I know America's real enemy do you?

[10thzodiac]

The ones that got us in this mess!



March 1995, pgs. 79-81
Middle East History—It Happened In March Israel Charged With Systematic Harassment of U.S. Marines

By Donald Neff


It was 12 years ago, on March 14, 1983, that the commandant of the Marine Corps sent a highly unusual letter to the secretary of defense expressing frustration and anger at Israel. General R.H. Barrow charged that Israeli troops were deliberately threatening the lives of Marines serving as peacekeepers in Lebanon. There was, he wrote, a systematic pattern of harassment by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that was resulting in "life-threatening situations, replete with verbal degradation of the officers, their uniform and country."
Barrow's letter added: "It is inconceivable to me why Americans serving in peacekeeping roles must be harassed, endangered by an ally...It is evident to me, and the opinion of the U.S. commanders afloat and ashore, that the incidents between the Marines and the IDF are timed, orchestrated, and executed for obtuse Israeli political purposes."¹
Israel's motives were less obtuse than the diplomatic general pretended. It was widely believed then, and now, that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, one of Israel's most Machiavellian politician-generals, was creating the incidents deliberately in an effort to convince Washington that the two forces had to coordinate their actions in order to avoid such tensions. This, of course, would have been taken by the Arabs as proof that the Marines were not really in Lebanon as neutral peacekeepers but as allies of the Israelis, a perception that would have obvious advantages for Israel.²
Barrow's extraordinary letter was indicative of the frustrations and miseries the Marines suffered during their posting to Lebanon starting on Aug. 25, 1982, as a result of Israel's invasion 11 weeks earlier. Initially a U.S. unit of 800 men was sent to Beirut harbor as part of a multinational force to monitor the evacuation of PLO guerrillas from Beirut. The Marines, President Reagan announced, "in no case... would stay longer than 30 days."³ This turned out to be only partly true. They did withdraw on Sept. 10, but a reinforced unit of 1,200 was rushed back 15 days later after the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila that accompanied the Israeli seizure of West Beirut. The U.S. forces remained until Feb. 26, 1984.⁴
During their-year-and-a-half posting in Lebanon, the Marines suffered 268 killed.⁵ The casualties started within a week of the return of the Marines in September 1982. On the 30th, a U.S.-made cluster bomb left behind by the Israelis exploded, killing Corporal David Reagan and wounding three other Marines.⁶
Corporal Reagan's death represented the dangers of the new mission of the Marines in Lebanon. While their first brief stay had been to separate Israeli forces from Palestinian fighters evacuating West Beirut, their new mission was as part of a multinational force sent to prevent Israeli troops from attacking the Palestinian civilians left defenseless there after the withdrawal of PLO forces. As President Reagan said: "For this multinational force to succeed, it is essential that Israel withdraw from Beirut."⁷ "Incidents are timed, orchestrated, and executed for Israeli political purposes."


Israel's siege of Beirut during the summer of 1982 had been brutal and bloody, reaching a peak of horror on Aug. 12, quickly known as Black Thursday. On that day, Sharon's forces launched at dawn a massive artillery barrage that lasted for 11 straight hours and was accompanied by saturation air bombardment.⁸ As many as 500 persons, mainly Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, were killed.⁹
On top of the bombardment came the massacres the next month at Sabra and Shatila, where Sharon's troops allowed Lebanese Maronite killers to enter the camps filled with defenseless civilians. The massacres sickened the international community and pressure from Western capitals finally forced Israel to withdraw from Beirut in late September. Troops from Britain, France, Italy and the United States were interposed between the Israeli army and Beirut, with U.S. Marines deployed in the most sensitive area south of Beirut at the International Airport, directly between Israeli troops and West Beirut.
It was at the airport that the Marines would suffer their Calvary over the next year. .¹⁰ Starting in January 1983, small Israeli units began probing the Marine lines. At first the effort appeared aimed at discovering the extent of Marine determination to resist penetration. The lines proved solid and the Marines' determination strong. Israeli troops were politely but firmly turned away. Soon the incidents escalated, with both sides pointing loaded weapons at each other but no firing taking place. Tensions were high enough by late January that a special meeting between U.S. and Israeli officers was held in Beirut to try to agree on precise boundaries beyond which the IDF would not penetrate.

