel. But looking at it again, perhaps it does tend to suggest that the article has a hidden bias. In any case, I thought it was better to just take it out and let his comments stand for themselves.

Although this article deals with a controversial topic, I think we should still be able to achieve a NPOV. This can be done by

dealing with the agreed or generally accepted facts. This would be things like the time and place of the attack and certain other factual things accepted by both sides
summarising the conflicting claims by each side
summarising the evidence provided by each side in support of their claims

For this to be achieved sources will have to be very clearly referenced and the style and tone will have to be very neutral. --Alexxx1 23:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

What is a historian?

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

A historian is loosely defined as "a person who is an authority on history and who studies it and writes about it", [4] which means that Jim Ennes, Joe Meadors, Gary Brummett, and some other Liberty survivors (including most of the members of the USS Liberty Veterans Association) are also historians. To be a historian, a degree and recognition in academia is not necessary. Those who claim the contrary would be wise to realize that history is mostly founded on the works of writers, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, both who lived before college degrees formally existed. The most important historians are those who have firsthand knowledge of that which they student, as they are considered the primary sources upon which other historians will base their opinions of the subject. Adraeus 03:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Two things: First, your definition is like saying a physicist is someone who studies physics by experiencing it firsthand. History also involves a methodology, peer-review, standards of evidence, and a range of other factors that seperate amateur from professional historians. There is a difference between the writings of John Keegan and Tom Clancy, though both write history. Second, my change was not to attack Jim Ennes, but rather to correct a problem with the sentence, it identified him solely as a historian, and not as a survivor of the attack, which is certainly a critical piece of information for the reader. I am not even sure that Ennes identifies himself as a historian, he always seems to be described as a Liberty survivor. In any case, we can describe him as a "Liberty survivor and historian of the incident" or whatever, but just "historian" was clearly inadequate. --Goodoldpolonius2 03:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, see where you drew the line? Between amateur and professional historians. A historian is a historian. Whether the historian is amateur or professional is another matter. History does not require "a methodology, peer review, standards of evidence, and a range of other factors"; although, these items are useful for establishing the credibility of a historical report. That said, generally, Wikipedia is not historically credible since Wikipedia is lacking in terms of methodology, peer review, evidential standards, objectivity, and a firm grasp of the subject reported. James (Jim) Ennes authored Assault on the Liberty and many articles. If you want to be pedantic, he could be described as a scholar too. Adraeus 23:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

An authority on history implies academic recognition, like that which Herodotus and Thucydides got in the manner of their time. People who generate primary sources are rarely considered historians; they're called eyewitnesses, and considered somewhat untrustworthy. To me, calling someone with no degree or academic recognition is misleading, no matter what the definition is; by your use of the term, anyone we cite on a historical subject could be called a historian.

Whether or not Wikipedia is credible is completely irrelevant to the subject. Let's try and make it as credible as possible.--Prosfilaes 00:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed overly detailed material

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In early December User:Alexxx1 inserted this material into the intro:

However, a number of parties have raised doubts about Israel's explanation of what happened. There are press articles, for example in the Christian Science Monitor of June 4 and June 22, 1982, whose version of events contradicts the Israeli version. Ahron Bregman, in his book A History of Israel, casts doubt on the Israeli version of events by publishing transcripts of conversations between Israeli fighter pilots and air controllers. He comments that "What then follows is extraordinary and, indeed, highly suspicious, and seems to indicate a possible cover-up by the Israelis..." (p.121). Indeed, Bregman concludes in the most updated version of Israel's Wars that the "Israelis did know, even in the initial stages of their strike on the Liberty, that this was an American vessel." (p. 97)

It was overly detailed for the intro, and unbalanced it as well. There are books which make the exact opposite assertions, and which are not quoted in the intro, and for good reason. The intro is long enough as it is, and outlines the dispute in a fairly neutral way. Also, I restored references to two books on the subject which were somehow "mysteriously" deleted. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

broken links

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

These links are borked:

USS 'Liberty' hit was unintentional, says CIA

Pilot who bombed 'Liberty' talks to 'Post - interview with pilot (Yiftah Spector) who led attack

Exclusive: Liberty attack tapes revealed - transcript of IAF recordings of radio traffic during the attack.

I didn't want to step on anyone's toes and just drop them, in case somebody has enough interest to track down new links/different external refs . . . Greg [[User_talk:Evilgreg3000|(Talk)]] 01:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Stating the Obvious

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Regarding the accusation this paragraph is covering:

James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, in his book Body of Secrets, proposes a different possible motive for a deliberate attack: "to cover up a massacre of 1,000 Egyptian prisoners of war" that was supposedly taking place at the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. Bamford has no concrete evidence to back this accusation, except a confirmation by a single anonymous Egyptian. He cites a supporting Israeli source that "150 prisoners were executed," but this source, Gabi Bron, an Israeli reporter, claims Bamford misrepresented his report by using only partial sentences from it, which in fact wholly referred to the execution of 5 Palestinian guerillas, and other than that, he saw no mass murders. Further adding evidence against this claim was that Egypt has ruled El-Arish and the whole of the Sinai peninsula for over 20 years since Israel returned it in the early 1980s, yet no mass graves have been found, nor has Egypt reported such an incident occurring. In any event, the possibility of a ship at sea discovering such a crime on land, at or beyond the limit of its visual range, is unlikely (according to U.S. accounts, the ship was 14 nautical miles (26 km) from shore at the time of the attack, and did not get much closer to it previously).

There seems to be an obvious flaw in this "motive" that isn't mentioned. i.e. if your trying to hide a cover up of a massacre of your enemy, even given the most extreme estimates of the number of people massacred, it would be positively stupid to attack your ally, an act with x100 worse consequences and it wouldn't cover up the massacre to boot! It doesn't make any sense. You might say a lot of things about the IDF, but they aren't stupid. --Brentt 21:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Brentt, you're absolutely right, the IDF is not stupid. In fact, they are utterly brilliant and very efficient. To make such an enormous mistake and attack a ship that was clearly an American military vessel is either a mistake which I believe is not possible for the IDF to make or there is another reason for the deliberate attack for which we may never know. Jtpaladin 17:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

List of the Fatalities

I'm knew to this Wikipedia thing, but does anyone have any objections to me inserting a list of the names of those who lost their lives in the incident, or are there size considerations which would make this a bad idea?

I for one wouldn't have a problem with it since most were friends of mine. USS Liberty Survivor

I did it. If anyone has a problem with the layout, or thinks it should be on a seperate page, then make the changes necessary. Likewise with regards to spelling inaccuracies etc.

External links

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

We're going to have to have some sort of common standard for websites here. Either personal websites are allowed or they're not. And conspiracy-mongering sites like ifamericansknew are never allowed, regardless of whether or not you think they have reliable information on them. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

It is frankly beyond belief that Wikipedia would not accept a webpage on a subject produced by someone who had received a Ph.D. from NYU on the subject, and not even as the main text of the article but only as an external link. My position is very simple: direct witnesses are good sources; experts - such as people who have done a doctoral dissertation at a reputable university on a subject, or people who have had books published by reputable publishers on a subject - are good sources; someone who one day decided to start a blog on a subject is not a good source. Please tell me very specifically where you disagree with this position, or where you think I have violated it, and we can discuss our disagreements once we clearly understand what they are.

Also, you may not have read my comments to the change I made on the Ward Boston document. I changed the link to be directly to a document signed by Ward Boston, and I even provided a second link by which the authenticity of the document can be checked. I agree with you that "ifamericansknew" is not a good source; however, not a single word that originated with them is in the link.

Update: found another source for Ward Boston's affadavit and reverted links to agree with the standard I outlined above. Still waiting to see your issues with my standard or how I have followed it.

It's a personal website with no editorial control, just like the sites you objected to. Someone can claim whatever they like on their website; they can even claim to be an eyewitness, but that doesn't meet the high standards being demanded here. As for the Boston affadavit, if its on the ussliberty site, then we don't need additional links to it here, because we've already linked to that site. We could link to every subpage on the pro and con websites, but that simply wastes people's time and POV pushes. Also, please stop changing the names of news articles just because you personally feel that you have discovered fraud regarding a website. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

If we are eliminating websites without editorial control, then Israel News Agency must go, regardless that the interview probably has merit. The John Borne website is frankly a lot better than this Wikipedia article, and certainly it has had better editing. AH-64D Longbow

Moved Boston affadavit to main text, with link. AH-64D Longbow

How do you know that the Israel News Agency has no editorial control? Your opinions about Borne's personal website are interesting; as far as I can tell, his only claim to extremely minor fame is that he wrote a dissertation on the subject of the Liberty, one of tens of thousands of dissertations written that year, but one which has made him the darling of conspiracists. As for the Boston affadavit, had you read the article you would have noted that all that information was already in the article, as was the link to the PDF you provided. Since there's no point in duplicating identical information in the article, I've consolidated the two sections into yours. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I know the Israel News Agency has no serious editorial control because it puts out such sloppy work. How do you know that John Borne's website has no editorial control? Had I not been having all of my minor work on the links undone continually and obstructively by you, I would have had more time to concentrate on the text of the article.

Because we have no general way of deciding what editorial control different websites have, I do not think this is not a good criterion for deciding which links are worth keeping and which are not. I am back to my original standard, which you have still not directly addressed: direct witnesses are good sources; experts - such as people who have done a doctoral dissertation at a reputable university on a subject, or people who have had books published by reputable publishers on a subject - are good sources; someone who one day decided to start a blog on a subject is not a good source.

Jay, a couple questions for clarification if you don't mind. You unilaterally condemn websites such as ifamericaknew to the Wiki trash heep because Wiki has classified them as "conspiracy-mongering". Many have similarly characterized ussliberty.com and usslibertyinquiry.com but citations from those websites are allowed. Why?

Another question about ifamericaknew-like websites. Citations from those websites themselves are forbidden however should someone take a single topic from the website and expand on it that citation is allowed?

