During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attack the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt’s Gaza Strip. The intelligence ship, well-marked as an American vessel and only lightly armed, was attacked first by Israeli aircraft that fired napalm and rockets at the ship. The Liberty attempted to radio for assistance, but the Israeli aircraft blocked the transmissions. Eventually, the ship was able to make contact with the U.S. carrier Saratoga, and 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes were dispatched to defend the Liberty. When word of their deployment reached Washington, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered them recalled to the carrier, and they never reached the Liberty. The reason for the recall remains unclear.
Back in the Mediterranean, the initial air raid against the Liberty was over. Nine of the 294 crew members were dead and 60 were wounded. Suddenly, the ship was attacked by Israeli torpedo boats, which launched torpedoes and fired artillery at the ship. Under the command of its wounded captain, William L. McGonagle, the Liberty managed to avert four torpedoes, but one struck the ship at the waterline. Heavily damaged, the ship launched three lifeboats, but these were also attacked–a violation of international law. Failing to sink the Liberty, which displaced 10,000 tons, the Israelis finally desisted. In all, 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded in the two-hour attack. In the attack’s aftermath, the Liberty managed to limp to a safe port.
Israel later apologized for the attack and offered $6.9 million in compensation, claiming that it had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. However, Liberty survivors, and some former U.S. officials, believe that the attack was deliberate, staged to conceal Israel’s pending seizure of Syria’s Golan Heights, which occurred the next day. The ship’s listening devices would likely have overheard Israeli military communications planning this controversial operation. Captain McGonagle was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic command of the Liberty during and after the attack.
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It was a travesty. I met McGonagle at the ROTC festivities long ago at the University of Oklahoma. A decent man who was a bit embittered at what had been done to him and his men. Gag orders on a Medal of Honor winner are not nice.
June 8, 2019 is the 52nd anniversary of the deliberate Israeli attack (act of war) on the USS Liberty (GTR-5). To this day, a full accounting and the placement of proper blame has not been forthcoming. 34 AMERICAN sailors were murdered and over a hundred wounded. Admiral John S. McCain (yeah, John McCain’s daddy) presided over the whitewash of this act of war. President Lyndon Johnson covered it up as he “did not want to embarrass an ally”. You can bet that the American “mainstream media” will not mention this even once…which shows you who owns them…
If I had my way, israel would have been turned into a “glass parking lot” on 9 June 1967…
and how many other glass parking lots would there be by your standards? Libya, Lebanon, Saudi, Somalia, and on and on…..sure it was a bad thing but did it ever occur your diseased little mind that maybe we were doing a few things also? Battlefield reality…..at that moment taking out the Liberty was a better choice than risking the Golan Heights operational secrecy.
Does the US simply have the right to do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want? No, but our military power makes it seem so! The Jews were desperate and did what they did…..shit happens.
Again because you are a simpleton you simply can’t see the bigger picture….sure we could have switched sides and joined the arabs but I think we have seen more atrocity and betrayal from them and in the long run say Isra-hell was wiped out…..then what? Saudi Wahhabism ruling the ME? Gosh, that’s brilliant! Moron.
So you are pissed off that we sent a warship to spy during a critical moment and one of the combatants who we were sort of friends with attacked said ship? Remind me to never take to you to a redneck bar and get you drunk, you would likely get us all killed.
Anybody else think having the mad mullahs running things is a better option than Isra-Hell’s existence?
The “Spice” aka oil in 1976, three years after the Arab oil embargo was uber critical…..would you want the arabs control over that resource unopposed?
Alternatively in 1973 we could have just taken control of the oil fields and killed them all but at that time the Soviet Union was actually reasonably strong and well embedded in Egypt etc….WWIII could have easily started had we made such a move.
The big picture is seldom as clear as the asshats would have you believe…..How about the Mayaguez?
Your name-calling exposes you as a hasbara or IDF unit 8200 member…looks like I have “riled the jew” You should be ashamed of yourself, having nothing in common with the real Charles Martel of the crusades. In fact, it is you jews who sided with the moslems.
Turning Israel into a “glass parking lot” would have solved a lot of problems…
Calling a moron a moron is simply being accurate not name calling…..typical low brow response and let me point out that you refuse to answer the obvious questions…..so let’s destroy Isra-hell….then what? Are we better off? If so why?
Sure it was a bad thing but in the context of a conflict not unexpected, unprecedented and what exactly should we have done about it? How about the USS Cole? Mayaguez? Beirut? Benghazi? Should we have nuked them all? Then what? You have zero to say other than pretentious self-righteous anti-semitism which is moderately comforting I guess to justify your personal failure as a human being but doesn’t really do much in the real world.