No stranger to the Marines

However, on Feb. 2 a unit of three Israeli tanks, led by Israeli Lt. Col. Rafi Landsberg, tried to pass through Marine/Lebanese Army lines at Rayan University Library in south Lebanon. By this time, Landsberg was no stranger to the Marines. Since the beginning of January he had been leading small Israeli units in probes against the Marine lines, although such units would normally have a commander no higher than a sergeant or lieutenant. The suspicion grew that Sharon's troops were deliberately provoking the Marines and Landsberg was there to see that things did not get out of hand. The Israeli tactics were aimed more at forcing a joint U.S.-Israeli strategy than merely probing lines.
In the Feb. 2 incident, the checkpoint was commanded by Marine Capt. Charles Johnson, who firmly refused permission for Landsberg to advance. When two of the Israeli tanks ignored his warning to halt, Johnson leaped on Landsberg's tank with pistol drawn and demanded Landsberg and his tanks withdraw. They did.¹¹
Landsberg and the Israeli embassy in Washington tried to laugh off the incident, implying that Johnson was a trigger-happy John Wayne type and that the media were exaggerating a routine event. Landsberg even went so far as to claim that he smelled alcohol on Johnson's breath and that drunkenness must have clouded his reason. Marines were infuriated because Johnson was well known as a teetotaler. Americans flocked to Johnson's side. He received hundreds of letters from school children, former Marines and from Commandant Barrow.¹² It was a losing battle for the Israelis and Landsberg soon dropped from sight.
But the incidents did not stop. These now included "helicopter harassment," by which U.S.-made helicopters with glaring spotlights were flown by the Israelis over Marine positions at night, illuminating Marine outposts and exposing them to potential attack. As reports of these incidents piled up, Gen. Barrow received a letter on March 12 from a U.S. Army major stationed in Lebanon with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO). The letter described a systematic pattern of Israeli attacks and provocations against UNTSO troops, including instances in which U.S. officers were singled out for "near-miss" shootings, abuse and detention.¹³ That same day two Marine patrols were challenged and cursed by Israeli soldiers.¹⁴
Two days later Barrow wrote his letter to Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, who endorsed it and sent it along to the State Department. High-level meetings were arranged and the incidents abated, perhaps largely because by this time Ariel Sharon had been fired as defense minister. He had been found by an Israeli commission to have had "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.¹⁵
Despite the bad taste left from the clashes with the Israelis, in fact no Marines had been killed in the incidents and their lines had been secure up to the end of winter in 1983. Then Islamic guerrillas, backed by Iran, became active. On the night of April 17, 1983, an unknown sniper fired a shot that went through the trousers of a Marine sentry but did not harm him. For the first time, the Marines returned fire.¹⁶
The next day, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was blown up by a massive bomb, with the loss of 63 lives. Among the 17 Americans killed were CIA Mideast specialists, including Robert C. Ames, the agency's top Middle East expert.¹⁷ Disaffected former Israeli Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky later claimed that Israel had advance information about the bombing plan but had decided not to inform the United States, a claim denied by Israel.¹⁸ The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Veteran correspondent John Cooley considered the attack "the day [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini's offensive against America in Lebanon began in earnest." ¹⁹
Still, it was not until four months later, on Aug. 28, that Marines came under direct fire by rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at International Airport. They returned fire with M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns. The firefight resumed the next day with Marines firing 155mm artillery, 81mm mortars and rockets from Cobra helicopter gunships against Shi'i Muslim positions. Two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in the exchange, the first casualties in actual combat since the Marines had landed the previous year.²⁰
From this time on, the combat involvement of the Marines grew. Their actions were generally seen as siding with Israel against Muslims, slowly changing the status of the Marines as neutral peacekeepers to opponents of the Muslims.²¹ Israel could hardly have wished for more. The polarization meant that increasingly the conflict was being perceived in terms of the U.S., Israel and Lebanon's Christians against Iran, Islam and Lebanon's Shi'i Muslims.