Lastly, you have characterized John Borne's dissertating as having "made him the darling of conspiracists". Would you similarly characterize Jay Cristol and his dissertation? USS Liberty Survivor

ussliberty.com and usslibertyinquiry.com are indeed poor sources by Wikipedia standards, but they are relevant for this specific article in outlining the position of some of the crew-members and their supporters. I'm not sure I understand your second question, and I'm not sure which conspiracy theory you refer to regarding Jay Cristol; is he promoting a conspiracy theory? Jayjg ^(talk) 14:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

A note about the Israel News Agency- Wikipedia:Reliable_sources says (under "Evalutating Sources") "Do the sources have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report?" Please read a few stories posted on their site, and consider if you see an obvious bias. Or just look at the headlines, "Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander," "Hamas Murders Children in Palestine, Blames Israel," and "Wikipedia, Censorship, Israel and Terrorism." (Funny, it never occured to me to link Wikipedia with censorship and terrorism. Terrorism?!? In this article Wikipedia is said to have "joined the ranks" of "Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the PFLP, Hizbullah and the Palestinian Authority.") Under "Using online and self-published sources" is "A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication." I have seen no evidence that the Israel News Agency uses any fact-checkers, and it appears to be almost completely written and edited by one man (Joel Leyden). Almost all of the information in the Israel News Agency article is cited from their own website. Also, the fact that the Cristol interview is repeated on the site as being both an Israel News Agency interview and a Jerusalem Post interview makes it highly suspect. A search for "Cristol" on the JPost website turns up hits for articles written on Jan 9th and 13th, 2004 (not written by Leyden), but does not give any for Jan 11th, the date of the article from Israel News Agency. Doesn't this look suspicious to you? In the absence of any evidence that this is a reliable source, I think it is totally inappropriate to include links to it. Having its own Wikipedia article does not automatically imply reliability. 24.23.141.156 02:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

People keep adding back in the link to the "exclusive" IsraelNewsAgency and/or JPost interview with Jay Cristol. Not only is the INA not a reliable source by Wiki policies, but Jay Cristol's perspective is thoroughly covered elsewhere in the article. The interview is uneccesary and suspect. DejahThoris 17:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC) (previously 24.23.141.156)

Conspiracy theories

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I appreciate there are people who believe that Israel attacked the ship on purpose; but after over a dozen investigations by both parties to the incidents, this opinion is a fringe theory more akin to a conspiracy theory than anything else. I am not proposing we excise the controversy, but I have to insist that we characterize things the way the two parties do. --Leifern 04:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

There are not "two parties;" there are several parties, and numerous disagreements among them. Reporting just two concurring perspectives when others hold them to be incorrect is not in any way the same as being balanced. AH-64D Longbow

The "over a dozen investigations" have been cursory at best, as mentioned in the article. Please don't attempt to sell this a a settled issue, the wikipedia is not your political soapbox. Tarc 05:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Neither is it yours - the agencies that completed the investigations are heavy duty government agencies with resources and at least an expressed commitment to finding the truth. This isn't to say that coverups don't happen; but you'd have to believe that there was a cover-up to describe them as "cursory." That is a conspiracy theory.--Leifern 05:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Leif, just to ensure I understand you correctly, are you saying that the US and Israeli governments have investigated the attack on the USS Liberty combined over a dozen times? USS Liberty Survivor

I think he's saying that several inquiries by quite respectable commitees have been conducted by both parties seperately, and still no proof to any conspiratorial theory.

Look, I understand it's painful to get hit by "friendly fire", but some people here, namely those with "USS Liberty" related names, have come to the conclusion that Israel has attacked an ally's ship for no rational reason(except to cover up for unproven massacres of POW's or the attack on the Golan Hights). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Koantin (talk • contribs) 16:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

NPOV

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think there is a way to reconcile the apparent editing dispute amicably. A couple of points to keep in mind:

The term "investigation" is used throughout Wikipedia even when the thoroughness, motivation, and outcomes of the investigations are in doubt.
The introduction should focus on agreed-upon facts and avoid confusing readers with caveats, qualifiers, etc. It is sufficient to write, for example, that official explanations are disputed, and the issue is still controversial
It would also be completely appropriate to include an entire section on the controversy and delineate carefully what basis there is for the disputes.

Let's not allow this to devolve into an edit war - there are even more contentious issues that have been somehow resolved in Wikipedia. --Leifern 12:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Leif, I am not concerned with the thoroughness, motivation or outcome of any of the reports you deem to be investigations. My concern is that the documents refered to on the Wiki site as investigations are not investigations at all -- merely reports. Some are reports based on reports. None include the attack on the USS Liberty in their scope even though they may make references to the attack in their conclusions.

I would expand that to opine that there is no evidence that the "Yerushalmi Report" is the result of any investigative process at all and in all likelihood is simply the result of an active imagination. I understand Wiki policy requires those who claim the Yerushalmi Report is, in fact, an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty must provide accreditation from a reputable, verifiable source. That has not yet been done so including reference to the Yerushalmi Report in the article is a violation of Wiki policy.

Having said that I notice in your modifications to the article there is no verifiable accreditation provided so we can contact the source of the documents -- merely your opinion in which you make an allegation which, in turn, I understand is a violation of Wiki policy. You can, of course, provide the required information for your additions to the article in subsequent modifications and I encourage you to do so. USS Liberty Survivor

Jmeadors should probably refrain from editing this article

Latest comment: 18 years ago10 comments6 people in discussion

See: Wikipedia:Autobiography. -Shogun 02:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I too am troubled by this as I feel that User:Jmeadors is inhibited in his ability to remain in the neutral point of view. The fact that his website is also named within the article, only adds to the potential bias. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 03:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia:Autobiography: "If you have published elsewhere on a subject, we welcome you to contribute to articles on the subject for Wikipedia." Raul654 05:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Bias is removed from Wiki articles by the uniform application of the standards and rules Wiki has established for publishing information in their articles. Sadly, it appears those standards have been waived for the USS Liberty Incident article. Evidence the ability to refer repeatedly to the claim that the US government conducted numerous investigations of the attack on the USS Liberty without any reference to a reliable, verifiable source.USS Liberty Survivor

I welcome Jmeadors's participation in editing this article. Having said that, Wikipedia generally considers governmental sources to be authoritative, but not above criticism. Governmental investigations should be characterized as such, and we should state clearly the criticism and controversy. I do not think it is appropriate to characterize - implicitly or explicitly - the findings of all these investigations as suspect, as that would be POV. In fact, it strengthens the case of the JMeadors's group if the facts and arguments are outlined clearly. I have reverted or edited several of JMeadors's POV phrases and will continue to do so. --Leifern 12:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

As the article says, those investigations were clearly suspect. And to repeat what Tarc said above - please don't attempt to sell this a a settled issue, the wikipedia is not your political soapbox. Raul654 12:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

That they were "suspect" is your opinion. I have never tried to discourage anyone from documenting the various objections and alternative theories related to this, but it must be done in an encyclopedic fashion. Please try to read my postings before you write responses to others. --Leifern 13:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Jmeadors about the "investigations." They do not appear to be "investigations" at all, and it seems POV to characterize them as such. With the exception of the Court of inquiry the others linked do all appear to just be reports. Also, that section baldly states "Ten official U.S. investigations...have since concluded that the event was a tragic mistake" when several of the reports appear to have concluded nothing of the sort, as whether or not it was intentional was not a question they were asking. Also, if there really are ten of these reports/investigations, they should all be listed together. I only count six.

Leifern, this isn't about characterizing "the findings of all these investigations as suspect," but about not implying that the findings of all those reports have anything to do with whether or not this was accident.

Jmeadors, you aren't improving your credibility as a cool, objective editor by signing every post with "USS Liberty Survivor."

For the record, I have no firm opinion on the incident one way or the other. DejahThoris 17:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC) (previously editing as 24.23.141.156)

In looking over the source material in question, the "reports" take the form of memoranda or other documents that present findings. They all claim to be exhaustive, and they all claim a high level of authority. Some distinctions are made between the work that went into these documents and formal legal investigations. If by "investigation" we limit ourselves to those commissioned for purposes of pursuing a legal case, then I'll concede that none of them was an investigation. But if "investigation" means something along the lines of n 1: an inquiry into unfamiliar or questionable activities; "there was a congressional probe into the scandal" [syn: probe] 2: the work of inquiring into something thoroughly and systematically [syn: investigating]; then "investigation" is the right term. --Leifern 18:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

People seem to be avoiding the obvious. Contact the source. Visit the Senate Historian's website and send them an email asking if the Congress of the United States has ever conducted an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty. Then contact the members of your Congressional Delegation and ask they contact the Congressional Research Service and ask the question "has the US government ever conducted an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty?" They should be able to tell you. They told me. USS Liberty Survivor

Unfortunately, that would be unverifiable original research. Those would be two of the most important "standards and rules Wiki has established for publishing information in their articles". Jayjg ^(talk) 18:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Governments conduct investigations and issue findings. Especially in the military and intelligence communities, they use terminology very carefully. I think a lot would be solved by simply referencing the titles of the resulting documents. I've read through several of them, and they're insistent that their findings are conclusive and based on all available sources. I think that Jmeadors is right in claiming that there was never a criminal investigation the way there was for e.g., the USS Cole, but most likely that would be because the central facts (Israeli sea and air forces attacked the USS Liberty at this time and these coordinates) are not in dispute. --Leifern 19:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's Take a Look at Some of These US government "Investigations" of the Attack on the USS Liberty

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Correct me if I am wrong but I assume that those who claim that the US government has conducted many investigations of the attack on the USS Liberty are referring to the same reports similarly described by Jay Cristol in his book, The Liberty Incident, and on his website.

Let's take a look at one of these "investigations." How about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Investigation?

Why doesn't everybody go to the page on Jay's website, download the report and read it. It shouldn't take long. That "investigation" of the attack on the USS Liberty is all of 4 pages long.

After you have read the "investigation" tell me something substantive about the attack that you learned from reading the "investigation." USS Liberty Survivor

I don't see how that could possibly be called an investigation. Doing so adds undue weight to the idea that the incident was heavily investigated. It seems incredibly misleading to refer to ten investigations when only six are presented in the article, and one of them is quite obviously not an "investigation" (the work of inquiring into something thoroughly and systematically). It seems more like a discussion than anything else. Did the idea that ten investigations were conducted come solely from Cristol's work, or is this a widely held view? DejahThoris 03:47, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The first claim of the "investigations" that I know of is in Cristol's work. If anyone knows of an earlier appearance of the claim please let us know. USS Liberty Survivor 10:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Now let's look at another alleged investigation into the attack on the USS Liberty. This report is refered to in the article page as "The CIA Report of 1967" and is available for download from Jay Cristol's website.