You used all those words and no mention of the 34 US sailors lost at the hands of the small hats, nor did you explain why Israel did what they did on June 8th 1967. You simply glossed over these important details and went straight to, “OH WELL, WHAT DID YOU WANT THE UNITED STATES TO DO”? The Zionists are nothing without the United States. America is the masculine and Israel is the feminine. If this was an old western themed movie the United States would be the fast drawing cowboy and Israel is the whore living above the saloon on Main Street. When the whore screams loud enough when she is being fondled by a drunken saloon patron the cowboy comes to her rescue. Without the United States Israel would be another litter box in the middle east.
This is why Israel needs to be cut from daddy’s trust fund. Israel will never be an ally to any country. There is something in the Zionist DNA. I even had a Zionist tell me that I should stop complaining about the USS Liberty because the families received “monetary restitution”. You see, small hats view life as they view any other commodity. They think that life itself has a monetary value. Just like a hat or shoes.
I am the son of a USS Liberty murdered sailor. Where is my check Jew???
“let’s destroy Isra-hell….then what? Are we better off? If so why?”
Because Israel is THE evilest actor on the world stage. The entire world would applaud us if we turned Israel into glass.
What the Liberty was doing in International Waters was no different than a neighbor listening in on your phone call through your open window. If your friend beat you bloody from head to toe for listening in on his conversation and says it was a case of mistaken identity, would you tell everyone it was some other dude? Would you then finance his efforts to brutally beat others who have suffered the same betrayals?
“and how many other glass parking lots would there be by your standards?”
Libya: Before we destroyed Libya, it was the most progressive Arab country, with the highest literacy rates, lowest infant mortality rates, no debt, free health care and education, free land and equipment to those who wanted to farm, etc.
Now it is an open-air sex slave market. Thank you, Uncle Sam.
Lebanon: Why did we sacrifice 241 Americans in Beirut in 1983, and abandon our Consulate while under attack in Benghazi in 2012? “What does it matter now?”
Saudi Arabia: WE created, financed, and equipped Osama and Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and did the same for ISIS in Syria. How did that work out for us?
“Battlefield reality…..at that moment taking out the Liberty was a better choice than risking the Golan Heights operational secrecy.”
Syria was the first Arab nation to gain independence from European colonialists, and the US was determined to bring it to heel politically. The US/CIA had been actively subverting Syria’s politics and leadership since the 1949 coup engineered by James Hugh Keeley Jr.
You assume that Israel weighed the option that the U.S. would’ve stopped Israel from taking the Golan Heights, without saying why. It’s a stupid assumption with no rational explanation. Why would the US care if the Israelis took the Golan Heights if it put Syria at a disadvantage? Trump just recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. He changed US policy in this regard? No.
“shit happens” Shit like that doesn’t just happen. Israel knew that what it was doing broke every law in the world and betrayed its closest ally (considering it a subservient enemy) who it depended upon for survival. Name ONE similar incident where a nation attacked its ONLY ally that gave it unconditional support and could also obliterate it instantly. Saying that this ‘shit happens’ as a course of war is not just being intellectually lazy; it’s petrified brain.
“then what? Saudi Wahhabism ruling the ME? Gosh, that’s brilliant! Moron.”
The House of Saud has protected and promoted Wahhabism since the country was born in 1932. Mecca and Medina are holy sites and nobody outside of Arab countries is entitled to destroy them because they don’t like Muslim faith. Wars over religion aren’t in anyone’s interest.
“Remind me to never take to you to a redneck bar and get you drunk, you would likely get us all killed.”
That is silliest thing you’ve ever written. You’re a redneck poser who couldn’t hold his own in a redneck bar if you were mute. The redneck hasn’t been born who wouldn’t join me and my insulting, disrespectful tirade against Israel. Try telling a bar full of rednecks that Israel’s unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty for three hours, jamming distress calls and machine-gunning lifeboats was OK with you. Guess who would get the beating of their life. You. If you stood before me now, I’d give it to you, cunt. I would really enjoy it if I looked like I lost, because you’d look worse, and I’d be drinking for free until the bruises were gone.
“How about the Mayaguez?”
How about coming up with something comparable to being assassinated by a friend. Your scholarship really sucks. Your head should be potted for a plant.