Accelerating the Conflict


Israel accelerated the building conflict on Sept. 3, 1993 by unilaterally withdrawing its troops southward, leaving the Marines exposed behind their thin lines at the airport. The United States had asked the Israeli government to delay its withdrawal until the Marines could be replaced by units of the Lebanese army, but Israel refused.²² The result was as feared. Heavy fighting immediately broke out between the Christian Lebanese Forces and the pro-Syrian Druze units, both seeking to occupy positions evacuated by Israel, while the Marines were left in the crossfire. ²³On Sept. 5, two Marines were killed and three wounded as fighting escalated between Christian and Muslim militias.²⁴
In an ill-considered effort to subdue the combat, the Sixth Fleet frigate Bowen fired several five-inch naval guns, hitting Druze artillery positions in the Chouf Mountains that were firing into the Marine compound at Beirut airport.²⁵ It was the first time U.S. ships had fired into Lebanon, dramatically raising the level of combat. But the Marines' exposed location on the flat terrain of the airport left them in an impossible position. On Sept. 12, three more Marines were wounded. ²⁶
On Sept. 13, President Reagan authorized what was called aggressive self-defense for the Marines, including air and naval strikes.²⁷ Five days later the United States essentially joined the war against the Muslims when four U.S. warships unleashed the heaviest naval bombardment since Vietnam into Syrian and Druze positions in eastern Lebanon in support of the Lebanese Christians.²⁸ The bombardment lasted for three days and was personally ordered by National Security Council director Robert McFarlane, a Marine Corps officer detailed to the White House who was in Lebanon at the time and was also a strong supporter of Israel and its Lebanese Maronite Christian allies. McFarlane issued the order despite the fact that the Marine commander at the airport, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, strenuously argued against it because, in the words of correspondent Thomas L. Friedman, "he knew that it would make his soldiers party to what was now clearly an intra-Lebanese fight, and that the Lebanese Muslims would not retaliate against the Navy's ships at sea but against the Marines on shore." ²⁹
By now, the Marines were under daily attack and Muslims were charging they were no longer neutral.³⁰ At the same time the battleship USS New Jersey, with 16-inch guns, arrived off Lebanon, increasing the number of U.S. warships offshore to 14. Similarly, the Marine contingent at Beirut airport was increased from 1,200 to 1,600.³¹