You will notice that the report itself doesn't pretend to be an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty. Indeed, it does not pretend to be an investigation at all -- merely a memo containing information from other sources.

The only way it became an investigation is to have been deemed to be one by the anonymous author of the article. Apparently the rules of Wikipedia provide that since the anonymous author was first out of the box with his characterization of the CIA report his opinion prevails. USS Liberty Survivor

For the record, I am in complete agreement with you; it is patently ridiculous to characterize memos and reports as "investigations." This incident has never, ever, received the full attention and scrutiny that it deserves. Tarc 20:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see someone other than Jay Cristol (an obviously POV source, although I suppose most are on this issue) claiming ten U.S. investigations were conducted. Having looked over some of the documents he calls "investigations," I think his credibility is in doubt. Stating in the article "Following more than a dozen investigations..." and "Ten official American investigations[citation needed] are claimed regarding the Liberty incident..." gives a lot of weight to what, at this point, appears to be the opinion of one highly-biased man. Perhaps I'm missing something? DejahThoris 22:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Do The Sources Cited by Wikipedia Administrator Jayjg Rise To The Level Required by Wikipedia?

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Jayjg has used a number of sources in documenting the article. Among those are the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, Michael B. Oren and the ADL. Jay, could you explain how these sources rise to the level required by Wikipedia in their Reliable Sources Policy? USS Liberty Survivor

Yes, and, as I've pointed out, they're far more reliable than your websites. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You're trying to walk on both sides of the street, Jayjg. As a page editor you included a reference to CAMERA, Michael Oren and the ADL then as page administrator you deemed those to be appropriate and within Wikipedia guidelines. Then you went out of your way to address an issue that I had not raised and, as administrator, deemed them to be unilaterally a more reliable reference than infomation provided by survivors of the attack. Clearly a conflict of interest and clearly evidence of a biased administrator.

That raises the question of the appropriateness of someone serving simultaneously as editor and administrator of a Wikipedia article. As an editor clearly you're biased. As an administrator you have deemed those biases to be within Wikipedia guidelines and have allowed them to remain posted in the article. That raises the question of your bias as an article administrator. Others have noted the bias and have classified the article in violation of the Wikipedia NPOV policy.

If someone is serving as both editor and administrator of an article there are weapons at his disposal that are not available to those who are serving as editor alone. Not the least of those weapons is the ability to deny someone the ability to post either in the article, in the talk portion of the article or in the talk portion of that user's page. Should those weapons be wielded inappropriately there is no telling what damage can be done not only to the credibility of the article itself but to the Wikipedia reputation as a whole.USS Liberty Survivor 01:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I am an editor of this article, like anyone else. The article is not mine, and an NPOV tag on it is not a statement about me. Please use the Talk: page to focus on article content, not other editors. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Jayjg about focusing on the article and not on a fellow editor. I mean, after all, that is Wikipedia policy. Anything else would be "disingenuous". Please see: WP:AGF, WP:NPA, and WP:CIVIL. Anyone that makes a statement about focusing on the article and not on an editor yet does the opposite themselves would make them a hypocrite. Isn't that right, Jayjg? Please let me know if I could be of any help. Jtpaladin 23:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Is the claim of "multiple American government investigations" a fact or an opinion under Wikipedia policies?

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Wikipedia Administrator Jayjg has allowed the statement that there have been "multiple American government investigations" (or words to that effect) at various places in the article.

Jayjg, could you refer to the Wikipedia Reliable Sources Policy and show us why this should be shown as a fact instead of an opinion? I'm particularly interested in the part of the Policy that states, "a fact is a statement agreed to by the consensus of scholars or experts working on a topic." USS Liberty Survivor 14:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for Citation for statement regarding ADM Kidd

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I am renewing my request for a citation to support the statement, "During his lifetime, however, Kidd never publicly expressed such opinions."

The citation provided does not address the issue. USS Liberty Survivor 15:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

There really cannot be a citation for an assertion that something never happened, Joe. It might be better, though, to phrase it something like "no documentation has been found for Kidd expressing such an opinion." AH-64D Longbow

How about if you provide some evidence that Kidd actually publicly expressed such opinions during his lifetime. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg, the citation you provided doesn't address the claim posted by the editor who added the claim. I wasn't the editor who posted the claim so your request is misdirected. Perhaps better wording would include something like, "(Name) claims that Kidd . . ." and then provide a link to the relevant citation.

Longbow, I can understand the difficulty of proving a negative. We were confronted with it all the time by people who ask that we prove the US government has never conducted an investigation of the attack on our ship.

The task has become immeasurably easier with the statement we have from the Office of the Senate Historian telling us, “I searched the CIS Index (Congressional Information Service Index), which indexes all congressional documents, including hearings (published and unpublished) . . . . I did not find any references to an investigation relating to the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty” and the Congressional Research Service telling us that the US government has never conducted an investigation of the attack.

Sadly, people who disagree with the position of the US government in this area prefer to rely on opinions from others who have had the opportunity to publish (or have published) articles that disagree with that position. USS Liberty Survivor 01:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The task is no easier, since what you are proposing to include is original research. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears you misunderstand the point I was making, Jayjg.

I wasn't saying that is easier to publish a denial from the Senate Historian in a Wikipedia article stating that Congress has never conducted an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty. What I was saying is that it is universally easier to challenge anyone who makes the allegation that Congress has conducted an investigation.

If someone does make that claim here on Wikipedia, it is clearly within the scope of the talk page to dispute that claim and to explain why the claim is in dispute. USS Liberty Survivor 20:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for Citation for statement regarding effectiveness of machine guns on a steel-hulled ship

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I am requesting a citation for the claim that "Machine guns are ineffective armament for doing real damage to a steel-hulled ship--other than starting fires in combustibles."

I know of at least one machine gun bullet that went clean through the mess decks and would have done considerable damage to anyone in its path. USS Liberty Survivor 15:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to sound callous about the lives of men who put their themselves in harms way for their country, but in this context, "real damage" is, I believe, intended to mean sink or completely disable. Maybe this should have been worded more clearly. Certainly, machine gun fire could be lethal to individuals on board. That is not disputed. The issue is this: Assuming Israel's military leaders considered Liberty's presence such a grave threat to their ongoing operations that they would risk infuriating the U.S. by attacking her, why wouldn't they send planes armed with the weapons, e.g. high explosive bombs, most effective for sinking a ship? Instead, Israel apparently diverted planes already on patrol that were armed for supporting ground forces. If I am not mistaken, Liberty was less than 50 miles - a few minutes flying time - from Israel when it was attacked.

Since we have the honor of having people participating in this discussion who were there, may I be permitted to ask this question: after the air attack, had the Navy/NSA sent an order saying "We will send air cover to protect you from further attack. It is important that you stay on-station and continue to gather intelligence," could the Liberty have done so? --agr 22:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion we could not have -- not with a torpedo hole in us. I have always wondered what we were doing there in the first place. I would assume that a shore station such as the American Embassies in the area would have had equipment capable of conducting the same or even better surveillance. I further assume that that surveillance was taking place before we arrived and after we left. What did we bring to the table by our presence? Over the years I have not found anyone addressing that issue issue. USS Liberty Survivor 12:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was asking about the state of the ship after the air attack, before the torpedo boat action. Again the question is why the Israelies, having decided to attack a U.S. ship, wouldn't try to sink it in the first blow? Does anyone think they couldn't have? As for why the Liberty was sent there in the first place, I can only speculate of course, but the UAR (Egypt) was a major Soviet client state and detailed monitoring of its forces could reveal useful information on Soviet battle tactics, including what patterns of communications preceeded various actions. Tactical radio communications might have been too weak to reach the embassies. Also this was a major world crisis and there was a real possibility that the Soviet Union might intervene directly, in which case the Liberty's timely presence could have been invaluable. Finally, the Liberty was fairly new asset and there was probably interest in learning how best to use it in a crisis situation. Indeed if a major lesson of the attack - that a ship like the Liberty was too vulnerable for unescorted forward deployment - had been taken to heart, the Pueblo incident a year later might have been avoided. --agr 21:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Need Some Clarification on Wikipedia Policy

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Jayjg, as our resident Wikipedia administrator could you tell us the Wikipedia policy on requesting a citation for information contained within a citation? USS Liberty Survivor 15:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. If a citation says something, then it says that. You can't investigate the accuracy of the statement in a Wikipedia article, that's original research. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your kindness in responding. What I was referring to is the reference you made to the CAMERA article. Clearly they're just parroting Jay Cristol's claim of multiple investigations of the attack on our ship. Or, perhaps more correct, I cannot find any evidence in the article that they conducted any research into the subject upon which they wrote. In doing so they are just expressing an opinion based upon who knows what. A better source would be the US government itself by an email to the Senate Historian or a request through your Congressional Delegation to the Congressional Research Service. The reference you used to the CAMERA article might or might not be within Wikipedia policy but in using references like that the article just becomes one of a list of opinions with little reliance on documents from the original source. Perhaps a better way to word the reference in the article would be to include words such as "CAMERA claims. . ." rather than letting the reference take on the appearance of stating a proven fact. USS Liberty Survivor 23:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Still POV

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

I appreciate the effort of changing the "Ten official US investigations..." to "six American government investigations," but it still strikes me as POV. Among other things, the source cited for that figure is CAMERA. CAMERA cannot be considered a neutral source by any stretch of the imagination. From Reliable Sources: "Do the sources have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report?... Groups like these may be used as primary sources only as sources about themselves or about their viewpoints, and even then with caution and sparingly." It's entirely appropriate to use them as a source for the viewpoint that the attack was a mistake, it is not appropriate to use them in the intro as a citation for an obviously controversial statement. It seems like we could dump that entire paragraph, as it doesn't add anything to the article. Perhaps the entire intro should be re-written. In any case, I'm adding a POV tag to this article, until we can come to a consensus. DejahThoris 01:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

CAMERA is in fact a credible source. Very credible, and you'd know that if you read their articles. Their response, btw, is to anti-Zionists who are trying to hijack the incident to make something out of it there is absolutely no evidence for. Having said that, the article does need a lot of work to make it NPOV. --Leifern 11:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying CAMERA has no "strong views, or other bias..."? DejahThoris 17:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My personal opionion is that CAMERA is mostly trash, and the links to it in this article wouldn't be taken seriously by anyone serious. However, CAMERA is a prominent organization, for reasons that defy my understanding. It is therefore, in my opinion, reasonable to include links to it as being, just as advertised, "Sources claiming attack was a mistake." These do not necessarily have to be good sources for information on the facts of the incident (I don't think CAMERA is a good source for this), but they should be representative of the sorts of prominent sites that claim the attack was a mistake, which CAMERA is. Maybe the links section should be split between sources that amplify the article on the facts of the incident and those that illustrate the state of the ongoing dispute. AH-64D Longbow

CAMERA is a media watchdog group that critiques biased reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict. They should be held up to the standard they themselves profess, and so far I've only seen a lot of ad hominem attacks on them; rarely something substantive. --Leifern 19:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

If we were going to remove anything from sources which "have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report" then we'd have to remove absolutely everything from Meadors's two websites, which already comprises half the links on this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said "It's entirely appropriate to use them as a source for the viewpoint that the attack was a mistake, it is not appropriate to use them in the intro as a citation for an obviously controversial statement." JMeador's website is not used as a source in the intro. I just think controversy should be discussed farther down in the article, instead of having only one of the viewpoints represented in the intro. DejahThoris 19:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me add my two cents to the discussion. I would respectfully submit that articles written by organizations who have a dog in the fight are subject to being accused of being written from a point of view by definition. That would include articles not only from organizations from CAMERA and the ADL but from organizations from the "other side" such as the "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" and groups with a similar editorial bent.

If CAMERA, ADL, WRMEA, et. al. were to reference original sources the situation would be different since the evidence wouldn't run the risk of being accused of being generated internally and one could refer to those original sources rather than to the publishing entity.

In other words, if editors want their additions to the article to be taken seriously I would respectfully recommend using citations from sources that don't have the appearance of presenting evidence from a point of view.

The question of the appropriateness of using references from our websites is interesting. If someone was writing a Wiki article on the bombing of the USS Cole or the capture of the USS Pueblo would anyone question using eye witness testimony or other evidence that appears on websites run by survivors of those incidents?

If an Israeli participant in the attack were to create a website that includes eye witness accounts or evidence from his side of the fence would the use of that information be questioned?

There is no question in my mind that references to those websites should be conditioned on using phrases such as "USS Liberty survivor (name) claims. . ." or "Isaeli MTB crewman (name) claims. . ." rather than simply adding the statement as if it is a proven fact. USS Liberty Survivor 23:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully something to be quickly resolved ...

Latest comment: 17 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion

I couldn't help notice the similarities in the names: is there any relationship between Jayjg the editor here and A. Jay Cristol the author? Thanks. AH-64D Longbow

Well, in the sense that part of my Wikipedia userid has the word "Jay" in it, and this appears to be Cristol's middle name as well. Is that what you meant? Jays are interesting and colorful birds, I like the pictures I've seen of them. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

... and in the sense that you both have an interest in the USS Liberty incident. Do you have difficulty answering questions directly, or are you just exploring how far you can go before someone points out your bad manners? AH-64D Longbow

Um, I'm not sure why you are violating WP:CIVIL; I've answered your question. Asking personal questions about Wikipedia editors is actually considered to be bad manners on Wikipedia, but I'm not going to get too worked up about it. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sir, I am afraid that you have been the uncivil one. You continually and obstructively decline directly to respond to fairly simple questions to you. I asked you long ago to address the standard I proposed for citations to this article; no response, and yet you continued to promote some mystery standard of your own that you declined to elaborate, other than your ridiculous "if we accept one personal web page, we must accept them all" drivel. I asked you again to tell me what you did not like about the standard I proposed, and again you declined to do so. THAT, sir, is incivility.

I foolishly titled this section, "Hopefully something to be quickly resolved ...," thinking that you might have some interest in improving this article and in moving discussion forward constructively, but that seems not to be the case. You might just have responded, "No, I am not Jay Cristol, nor do I have any direct involvement with his work," and the matter would have been closed. Instead you decided, incivily, to make your cute-ish and disrespectful remarks.

I shall take your non-response as an indication that you ARE Jay Cristol, or at least that you have a connection with him, and I will begin deleting references to his works as "Original research" beginning next week, barring a denial by you that my assumption is accurate. Silence implies agreement. AH-64D Longbow

Jayjg refuses to answer because he is concerned about his privacy, nor is he obligated to. Wikipedia allows anonomyous contributions, and logged in editors are entitled to retain their privacy, nor can their refusal to divulge information about themselves be construed as agreeing with claims you make about them. Furthermore, the claim that he is the same person as A. Jay Cristol, on the basis of having three letters of their names in common, is absurd. Nor should you be delivering ultimatums like that - it unhelpful and unproductive. Raul654 00:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion. Judge Cristol/Jayjg has the weekend to clear up the question of whether the many references to Jay Cristol's work constitutes original research; it's hardly a matter of privacy to refuse to deny that you are one particular person out of 6+ billion in the world, so the reasoning that you assume for Jayjg/Judge Cristol is absurd ... unless he really is Judge Cristol. I'll try to begin delete the material that seems to be "original research" next week. AH-64D Longbow

This is silly. A lot of people are called Jay. If you wish your assertion to be taken seriously, sir, you’re going to have to provide better evidence than this. By the way, if you remove those references and I revert that removal, is it still original research? —xyzzy_n 18:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it is silly. It's regretable that Judge Cristol/Jayjg has been so obstructive. My opinion is that if you just replaced exactly whatever I delete, then it's still original research, in the same way that it would be plagiarism if you directly copied Judge Cristol's work without crediting him. Maybe I should start restoring some of Joe Meadors' work that Judge Cristol/Jayjg has deleted for being "original research." AH-64D Longbow

Since you agree that this is silly, I think that the action you threaten, being agreed to be due to nothing more than Jayjg’s name and that user’s participation here, amounts to harassment and therefore your threat (or, if you wish, announcement) amounts to harassment as well. I think—but this is an opinion based on very limited observation—that Jayjg could have handled this situation more gracefully; however, what you are doing is outright uncivil, and, given, additionally, that your position does not seem to enjoy great support compared to its nature, I suggest that you please consider ceasing this campaign. —xyzzy_n 20:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg's user page explains his choice in user names. He's been editing under that name for a couple of years and has made approximately one jillion edits. I think it's safe to assume the "Jay" part of the two names is just a coincidence. DejahThoris 03:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Not entirely safe, but entirely unnecessary. Jayjg can simply deny that he is Judge Cristol, or that he somehow represents him, and we'll be done. AH-64D Longbow

Longbow, we're not allowed to publish information that we believe may be an editor's real-life ID, without the editor's consent. This is a rule we take very seriously, so please do not ask again for Jay's or anyone else's ID. Even if he is the judge, it makes no difference. Everyone has to edit in accordance with the content policies, which are WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:V, so if you stick to those, and he sticks to those, he could be the Queen of Sheba for all the difference it will make. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Haven't asked for anyone's real-life ID, thanks. It apparently does make a difference if he is the judge, however: you might look at Jayjg's removal of and nasty remarks about Joe Meadors "self-advertising" and the "hundreds of links" to Meador's website. How many links to Judge Cristol's website, or to websites with articles by him or interviews of him, are there in the article, and how many times is Cristol refered to in the article? Maybe Joe Meadors should start editing under a pseudonym and "self-advertise" to his heart's content. Or maybe Jayjg should apologize for victimizing Joe Meadors for being honest about who he is. What kind of accountability do you imagine will result from letting people secretly do whatever they can get away with while accusing people who are openly editing of "self-advertising," etc.? Maybe there should be a "WP:Accountability" policy. Anyway, there seems to be a way out, here: I'll delete any references Judge Cristol/Jayjg has made to his own work as being "original research." Anyone else can paraphrase and restore it (but not directly restore it, in my opinion: see above), but if Judge Cristol/Jayjg restores it, we can take it (at last!) as an assertion that Jayjg is not Judge Cristol. (But he still will be an obstructive and uncivil editor, for having declined so often to answer direct questions, and not just about whether or not he is Judge Cristol.) AH-64D Longbow

This harrassment is getting tiresome. I will not reveal anything about my identity, as is my right, and your nonsensical claim that links to A. Jay Cristol's site are "original research" that you can now delete (based on my refusal to make statements about my identity) is utter nonsense. I haven't "victimized" Meadors, and once something is published, using it as a source is not "original research", but, in fact, the exact opposite. If you remove properly sourced and relevant information, and I restore it, it will have nothing to do with some sort of convoluted admission about my identity, and everything to do with common sense editing. Aside from this bizarre fixation on me, your editing has been reasonably good, so I hope you'll give up this policy-violating crusade, and focus on other matters, lest there be more serious repercussions. Also, I suggest you get yourself a userid as well. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think if anyone "needs" to identify himself it's Longbow, as he and various "Liberty Survivors\Researchers" seem to believe too much than is healthy in conspiratorial theories. I've just had a quick look at a site that Liberty Survivor linked to and I've seen much hatered, above and byond what an incident such as this should arise. Most noteable was the repeated slogan "Israeli treachery", bordering on anti-semitic notes. I'm still waiting for someone to accuse the Israeli pilots of crucefying the crew as well. Koantin 16:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Koantin, you are crossing the line into harrassment and abuse. What do you expect is going to be the response on the website of a survivor of the vicious and unprecedented attack on the Liberty? Their outrage wouldn't be justified if it seemed like a simple case of "friendly fire". But as you well know, it is not a simple case of friendly fire. Your claim that the comments found on the survivor webpages are "bordering on anti-semitic notes" and your mentioning of "crucefying" [sic] the crew is absolutely disgusting and can be considered Christophobic. Have you no sense of shame and decency? If you were to do the right thing in this case, you should try and contact each and everyone of the survivors and beg their forgiveness for your cruel and mean-spirited remarks. Jtpaladin 20:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this really something that needs to be brought back up, Jtpaladin? Let it, and this whole sorry section, lie down and die off. Narson 20:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Narson, I agree. I had noted the differences in dates between Koantin's comment and that of the one above him and being that this page gets responses separated by long periods of time, I thought it appropriate to comment. As long as others leave this alone, I'm with you, I'll leave it alone. Best Regards. Jtpaladin 21:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Request For Citation Regarding Description of the US and Israeli Government's Actions

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Recognizing that the article has been declared to be in violation of Wiki's NPOV guidelines and that there is an effort underway to bring it into conformity let me make my request here instead of in the article itself.