A Tragic Climax


The fight now was truly joined between the Shi'i Muslims and the Marines, who were essentially pinned down in their airport bunkers and under orders not to take offensive actions. The tragic climax of their predicament came on Oct. 23, when a Muslim guerrilla drove a truck past guards at the Marine airport compound and detonated an explosive with the force of 12,000 pounds of dynamite under a building housing Marines and other U.S. personnel. Almost simultaneously, a car-bomb exploded at the French compound in Beirut. Casualties were 241 Americans and 58 French troops killed. The bombings were the work of Hezbollah, made up of Shi'i Muslim guerrillas supported by Iran.³²
America's agony increased on Dec. 3, when two carrier planes were downed by Syrian missiles during heavy U.S. air raids on eastern Lebanon.³³On the same day, eight Marines were killed in fighting with Muslim militiamen around the Beirut airport.³⁴
By the start of 1984, an all-out Shi'i Muslim campaign to rid Lebanon of all Americans was underway. The highly respected president of the American University of Beirut, Dr. Malcolm Kerr, a distinguished scholar of the Arab world, was gunned down on Jan. 18 outside his office by Islamic militants aligned with Iran.³⁵ On Feb. 5, Reagan made one of his stand-tall speeches by saying that "the situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating and dangerous. But this is no reason to turn our backs on friends and to cut and run."³⁶
The next day Professor Frank Regier, a U.S. citizen teaching at AUB, was kidnapped by Muslim radicals.³⁷ Regier's kidnapping was the beginning of a series of kidnappings of Americans in Beirut that would hound the Reagan and later the Bush administrations for years and lead to the eventual expulsion of nearly all Americans from Lebanon where they had prospered for more than a century. Even today Americans still are prohibited from traveling to Lebanon.
The day after Regier's kidnapping, on Feb. 7, 1984, Reagan suddenly reversed himself and announced that all U.S. Marines would shortly be "redeployed." The next day the battleship USS New Jersey fired 290 rounds of one-ton shells from its 16-inch guns into Lebanon as a final act of U.S. frustration.³⁸ Reagan's "redeployment" was completed by Feb. 26, when the last of the Marines retreated from Lebanon.
The mission of the Marines had been a humiliating failure—not because they failed in their duty but because the political backbone in Washington was lacking. The Marines had arrived in 1982 with all sides welcoming them. They left in 1984 despised by many and the object of attacks by Muslims. Even relations with Israel were strained, if not in Washington where a sympathetic Congress granted increased aid to the Jewish state to compensate it for the costs of its bungled invasion, then between the Marines and Israeli troops who had confronted each other in a realpolitik battlefield that was beyond their competence or understanding. The Marine experience in Lebanon did not contribute toward a favorable impression of Israel among many Americans, especially since the Marines would not have been in Lebanon except for Israel's unprovoked invasion. This negative result is perhaps one reason a number of Israelis and their supporters today oppose sending U.S. peacekeepers to the Golan Heights as part of a possible Israeli-Syrian peace treaty. A repeat of the 1982-84 experience would certainly not be in Israel's interests at a time when its supporters are seeking to have a budget-conscious Congress continue unprecedented amounts of aid to Israel.

[rktect3j]

They certainly do antagonize and manipulate countries and people for their own purposes. Remind you of another country?

[Mama]

Zodiac...as through all of history you're falling into the trap of "It's all wrong let's blame the Jews"
Thinking like this lead to the burnings in Germany in the 12th century, the banishments from Spain during the inquisition and more recently the extermination camps of Nazi Germany.

Get this...Israel has just as much right to a sovereign nation and national security at the US. It was Harry Truman who made the call to the new Prime Minister of Israel when they declared their sovereignty...against his staff's wishes...

So yeah, all the problems in the Middle East and lack of peace could be blamed on the Jews...why? Because they wish to exist and pursue "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" just as we Americans do...

Get over it!!!

[Mike McIntyre]

So true!!!

Who started the "Six Day War"? The "Yom Kippur War?
Who rocketed Israel as Israeli troops were "PULLING OUT" of the Gaza?
Who DID NOT retaliate when SCUDs from Iraq came falling in their homeland?
Who has to tolerate nations and peoples saying,” We will not rest while Israel is a nation"
Who has to listen as the third largest religion calls the infidels?

Last time I checked, God gave them that land!!!

[10thzodiac]

Zodiac...as through all of history you're falling into the trap of "It's all wrong let's blame the Jews"
Thinking like this lead to the burnings in Germany in the 12th century, the banishments from Spain during the inquisition and more recently the extermination camps of Nazi Germany.

Get this...Israel has just as much right to a sovereign nation and national security at the US. It was Harry Truman who made the call to the new Prime Minister of Israel when they declared their sovereignty...against his staff's wishes...

So yeah, all the problems in the Middle East and lack of peace could be blamed on the Jews...why? Because they wish to exist and pursue "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" just as we Americans do...

Get over it!!!