My request is for the citation that supports the claim that "Both the Israeli and American governments have conducted multiple inquiries into the incident".

At issue is the use of the word "inquiries."

The only "inquiry" performed by the US government is the US Navy Court of Inquiry and that was not of the attack but of other issues. As for the Israeli side there is no evidence that either the Yerushalmi or the Ram Ron reports are more than something pulled out of the air by their authors.

Pehaps over the years I've become a bit jaded but I realize that a phone call to the folks who run the CAMERA website would quickly provide an editor with a citation to bring the claim to within Wikipedia guidelines. I am hoping that someone considering that avenue would have the courtesy of being a bit more professional than that. USS Liberty Survivor 02:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Request For Citation Regarding Claim That Conclusions Have Been Accepted

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

There is another claim made in the article that I would like to have a citation for. That is the claim that "These conclusions have been accepted by many prominent intelligence and military analysts from both sides. . ." that appears very near the beginning of the article.

Again I recognize that merely referring to a published article that expresses that opinion is sufficient to bring the claim to within Wikipedia policies. I would hope that the person providing the citation would give us the courtesy of directing us to source documents and to names of the "prominent intelligence and military analysts from both sides" so we can contact them in order to ensure the characterization of their position is correct. USS Liberty Survivor 23:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We can't contact them. That's original research. But if someone can provide names of the "prominent intelligence and military analysts" finding sources should be no problem. The statement is kinda generic right now. The prominent proponents of the deliberate-attack theory are listed by name, why not do the same with the accidental-attack folks. I like consistency. DejahThoris 03:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that original research is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Our standards are apparently a tad bit higher than Wikipedia. We're interested in the truth rather than merely creating a list of opinions from sources that the administrator/editor deemed to be in accord with Wikipedia policy. If the statements of the "prominent intelligence and military analysts from both sides" are not correctly described in the Wikipedia article as determined by the "analysts" themselves that fact can be made known here in the talk section and the appropriateness of continued use of the source can be questioned. USS Liberty Survivor 12:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatever your standards are, this is Wikipedia, not your website, so please respect Wikipedia's WP:NOR rule. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I do respect Wikipedia's NOR rule and will abide by it. What I was refering to is obtaining information via the talk page, pursuing that information and publishing it on the talk page -- not the article page itself (unless it meets the guidelines for inclusion on the article page itself). That is allowed in the talk page based on the talk page policy that states, "The purpose of a talk page is to help to improve the contents of the article in question. Questions, challenges, excised text (due to truly egregious confusion or bias, for example), arguments relevant to changing the text, and commentary on the main page are all fair play." USS Liberty Survivor 19:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you can't use it in the article, then what possible use is it here? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The talk page of any article is for a discussion of the contents of the related article. That discussion would -- in all likelihood -- take the form of questions and answers. That is original research in its most basic form.

Since all articles are by definition in a constant state of flux it would be logical to assume that something being discussed on the talk page could sometime in the future meet the requirements for inclusion in the article itself.

And the talk page provides for the discussion of current events that pertain to the contents of the article. For example, the Department of Defense has recently announced that they will treat al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists that are incarcerated at Guantanamo according to the provisions of the Geneva Convention. At the same time they are refusing to accord the same protection to those of us who were on the USS Liberty when the ship was attacked. It appears to me to be a bit ironic to treat people who have sworn to the destruction of the United States in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention while at the same time denying that same protection to those of us who have sworn allegiance to the United States. A discussion of that contradiction could very well be conducted on this talk page in anticipation of an article appearing in a publication that meets Wikipedia standards for including that fact in the article itself. USS Liberty Survivor 23:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Warning about harassment

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

"AH-64D Longbow" needs to stop badgering Jayjg over Jay's identity. "AH-64D Longbow" has crossed a well-defined line regarding harassment and disruption and can be blocked from editing if he continues to disrupt the project by continuing to harass this particular editor. FeloniousMonk 17:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and signing with a username that doesn't exist is unacceptable too. AnnH ♫ 12:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"Liberty opened fire first on the gunboats"

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

To provide clarification to this statement that is included in the article, during a reunion we had in Nebraska the survivor who was the one who opened fire on the torpedo boats told us that he fired a single round at the gunboats. After that single round was fired the gun jammed and he was unable to continue firing. USS Liberty Survivor 15:03, 23 July 2006

A single round is still considered fire, and you don't need more than that to consider it a hostile act, which it was, as it was intended to harm the gunboats no matter of the actual outcome. That it was in what was viewed as self defence is of no doubt, but so would be the returned fire from the said gunboats after being fired upon by the Liberty. In short, both cases could be summed up as self defence. Koantin 16:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Koantin (talk • contribs) 16:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

Suggesting that the actions of the U.S.S. Liberty are in anyway "hostile" considering what damage they had sustained up until that point is absolutely absurd. The torpedo boats knew what had happened and could clearly see the U.S. flag yet they fired on the Liberty regardless. The actions of the IDF were nothing short of an act of war on the United States. Jtpaladin 23:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, no one disputes the fact that the attack on Liberty was unprovoked. The U.S. government chose not to go to war with Israel, based on Israel's immediate acknowledgment of responsibility and its explanation that the attack was an accident. After the initial attack, the captain of Liberty would have had every right to open fire on the approaching torpedo boats without warning. However, that is not what happened, according to his testimony. He saw that the approaching boats flew Israeli flags, saw them signaling, but could not read the signals due to smoke. He suspected that the initial attack may have been a mistake and ordered his men not to open fire. They misunderstood and did open fire. Had he been able to hold fire and respond to the signals, the second attack, which caused most of the loss of life, might have been averted. Mistakes happen in war time. --agr 07:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

agr, thanks for the follow-up thoughts. My comments were related to the chain of events and what makes the Liberty's response appropriate. Even considering what you state above, the IDF at that point would have to understand that they opened fire on an ally and that the U.S. ship would have to assume that a state of war now exists between the U.S. and Israel. Any other assumption considering the facts surrounding the attack could have been a lethal mistake for the crew. So, what the Liberty did was appropriate whereas the torpedo boats would have no right in claiming "self-defense". The torpedo boats should have raised a white flag or simply retreated to avoid any further conflict. Even more so, shooting the life-rafts was inexcuseable. Jtpaladin 21:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Unmarked torpedo boats?

Latest comment: 17 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

I removed the following recent anonymous addition: "No explanation has been offered for the Israeli's use of unmarked fighter jets and torpedo boats for the attack." The article later states that the torpedo boats were flying Israeli flags.--agr 12:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

That explains the removal of the reference that implied the torpedo boats were not flying Israeli flags but not the removal of the reference to unmarked aircraft. Shouldn't that be reinstated to the article? USS Liberty Survivor 21:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Given the one error, I'm curious where the claim that the attacking jets were unmarked comes from. In any case, the article states that the attack was carried out by Mirage IIIs and Dassault Mysteres. The Arab combatants were flying Soviet aircraft (most of which had already been destroyed). The Mirage III has an exceptionally distinctive silhouette and was emblematic of the Israeli Air Force at that time. So marked or not there was no mistaking where the attackers came from. --agr 23:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The claim that the aircraft were unmarked has been told around USS Liberty survivors campfires for decades. The reference that raises the claim to a level that would permit its inclusion in the Wikipedia article is in the Winter, 1986 edition of Naval Law Review which can also be read in html. Can I assume that you will revert your modification since the claim of unmarked aircraft is supported by the reference in the Naval Law Review article?

Hopefully the issue of the attacking aircraft being unmarked will be covered in the US government's investigation of the attack when that investigation is finally conducted.

Other issues we hope will be covered when the attack is finally investigated include the jamming of our radios (if the attackers thought we were Egyptian why did they jam our radios on US Navy tactical frequencies?), the deliberate machine gunning of our life rafts in the water, and the use of napalm.

Then again, there's always the issue of why were we abandoned by the Sixth Fleet while we were still under fire. USS Liberty Survivor 16:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to take your word for it that Liberty survivors did not see any identification markings on the attacking aircraft. I have no problem including that in the disputed details section. However I do feel some balancing comments would be needed.

There are a number of possible explanations for why the Israeli aircraft might have lacked insignia. The war began with a carefully coordinated surprise attack on eleven Egyptian air bases (Operation Focus) by almost the entire IAF. Israeli commanders could well have had insignia removed from the bottom of the aircraft (or entirely) to avoid the small chance that an otherwise untrained observer might recognize the Star of David and call in a warning. As the Naval Law Review article you cite points out, aircraft markings are not required under the laws of war. IAF aircraft were intensively used for the rest of the war, reportedly averaging four sorties per day and repainting insignia might not have been a priority. Even if they were not removed deliberately, it is also conceivable that that the insignia were covered in oil and grime or had worn off during efforts to keep the aircraft clean after dozens of missions.

The Naval Law Review article prefers a different explanation, that the aircraft attacking the Liberty were attempting to conceal their identity. I don't think this explanation is sustainable, however. The Liberty was attacked by Mirage IIIs and Dassault Mysteres. Israel was the only combatant that was flying these aircraft types. Israeli planners would have to assume that the Liberty crew were trained in aircraft recognition. The techniques of visual aircraft recognition have not changed much since World War II. There is a museum devoted to the subject in Santa Barbara, with a excellent web site: http://www.commercemarketplace.com/home/CollectAir/Museum.html You can also find on-line a copy of a recent U.S. manual on the subject FM-44-80: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/pdfs/military/visualaircraftrecognition.pdf While the aircraft described are totally different, the methods used for combat identification have hardly changed. Insignia play almost no role. Observers are taught to recognize aircraft by their visual appearance.

Mirage III, a tail-less delta wing.

The appearance of the Mirage III is particularly distinctive. It is a tail-less delta wing, a relatively rare design. As the delta wing article points out, the Soviets, who supplied most of the Arab's aircraft, only used delta wings with a tail. There were very few tail-less deltas flying in any air force in 1967. The USAF had two of them, the F-102 and F-106. France, of course, had Mirage IIIs as well. There is no way Israeli planners could count on the Mirage-III's not being identified and once they were identified (assuming that Israel was not planning to blame the attack on France) Israel would be indisputably implicated. More so, perhaps, than if a Star of David were present and seen. It's easy enough for an attacker to paint the other side's insignia on his aircraft. Aircraft type is much harder to fake.

MIG-21, a delta wing with tail.

There is another problem with the notion that Israel was planning to blame the air attack on one of their enemies: the Arab air forces had been completely destroyed in the first days of the war. Israel had total air superiority.

And if Israel was tying to hide its role in the attack, why were the torpedo boats marked and flying Israeli flags? And why didn't the aircraft maintain radio silence, or communicate in Arabic, instead of chattering away in plain Hebrew? And why weren't the aircraft armed with weapons designed to quickly sink the Liberty? Napalm is a nasty weapon, but I've never heard of it being used to sink a steel-hulled ship.

Sorry to be a bit long winded. I'm not suggesting all this go in the article, but if we are going to include reports of unmarked aircraft, I think a broader discussion of the possibility that Israel was trying to conceal her role is called for.--agr 02:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not include all this in the article then? Even as a simple "Mirage looks like this and MiG looks like this" note. This is a very improtant piece of evidence that completely negates any "unmarked aircraft" claims. I feel the article as a whole is still very opinionated and closely follows a conspiratorial tone with providing "facts" that can easily be pushed aside by your explenations. Koantin 17:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

POV problems

There are severe POV problems with this article, especially in the opening paragraphs, which quite clearly show the writer's stance. In particular, phrases like "Jewish aggression" leave the article wide open to charges of anti-semitism.

I have made the following alterations:

The USS Liberty incident was a deliberate attack

is now

The USS Liberty incident was an attack

The Jewish aggression murdered 34 U.S. servicemen in cold blood and wounded at least 173.

is now:

The Israeli attack killed 34 U.S. servicemen and wounded at least 173.

Israel's official lie remains to this day that the attack was an accident

is now:

Israel's official position remains to this day that the attack was an accident

And this part has been removed:

This of course, fails to neglect the two motivations of the violent Jewish theocracy - hiding evidence of war crimes (on that same day Israeli troops executed hundreds of Egyptian POWs), and providing cover for stealing the Golan Heights.

I have not yet searched the remainder of the article for similar problems.--Lodestone

Jeremy - Can You Explain and Source Your Modifications to the Article?

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I note that Jeremy Nimmo has made two modifications to the article that I would like to understand the rationale and source for.

In the first modification he added the adjective "several" to the description of the membership of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. Jeremy, just curious to know your relationship to the LVA that makes you knowledgable about the composition of the membership of the group.

In the second modification he changed the wording of the reason that some claim the attack was deliberate. Previously that wording noted that the size of the USS Liberty was four times the size of the el Qusrir. That claim is supported by the Salans Memorandum. Jeremy unilaterally changed that comparison to two times the size of the el Quseir. Jeremy, since the Salans Memorandum so clearly gives the size comparison of the two ships why would we change the size comparison from four to two? USS Liberty Survivor 15:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, the mass of USS Liberty is four times greater than than El Quseir, and its length is twice that of El Quseir. Hence, the confusion. I suggest "four times the displacement/weight (and twice the length)"... ? Liberty researcher 08:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The jamming

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Could the Egyptians have been jamming the radio?

Probably not absurd for Egyptian forces to be jamming American frequencies if they suspected American assistance of Israeli forces. (From USS_America_(CV-66)#Attack_on_the_USS_Liberty): "However, as the Israeli forces moved to speedy victory in the Six-Day War, the Arabs charged that 6th Fleet aircraft were providing air cover for Israeli ground forces." -Shogun 01:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Or the Israelis could have been using broad-band jamming against Egyptian forces. That rases the question of what jamming reports were filed concerning the attack on the Liberty. Here are some excerpts from a 1960's era U.S.Navy training manual: Radioman 1 & C, Navpers 10229-C (p. 291, 292)

"The very fact that the enemy is jamming your communications is in itself important operational information. Therefore you must recognize it and report it as soon as possible. ...

As soon as you determine that the enemy is deliberately jamming you, notify the communications officer so that he can make the reports required by NWP 33. The mere fact that your are being jammed deliberately by the enemy is important--and could be of vital importance to operations and intelligence staffs at higher levels of command. Also report interference from friendly stations so that corrective action can be taken.

Always endeavor to obtain as much information as possible about the jamming source and report all pertinent details called for in NWP 33. The more detailed your description, the more helpful your report will be. In addition to the type of jamming, other valuable information includes the frequencies involved, the type of equipment affected, the effectiveness of the jamming as well as the time and date when the jamming occurred."

Of course it would be understandable if Liberty's crew weren't filling out forms in the aftermath of the attack, but if the jamming was to be at all effective in preventing Liberty from alerting the 6th Fleet, it would have had to be strong enough to drown out Liberty's signals at all Fleet receivers. That should have prompted reports to be filled from each ship and shore station guarding the frequencies involved. Have any come to light?

This also raises the question of direction finding. The technique was widely used in World War II to locate submarines and the like. Assuming U.S. Navy ships still had this kind of equipment (and the Israelis would have little reason to assume they didn't), it would be easy to triangulate the location of the jamming transmitter, and determine if it was in Israeli-controlled territory. So use of jamming would run a real risk of implicating whoever was using it, rather than concealing the origin of the attack.--agr 23:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Unmarked planes , yet again

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I have modified the claim that Liberty survivors unanimously claim the planes were unmarked. This claim is untrue, see for example [5] for Signalman Russell David's testimony. WaysAndMeans 05:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Given that the source you are citing to refute the unanimous claim is a pro-Israeli lobby organisation -

[6] - I don't think that their unsourced claim is the best one to be citing. However, unless there's hard evidence that these claims were 'unanimous', I agree it's best to leave it at 'some'. --Alexxx1 ^{(talk/contribs)} 10:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

CAMERA described itself as non-Partisan, and the source you are citing to describe it is clearly not neutral. Half the material on this page comes from a partisan source- the LVA - and most of that was contributed by a partisan source personnaly involved. If we're going to start using that criteria for source reliability, and excising content based on the alleged partisanship, there won't be much left... WaysAndMeans 15:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Accident? I don't think so! Let's hear the explaination for these issues.

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There are numerous versions of exactly what happened to the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) on 8 June 1967. There is the crew's version which is supported by a former CNO, various heads of NSA, and a large contingent of past and present military officers, men, and experts. Then there is the US Government's official position - that, while they do not accept the facts as presented by Israel, they do accept the appology and publicly support the "mistake" or "accident" excuse given in June of 1967 and modified over the years to better support the claim Finally there is the current version of the attack's facts as presented again and again by Israel and those supporting anything/everything they do no matter if it is attacking a US ship or encouraging a citizen to spy against his/her country.

Let's look at the Israeli story and, perhaps for the very first time, look a what is wrong with the story. A story concocted on the spur of the moment because no one ever believed the team of the Israeli Defense Force Navy and Air Force would be unable to sink one small US communication ship.

The official story goes like this.

1. Israel did not know any US ships were in the area where Liberty was attacked.

2. Israeli positions were reportedly being shelled from the sea.

3. Israeli torpedo boats sent to seek and destory the vessel(s) doing the alleged shelling all miscalculated Liberty's speed at in excess of 20 knots. This error, since Liberty was actually making less than 10 knots at the time, they say, lead the captains of the boats to conclude 1) the attacking vessel must be at least a destroyer class ad 2) it was going too fast for them to intercept so they called for air support.

4. Attacking pilots claimed they circled the vessel in an attempt to identify it and saw no flag or markings. They do not claim they observed this vessel (the Liberty) acting any an aggressive way, but somehow that issue has never come up. The story does however indicate the pilots then began an attack that included rockets, cannon fire, napalm-like canisters, and strategic hits that border on the impossible at the speeds they were flying since the story is they were not pre-briefed prior to this attack and did not know who or what they were attacking.

5. The torpedo boats finally arrived on the scene and, from a distance, made an id of the vessel - an Egyptian war ship the El Quseir.

6. At some point, after one of five torpedoes fired at Liberty had hit her port side and opened her to the sea with a 30 x 35 foot hole, and after killing over 34 of the crew and wounding almost all the rest, the attack was called off because the attackers had somehow reached the conclusion this was an American ship and not guilty of anything at all.....it was all just one big mistake, a mistake of war.

That is the general specifics of the story that has evlolved over the years and, on the surface, it sound possible, if not probable, to the average person, and especially possible for anyone who does not want to look at what a deliberat attack by one ally upon another really means. This especially holds true when it comes to those who support the State of Israel no matter what they do. Well, I suggest that we, you and I and the US government, should take what would be, in my opinion, the first real look at the Israeli story and how hard it is to show that it is nothing but smoke. For example,

Did not know ship was in area

1. US documentation shows that Israel asked our Government to remove Liberty from her station because they "could not guarantee her safety." This was just prior to the attack and clearly shows they did know US ship was present.

2. A senior Israeli officer admitted publicly the Liberty was identified at least 16 hours prior to the attack. He further stated that the ship's marker was removed from their war board because the information was over 8 hours old and why would any ship remain in one spot for over 8 hours. Sounds logical unless you realize that knowing the ship was the Liberty meant knowing it was an intelligence platform that either anchored, sailed figure 8s, or triangles off any coast where something was going on the US wanted to gather intelligence on. The IDF knew the name and mission of Liberty and so removing her from their war board makes no sense, but it does help them explain their claim that no one knew she was there. Since the war was still in progress, knowing this ship was the Liberty also meant knowing she would still be on station.