Many Jews from all walks of life, are highly critical of the tactics of the government of Israel and Zionism. Albert Einstein himself, an ardent supporter of the creation a Jewish state, warned in 1955: “The most important aspect of our policy must be our ever-present, manifest desire to institute complete equality for Arab citizens living in our midst.” At another time he stated: “Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us.” (There is a small booklet entitled: The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict,” published by “Jews For Justice In The Middle East,” which I believe gives an honest and objective analysis of this subject).

[Mama]

According to your quote mining then Israel should just dissolve it's sovereignty, allow all peoples of jewish blood to be exterminated and thereby accomplishing peace between arab and jew...'cause jews wouldn't be around if that's what happened...

Here's a clue...

there is always be war as long as there is an Israel...it exists...face it...it's the arabs who refuse to allow peace...

after all even a bull has horns...why??

to tell the predators to "stay off my back...I just wanna eat my grass"

The same goes for Israel...the IDF is armed and ready the way it is for a reason... "Leave us alone, we just want our nation and our freedom. Our citizens to be safe from your crazy closed minded jihad"


You can keep spouting all the quotes you want, but that land belongs to the Jews, we've given enough of it away no more...and no more killing of our women and children, our aged and our soldiers in teh name of "Jihad" ....

Ever hear the saying "mess with the bull ya get the horn"?? Well, they've messed enough...they're gettin' the horn

[Mike McIntyre]

You are dealing with the same people who blew up the World Trade Centers (twice), who blew up the Pentagon, and who kill, maim and torture our own troops. Let Einstein negotiate a deal.

[rktect3j]

We do have to realize that Isreal does instigate things in very subtle ways. They are no more right or wrong then the other side as far as I am concerned. We all have skeletons in our closets.

[10thzodiac]

According to your quote mining then Israel should just dissolve it's sovereignty, allow all peoples of jewish blood to be exterminated and thereby accomplishing peace between arab and jew...'cause jews wouldn't be around if that's what happened...

Here's a clue...

there is always be war as long as there is an Israel...it exists...face it...it's the arabs who refuse to allow peace...

after all even a bull has horns...why??

to tell the predators to "stay off my back...I just wanna eat my grass"

The same goes for Israel...the IDF is armed and ready the way it is for a reason... "Leave us alone, we just want our nation and our freedom. Our citizens to be safe from your crazy closed minded jihad"


You can keep spouting all the quotes you want, but that land belongs to the Jews, we've given enough of it away no more...and no more killing of our women and children, our aged and our soldiers in teh name of "Jihad" ....

Ever hear the saying "mess with the bull ya get the horn"?? Well, they've messed enough...they're gettin' the horn

[What Ariel Sharon Said]
Occupied Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP) -- According to Israel radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael, [Shimon] Peres warned [Ariel] Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and "turn the US against us." At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

[Mama]

So you're arguing...that a man who's NO longer in control...Who's incapacitated to the point of near vegetative state said something 5 years ago and ....????

Really...get over it...enough with the Jew bashing...I'm liable to take it *really* personally at some point...

[Zulu 36]

I think everyone has to understand one thing. Israel will look out for Israel. If that means manipulating US politics, they will do it. If it means killing every Islamic terrorist they can lay hands on, they will do it. If it means nuking Iran, that will happen too. They are taking care of ichiban.

After Hitler, the Jews, as a nation, decided enough turning the other cheek. They only have four cheeks (in two widely seperated locations) and they've all been well used up over the centuries. The present Jewish attitude is, "I ain't going to be the last mother****er hurt in this gunfight."

The whole "palestinian" problem was created by the Arab countries about to conduct a war against the new state of Israel. They encouraged the Muslim population to flee, predicting Israeli pogroms against Muslims that never did occur. Those Arab countries, to this day, refuse to significantly support the palestinian refugees (except militarily), refuse them citizenship, or meaningful employment. Somehow, all of that is Israel's fault too.