Israeli position reportedly shelled from sea

3. There is no documentation presented that any Israeli position was being shelled from the sea or anywhere else in the vicinity of El Arish on June 7 or 8, 1967. The Liberty was sailing 13 miles off shore, in international waters, off of El Arish, but armed with only 4 50 cal machine guns, was certainly not shelling anything. In fact, at that time, El Arish was in Israeli hands and documentation collected in the years that followed this attack clearly show any smoke was due to Israeli troops destroying unusable captured munitions and weapons and that they were in complete control of the town and area. There are even Israeli stories about prisoners being executed outside El Arish and dumped in mass graves. At any rate, no historical documents show any vessel anywhere near this area except Liberty and, once the IDF claimed to ID Liberty and to have discovered their mistake, no further mention was ever made about this shelling or the guilty vessel by the IDF, the State of Israel, or the US Government.

Torpedo boat captains make speed calculation and ID error

4. The radar and speed calculations of 1967 were crude compared to the computers of today and, indeed, a small error in math could result in a large speed error. No question. Instead, assuming this error happened on multiple PT boats with multiple captains, all at the same time, let me ask this unasked question. If Liberty was supposed to be going in excess of 20 knots, and was supposed to be a ship shelling an IDF position, why was she identified by these same PT boat captains as the El Quseir when this "war" ship was 1) known to be in port, 2) known to have a top speed of about 8 knots, and 3) known to be a horse carrier which had no arms whatsoever? Makes you wonder, huh? Guess it was the only Egyptian "war" ship unaccounted for at the time.

Liberty unmarked and flew no flag

5. Crewman from Liberty have photographic proof that the ship always flew the steaming penant/flag of the United States from the proper arm above the ship. Even after IDF pilots shot it down, as well as others run up to replace it, these pilots still claim to have seen no flag. The ship's crew even ran up the holiday flag, an enormous flag, that the pilots also were unable to see. At least one of these battle worn flags is on display at the NSA museum at Ft. G. G. Meade in Maryland. Might be a good place to also point out the ship was marked fore and aft in English and consistent with all ships of the US Navy. One or two other points that support the crew's claim that there was a flag - 1) one Israeli PT boat captain publicly admitted seeing the red and white of a flag through the smoke resulting from the one torpedo hit, and 2) recent tapes of Israeli helo pilots sent out to pick up enemy survivors clearly reported seeing a non-agressive ship flying an American flag just prior to there being told to cease transmission and return to base.

IDF pilots attempted to id Liberty

6. Liberty crew and logs report tracking the jets approaching the ship in a straight in approach. Liberty's Officer of the Deck even called for the ship's photographer to come to the bridge and to photograph the first jet which had positioned itself immediately ahead of Liberty and came in shooting. No going around the ship in an effort to id her, just join, come bow on, and take out the targets. First the machine guns (4) and antenna pods, then the bridge, life boats, life rafts, and then any sailor trying to put out fires on deck. The pilot's aim was so good, US pilots have commented that to hit all antenna, all guns, all topside hatches, the only gas drum topside, the life boats/rafts, and, in general, all targets on board necessary to make her defenseless, silent, and adrift as an easy target for the approaching PT boats, the IDF pilots must have had an excellent prebrief that included pictures. Funny that. The Liberty's logs and crew report multiple overflights by Israeli recon aircraft prior to the attack. She thought it was just friendly visits by curious pilots. History proves that belief was incorrect.

Shelling from the sea - just a cover story to help support the fiction

7. There has never been any verifiable documentation that El Arish was being shelled from the sea. Especially not after Israeli troops were in complete control of that location (and just about everything else). Hitting the Liberty because the IDF thought it was some speedy, well armed war ship sound nice, but if it was that troublesom, why didn't the jets and PT boats continue the search for the attacker after it had almost sunk the Liberty? Because there never was any other vessel in the area and there never was any documented shelling going on from the sea or land by that time.

I find it interesting that it is so easy to show the Israeli story of the attack makes no sense and is a spur of the moment expaination this government chooses to accept mostly for political reasons. Just scratch the surface a little and the story falls apart, yet there has never been the slightest effort to scratch it. 34 US sailors died that day, and 2 more died over the years as a result of wounds received that day, and a large number of the surviving crew are marked for life in one way or another.

By the way - I am the lone survivor of, and present in, the communication center aboard the USS Liberty that day. I saw the overflights prior to the attack, helped send situation reports about those overflights back to Washington prior to the attack, and have studied all sides of the attack ever since.

One last issue that I believe needs to be put to rest - the lost message ordering the Liberty to pull back hundreds of miles from our station of that day, 13 miles off shore. Everyone knows the story that this message was misrouted all over the world's land stations and was not delivered until well after the attack. The idea is that if it had arrived in a timely way, the Liberty would have moved out to sea and the attack would never have happened. Oops! What about that nasty shelling? Oh well....I digress. I was a Navy communicator and can assure you that what the government says about that "lost" message never happened. Messages to ships assigned to the Med fleet, which included the Liberty, were all sent to one of the Navy's fleet broadcast sites and sent out on multiple freqs, multiple times. All ships in the fleet copy these broadcasts, recording all fleet messages on teletype. Sailors then sort out all messages for their ship and burn all others. Ships assigned to the Med fleet (6th Fleet) did not get messages, especially movement messages, from nearby shore stations.....only fleet broadcast unless something was so sensitive it need to be hand carried to the ship. If a decision was made to pull Liberty back, and if a message was sent ordering that movement, it would have come via the fleet broadcast. The "lost" story makes no sense whatever if you know how the Navy communicated in 1967! I even discussed this with a senior officer of the NSA and came away more sure than ever that the message was an afterthought intended to cover someones aft end.

I look forward to comments these issues will generate. What I have said here is well documented in Navy records, Congressional records, Israeli records, and general public media records.

Reply

I would like to respond to your comments with the greatest respect. You were there risking your life for your country and I was not. But you invited a reply, so let me try to give one. In general, you seem incredulous that the mistakes alleged to have happened could have been made. But the history of warfare is filled with mistakes, often with tragic consequences and the U.S. has had its share.

The 9/11 commission report is filled with situations where one part of the government had information it should have shared with other parts, but didn't.
In 1988 the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 an Airbus A300, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children. The Vincennes' crew thought it was an attacking Iranian F14, despite the fact that it was many times larger and took of within 30 minutes of its scheduled departure.
Most of the crew of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) died at sea after she was sunk by a Japanese sub in WW II because her failure to report on time was ignored. [7]
And after it was attacked by air, the Liberty opened fire on the approaching Israeli torpedo boats despite Captain McGonagle's order not to.

Just to put your comment into perspective -- after the USS Liberty was subjected to an air attack that included the use of napalm and resulted in 821 rocket and/or cannon holes in the ship torpedo boats arrived on the scene.

As a result of a single round being fired at the torpedo boats from Mount 51, those torpedo boat personnel deem the USS Liberty to be an enemy and begin their attack. During that attack the torpedo boats fire five torpedoes, deliberately machine gun life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship and slowly circle the Liberty while firing from close range at personnel who venture out in an effort to help our wounded shipmates who are trapped topside.

One striking difference between the incidents you mention and the attack on the USS Liberty that had been repeated ad nauseum but still bears repeating since the truth of the fact seems to evade some people -- the US government has NEVER conducted an investigation of the attack on the USS Liberty. USS Liberty Survivor 16:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Mistakes do happen. To reply to your specific points:

Removing the Liberty from the war room plot board. As you point out, the normal thing to do would be to remove an old track from the plot board. Liberty should have been treated as an exception, but failing to do so hardly is the type of mistake that is impossible to believe.

Shelling of El Arish. Whether any Israeli position actually was shelled from the sea is irrelevant. All that matters is that the Israeli command structure thought the shelling had occurred, and they claim there were two such reports. Israel was at war with Egypt and didn't need much justification for attacking an Egyptian navy ship.

Torpedo boat miscalculation of Liberty's speed. According the the account given in the NSA's official history report [8] (p.37), the Israeli torpedo boats were 17 miles away from Liberty when they made their speed determination.

Not spotting the flag. No one disputes that the attacking Israeli fighters failed to take proper care to positively identify their target. This is hardly unheard of in warfare, however. The friendly fire article lists numerous incidents where the U.S. and other nations attacked their own or allied units, often after failing to observe proper procedures.

Pilots' good aim. The IAF had spent the war attacking tanks and other vehicles, with great success, and these were much smaller and often faster-moving targets than the Liberty, which also lacked any significant antiaircraft capability.

PT boat captains misidentifying the Liberty as the Egyptian El Quseir. According to the Israeli account, the PT boats only has pictures of Egyptian craft. The NSA official history report shows photos of both vessels on p. 40. They are clearly not the same but there are superficial resemblances.

"Lost message." What happened to the order for Liberty to move 100 nm off the coast is spelled out in excruciating detail in the NSA official history report,[9] starting on page 21 (original document page number, the pdf format page is 30). The bottom line is that the message was not placed on the Fleet Broadcast until 1525Z on June 8, almost 3-1/2 hours after the attack started.

I would also like to pose several question as to the reasonableness of the deliberate attack scenario:

1. Why would Israel attack a naval ship of a superpower and principal ally? Even if Israel was up to no good and didn't want the U.S. to know of its plans, it had the traditional option of simply delivering orders by courier. Its front lines at the Suez Canal were only about 120 statue miles from its home territory. It had a fleet of helicopters available.

2. Assuming that Israel did deliberately attack the Liberty, why attack first with machine guns and rockets? Why not used high explosive bombs? As you point out the Israeli Air Force's aim was extraordinarily good. They could have sunk the ship in seconds.

Why Not Initiate the Attack with High Explosive Bombs?

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Perhaps the Israelis were open to the possibility that their pilots might have missed the ship with the high explosives which would have allowed the Liberty to get off a message to the Sixth Fleet informing then that the ship was under attack by Israeli aircraft (assuming the use of marked aircraft in your scenario). The machine guns and rockets were very effective in destroying the ship's communications and defensive capabilities which allowed the torpedo boats to conduct their attack at their leisure.

As it happened, the torpedo boats were not as proficient as they would have hoped since they missed the ship with four of the five torpedoes they launched.