Remember too, Yasser Arafat was not a Palestinian. He was an Egyptian.

Actually, there are no such people as "palestinians." This was a politically invented phrase. Technically, Israeli Jews are as much "Palestinians" as the Muslim "refugees" are.

I firmly believe that left alone, Israel would not be a problem. However, Islamic fundamentalists (in other words, most Muslims) won't let that happen. Thus we are seeing Israel get tired of being screwed with (again).

I am not Jewish. But I am a student of history and war.

[Mike McIntyre]

Do you remember who took the preemptive strike against lace>Iraqlace>’s Nuke program? Thank God they don't wait on our diplomacy.

[greensideout]

10thzodiac, I guess that I mis-read you. You just don't get it. Read the responces, take a breath and THINK! Israel has a right to their home just as you do (I think you do as least). If you have a personal dislike of the State of Israel just say so. I don't think much of your propaganda program.

[10thzodiac]

10thzodiac, I guess that I mis-read you. You just don't get it. Read the responces, take a breath and THINK! Israel has a right to their home just as you do (I think you do as least). If you have a personal dislike of the State of Israel just say so. I don't think much of your propaganda program.

Since when did quoting history and news reports become propaganda? The only spin I put on this is, "I know who the enemy is, do you??" In my humble opinion I think it speaks for itself!

Don't believe the above, try this:

Betrayal Behind Israeli
Attack On USS Liberty
By Admiral Thomas Moorer
Houston Chronicle
1-14-4

After State Department officials and historians assembled in Washington, D.C., last week to discuss the 1967 war in the Middle East, I am compelled to speak out about one of U.S. history's most shocking cover-ups. On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked our proud naval ship -- the USS Liberty -- killing 34 American servicemen and wounding 172. Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government. U.S. military rescue aircraft were recalled, not once, but twice, through direct intervention by the Johnson administration. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's cancellation of the Navy's attempt to rescue the Liberty, which I personally confirmed from the commanders of the aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, was the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my entire military career. To add insult to injury, Congress, to this day, has failed to hold formal hearings on Israel's attack on this American ship. No official investigation of Israel's attack has ever permitted the testimony of the surviving crew members. A 1967 investigation by the Navy, upon which all other reports are based, has now been fully discredited as a cover-up by its senior attorney. Capt. Ward Boston, in a sworn affidavit, recently revealed that the court was ordered by the White House to cover up the incident and find that Israel's attack was "a case of mistaken identity." Some distinguished colleagues and I formed an independent commission to investigate the attack on the USS Liberty. After an exhaustive review of previous reports, naval and other military records, including eyewitness testimony from survivors, we recently presented our findings on Capitol Hill. They include: · Israeli reconnaissance aircraft closely studied the Liberty during an eight-hour period prior to the attack, one flying within 200 feet of the ship. Weather reports confirm the day was clear with unlimited visibility. The Liberty was a clearly marked American ship in international waters, flying an American flag and carrying large U.S. Navy hull letters and numbers on its bow. Despite claims by Israeli intelligence that they confused the Liberty with a small Egyptian transport, the Liberty was conspicuously different from any vessel in the Egyptian navy. It was the most sophisticated intelligence ship in the world in 1967. With its massive radio antennae, including a large satellite dish, it looked like a large lobster and was one of the most easily identifiable ships afloat. · Israel attempted to prevent the Liberty's radio operators from sending a call for help by jamming American emergency radio channels. · Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned lifeboats at close range that had been lowered to rescue the most seriously wounded. As a result, our commission concluded that: · There is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew. · In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United States · The White House knowingly covered up the facts of this attack from the American people. · The truth continues to be concealed to the present day in what can only be termed a national disgrace. What was Israel's motive in launching this attack? Congress must address this question with full cooperation from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the military intelligence services. The men of the USS Liberty represented the United States. They were attacked for two hours, causing 70 percent of American casualties, and the eventual loss of our best intelligence ship. These sailors and Marines were entitled to our best defense. We gave them no defense. Did our government put Israel's interests ahead of our own? If so, why? Does our government continue to subordinate American interests to Israeli interests? These are important questions that should be investigated by an independent, fully empowered commission of the American government. The American people deserve to know the truth about this attack. We must finally shed some light on one of the blackest pages in American naval history. It is a duty we owe not only to the brave men of the USS Liberty, but to every man and woman who is asked to wear the uniform of the United States. Moorer was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 1970 to 1974. He is joined in the independent commission of inquiry by Gen. Ray Davis (recently deceased); Rear Adm. Merlin Staring; former Judge Advocate General of the Navy and Ambassador James Akins. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3617724,00.html U.S. Says 1967 Attack Act of Negligence GUARDIAN (London) Tuesday January 13, 2004 2:31 AM By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Reviewing documents covering 36 years, amid a lack of consensus, a State Department official concluded Monday that Israel's attack on the U.S. spy ship Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War was an act of Israeli negligence. The United States also was negligent, the official maintained, for failing to notify Israel that the electronic intelligence-gathering ship was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast and for failing to withdraw the Liberty from the war zone. A daylong conference that studied fresh documents as well as the established record failed to produce a consensus for any of three views voiced most often: Israel intentionally attacked what it knew to be a ship of the U.S. Navy, the attack was accidental, or the attack resulted from faulty judgment. Thirty-four Americans were killed in the June 8, 1967, attack, and more than 170 were wounded. Israel long has maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation the Johnson administration did not challenge formally. Israel said its forces thought the Liberty was an Egyptian horse carrier, apologized to the United States and paid almost $13 million in compensation, some to victims or their families. Since the United States did not intercept the order to attack the ship with cannon fire and napalm, precise facts of the attack remain elusive, the State Department official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. He called the Israeli attack and the U.S. actions a classic example of Murphy's law: "If anything can go wrong, it will." David Hatch, a technical director at the National Security Agency, said, "The good news is that information long sought by researchers is now out, and the bad news is that it does not settle it." The occasion for the State Department conference was the release of historical documents about the 1967 war in which Israel defeated the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries in six days. Charles Smith, a professor at the University of Arizona, said in his presentation that Israel should have known the Liberty was an American ship. "If they didn't know, they didn't try hard enough to find out," he said. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who has written about the incident, demanded further investigation "instead of people getting up here and giving their opinions." "There were cover-ups," Bamford said, citing a signed affidavit by retired Navy Capt. Ward Boston, who was a leader of a military investigation into the incident. Boston said in the affidavit in October that then-President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of `mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Boston, 80, who did not attend Monday's conference, said the Navy investigators were given only one week but still were able to amass "a vast amount of evidence, including heartbreaking testimony from young survivors." Accusing Israel of a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and kill its crew, Boston said in a legal declaration in Coronado, Calif., that he was certain the Israel pilots knew the Liberty, which clearly displayed American flags and had markings in English instead of Arabic, was a U.S. Navy ship. Additionally, Boston said, "Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded - a war crime." Jay Cristol, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge who has written about the incident, cited the finding of the Navy's inquiry as proof the attack was a mistake. "There was no indication they had any knowledge they were attacking a U.S. ship," Cristol told the conference. If the attack were deliberate, its motivation remains uncertain. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a memorandum on June 8, 1997, the 30th anniversary of the attack, that Israel deliberately attacked to hide its intentions in the war. "I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move," Moorer wrote. "I believe (then-Israeli Defense Minister) Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information, the USS Liberty." Israel took the strategic Syrian territory and still holds it 37 years later.

[Mama]

Nice...the best you can come up with is a nearly 40 year old incident...
oh...and who poked the tiger to start that one up???

At least this time you're showing your true colors here...anti semite as they come...tell me...can I assume you'r neo nazi as well?