And we were to learn later that the Israelis didn't really need to worry about the Sixth Fleet response what with two flights of rescue aircraft having been recalled. USS Liberty Survivor 15:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

3. Why did the torpedo boats approach the Liberty with Israeli flags flying and signaling in Morse Code as Captain McGonagle testified? If they knew who she was and were intent on sinking her, what was there to signal?

4. And finally, why was the attack called off before Liberty was sunk? How does that fit with any of the supposed motives for attacking her in the first place?--agr 19:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Additionally: if you want to sink a ship, why would you use napalm, of all things? And if you want to eliminate all surviving witnesses, why would you save them? Gzuckier 19:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Why Use Napalm?

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

One only as to look at the tactics actually employed by the Israelis to answer that question and to question your theory that they wanted to save us.

They initiated the attack with high-speed Mirage aircraft armed with rockets and cannon which targeted the ship's communications and defensive capabilities.

That attack was followed up by slower Mystere aircraft armed with napalm which was used to drive and trap the crewmen below decks.

Then came the torpedo boats who fired five torpedoes at the ship, deliberately machine gunned life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship and who slowly circled the ship while firing upon crewmen who ventured topside to help their wounded shipmates.

Next came the helicopters who cannot find a place to disgorge their assault troops onto the deck of the Liberty due to the antenna blowing in the winds.

The torpedo boats then left the scene only to return later with an offer to come aboard and help which was in all likelihood just a thinly veiled effort to gain access to the ship.

So you see, the use of napalm against the USS Liberty was clearly a vital part of their strategy.

The question you should be asking is -- assuming for the sake of argument the Israeli version is correct why use napalm against an Egyptian tramp steamer? USS Liberty Survivor 15:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The use of napalm is a mater of dispute, I believe. Captain McGonagle's testimony in the NSA report blames the fires on incendiary bullets igniting fuel stored on deck. But even if he was mistakin, the armament of the attacking aircraft (rockets and maybe napalm) suggests they were launched for ground support and diverted to the supposed Egyptian ship as a target of opportunity, not a carefully planned attack. If Israel really intended to sink the Liberty they would have used high explosive bombs. There was no need to force the crew below decks; most already were. Why give the crew time to launch life rafts? Any survivors could have been machine gunned from the air, where they would be much easier to spot than from a low PT boat. Again, according to Captain McGonagle, the Israeli boats approaced the Liberty with flags flying and were signaling by lamp. They only attacked after the Liberty mistakenly opened fire on them. As for the helicopters, the U.S. intercepted the radio traffic between them and ground. The transcripts on the NSA web site make it pretty clear that they were on a rescue mission, not an armed assault. --agr 17:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually the use of napalm is not in dispute at all. After the attack you could scrape bits of jellied gasoline off the ship's superstructure. The scenario that I describe above suggests a very well planned and coordinated attack. Of course you may characterize it any way you feel appropriate.

As for your reference to Capt. McGonagle's testimony in the NSA report, the implication is that the Captain provided testimony during an NSA investigation of the attack. Not true.

It has been said before but apparently bears repeating that we fired a single bullet at the torpedo boats. To carry your scenario to its logical extreme, the firing of that single bullet (after a 20 minute, well-coordinated air assault) justifies the torpedo boats firing five torpedoes at us, slowly circling our torpedoed and burning ship while firing from close range at crewmen who ventured topside to help their wounded shipmates, deliberately machine gunning life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship and refusing to offer aid immediately upon cessation of hostilities.

All of this with not a single shot being fired in return from the Liberty after they began their attack. USS Liberty Survivor 18:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it that napalm was used. You were there; I wasn't. But the NSA report [10] does blame the fires on fuel stored on deck being ignited (p.27). So there is some dispute.

There is no question of justification here. Israel had a clear duty to positively identify a ship in international waters before attacking it in the first place. But opening fire, even briefly, on a combatant in war time is generally likely to result in a lethal response. And the NSA report (p.29) says another machine gun position appeared to open fire as ammunition was ignited by one of the fires on board Liberty. In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian airliner Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians, merely because the Captain thought its radar track indicated an attack by an Iranian F-14.

In the version of events where the Israelis think they are attacking an Egyptian vessel, it makes sense for the patrol boats to signal, either asking for surrender or making a final verification of the target's identity. In either case the Liberty opening fire would have been interpreted as a clear answer. In the version of events where Israel has knowingly decided to sink a U.S. Navy ship, I can't think of any reason to signal at all. Indeed the use of torpedo boats makes little sense in this scenario. According to the NSA report (p.28), Liberty's lookouts spotted the three patrol boats 15 miles out. That gave Liberty time to report the approaching boats (which it did). The torpedo attack took place 34 minutes after the initial air attack. Israel had a large air force that had destroyed the entire Egyptian Air Force a few days earlier. Why not send enough aircraft, properly armed, to sink the ship quickly? The NSA report (p.30) says the patrol boats stopped firing torpedos after the first hit and signaled "do you need assistance?" Again this does not fit with a deliberate plan to to sink a U.S. Navy ship.--agr 12:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

With respect to Mr. Meadors, given the conditions, had the Israeli patrol boats approached and only fired a single shot, wouldn't the Liberty crew have felt justified in assuming they were under attack and firing back with everything they had? Gzuckier 15:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

to Gzuckier and ArnoldReinhold:
You express legitimate doubts, but please be open to the possibility this was deliberate. Please watch on video google: "Loss of Liberty" before making your judgement. I don't believe the original poster is mistaken when he thinks he was betrayed, unless you can explain Johnson's orders "I want that goddamn ship going to the bottom".  Xiutwel (talk) 20:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I gather you are talking about claims that President Lyndon Johnson recalled Sixth Fleet aircraft launched to stop the attack. Here is a link to an interview with Liberty Intelligence Officer David Lewis who says he met privately with Sixth Fleet Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis and promised not to reveal the content of his conversation until after Geis died. According to Lewis, Geis told him Johnson said he would not have his allies embarrassed, he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship. If this is true, the Liberty crew has a beef with Johnson, but it hardly proves the attack was deliberate. Indeed it undercuts suggestions that Israel was trying to hide something from the U.S.: if Israel's relations with LBJ were so strong that he would not stop its attack on a U.S. Navy ship, what other secret could possibly damage relations?--agr 12:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Still going on?

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I can't believe that this matter is still being dicussed as an "accident" vs. "conspiracy". After the Freedom of Information Act has retrieved evidence regarding the facts of this incident, all proof points to the reality that Israel purposely bombed the U.S.S. Liberty as part of a plot between U.S. President Johnson and the Israeli govt. to get the U.S. into the Six Day War (which I personally supported. I'm also pro-Israel, should that be a question in anyone's mind) conflict in the mid-east.

The phone call from the Admiral of the 6th fleet during the attack confirmed the conversation between himself and Defense Sec. McNamara and President Johnson, and that Johnson stated that he wanted the Liberty to go down to the bottom of the sea. The Admiral was prevented from sending U.S. fighters to stop the three hour assault.

The only reason that the attack on the Liberty stopped was because a Russian spy ship came into the area and since they were now witnesses, the operation was pulled and the Liberty limped back to port.

This was a "false flag" operation like the "false flag" operation of the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident. How people can blind themselves to "false "flag" operations like this is amazing considering the information made available. When seeking the truth, it's usually best to ignore what the culprits state and listen to the victims. Jtpaladin 20:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

well, unless Israel wanted the US in the conflict on the other side, it would probably have made more sense not to have their aircraft clearly marked as Israeli. Silly Israelis. Gzuckier 15:07, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Right, the Mirage IIIs that the Israelis used was one of (if not the) most distinctive aircraft shapes in the world, markings or no. It would be like the U.S. staging a foreign flag operation using B-52 bombers and saying it was the Iranians who did it. And why would the Israelis want the U.S. to intervene after they had pretty much won? Remember what the U.S. did in the Suez crisis a decade earlier: they made the Israelis withdraw from the Sinai. And if the U.S. and Israel did stage the whole thing, just strafing the Liberty would have been enough of an excuse for intervention; or if they didn't want witnesses, they could have sunk her instantly with high explosive bombs. Why send in torpedo boats flying Israeli flags? And why send helecopters to rescue the crew? Read the NSA report if you want to know what really happened.--agr 17:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Guys, all of those issues were answered by the Liberty survivor who has been posting here. Go back and refer to them. The Israeli's were doing a heck of a job to sink this ship but it survived by sheer luck and the skill of the crew of the ship. Jtpaladin 19:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible bias

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I have no plans to edit the article, only to make a few comments and suggestions.

A bias appears to be present:

"...In the absence of reliable records, it is only left to speculate whether jamming (of Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies) did take place, ... According to a book by Russell Warren Howe (see below), Captain McGonagle testified that the jamming of his transmissions had been on American, not Egyptian, frequencies, suggesting that the Israelis were aware of the nationality of the ship. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry concluded that Liberty experienced jamming (finding 47)." This was later referenced with "...The crew's failure to receive any call for identification may be related to the possible Israeli jamming of radio frequencies."

The problem with these statements is that this assumes that if jamming was present, Israel was responsible. Bear in mind, it was during a war and near the Israel-Egypt front, and Egypt would have had valid reasons to jam communications. While Israel is not directly accused of jamming transmissions in this case, the conclusion is leading.

Additionally, in the statement "No adequate benefit has been put forward that the Israelis would derive from the attack on an American ship, especially considering the high cost of the predictable complications that must inevitably follow such an attack on a powerful ally, and the fact that Israel immediately notified the American embassy after the attack," the merits of the listed counter arguements to this are subjective and do not have the same rational solidarity. To segue to them with a statement such as "This argument, though, has been strongly countered (see below)" is, again, leading with the assumption that the attack was deliberate, if not overstating the validity of the author's conjectures.

Instead of picking the rest of the article apart, perhaps it would suffice to say that a conclusion is subconciously elicited through some methods of linguistic deconstructionism that would be put to better use in non-communal work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nastrum (talk • contribs) 05:29, 30 November 2006

I removed the "strongly countered" sentence which is unnecessary editorializing. People can read the arguments and make up thier own minds. Do you have other specific examples? This is a very contentious topic so a fresh pair of eyes can be helpful. --agr 16:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Added fact from CNN. Can't believe some people choose to ignore eyewitness accounts of what happened. Majoreditor 15:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)