The Mayaguez was a private container ship that wandering into Cambodian waters ( a country we had been bombing, not an ally). It was not struck by enemy fire and its crew was released unharmed. Great comparison. Next you’ll say Pol Pot was doing the world a favor.
Parading your pile of pitiful palaver on this day defines you. Horribly.
If you can make room in your ass while your cinder block head is in residence, Go Fuck Yourself, Israeli whore.
Another Jew apologist. Can’t come to grips that they are their own problem and Anti Semitism (as if 99% of Jews were actually Semites and not Caucasus Gypsies) is a self-delusional myth. CIA recently released proof that Dayan ordered the attack, yet you scum still try to push the hoax. So sad.
McNamara was a total cluster F. He should have never ben in charge of anything military. I remember this jerk’s decision when in Vietnam
this was a friendly fire incident. there are many incidents where the USA has killed allies with friendly fire why not include them in “this day in history” also? why single out Israel?
Anon- You are completely in the weeds . Just as the US and Israel worked together to bring about 9/11 and the Iraq war, same/same with the USS Liberty and Viet Nam war. The great unwashed fall for it every time.
And your fact-based support for those assertions is what? I agree that Israel was supportive of the Iraq war is promoting war with Iran and has cozied up to Saudi to defeat Iran but to make extraordinary claims that they “Brought about 9/11” requires extraordinary proof….which I have never seen. Was 9/11 a false flag, seems that feigned ignorance was pretty convenient for the Deep State and Building #7 remains unexplained as to why it collapsed…..and no steel skeleton buildings have collapses anywhere in the world since 9/11…..so I am happy to buy the false flag but by “Who” is unclear. So please educate us as to why the Jews did it…..
Read my post above, Israeli Dick Weed.
Whatever ‘education’ you’ve had was clearly wasted.
You’ve been outed; credibility toasted
God of Shite! Glad to see you making an effort at erudite elocution. Sadly you have failed to make a cogent point but that is par for the course of discourse around here. If you had the cognitive ability of a gnat you would understand that the point I was making was a simple one: outrageous incidents should be responded to in the context of a larger strategic framework.
Sure the Liberty was heinous, the dead sailors a declaration of war and no less a Causus Belli than Pearl Habor etc., but now what do you want to do about it…..Seems like you are on Adolf’s side and seeking the extermination of all Jewry as a net positive for us and the rest of the world. Awesome glad you feel strongly about that but what would a post-Jew world look like?
Nature abhors a vacuum……so with the Jew gone…..just like the tide don’t you understand that there will simply be another (likely white christian) dark malevolent force sucking our blood and operating in the dark with tentacles everywhere.
So unless you plan on being the next elite cohort…..you will continue to be the bitch of the bully in charge.
That’s just how things work.
The better answer is to fix ourselves…..the better, faster, smarter, stronger we are the more connected to other like minded folks we are…..well that makes it much harder for any elite to steamroll us….Pogo…we have seen the enemy and he is us!
You pretend for a paycheck, Troll. Nobody cares what you have to say because you’re following a script. I’ll be a constant reminder.
You pretended to be a redneck. You’ve no idea why it was so easy to know you aren’t.
You pretend there are ‘excusable’ reasons for Israel’s three-hour attack from the air and sea on helpless U.S, Naval vessel -an ally. You pretend that knowingly committing war crimes by jamming distress signals and machine-gunning lifeboats was ‘just the way things are’.
You pretend it is my cognitive impairment that prevents me from equating the Liberty to the nothing-burger Mayaguez, while your matchless intellect pirouettes 180° and compares it to Pearl Harbor. In neither case you cited was the U.S. attacked by an ally that relied on us for its survival, as it does to this day.
You pretend that accepting Israel as THE “dark malevolent force sucking our blood and operating in the dark with tentacles everywhere” because anybody else would be worse. You pretend that the world would be a much worse place without Israel being “the U.S. Bitch’s bully”. You pretend that destroying seven countries for Israel isn’t the most wicked possible subversion of American principles since this nation was founded.
Let’s pretend that without Israel, Europe wouldn’t be flooded with tens of millions of desperate Muslim refugees from the seven countries we’ve already destroyed or destabilized for Israel, while cueing up international war over Iran.
Every citizen of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Sudan, and Iran would like to spit in your face and defile your women. You deserve it, poser.
https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw
Please follow along on my journey of RealPolitik…..its kind of a lonely journey goring scared ox tends to piss the hoi polloi off! It is a thankless job but I decided to do it. I have never pretended to be anything but do have a wide experience base and that seems to have given me a less parochial perspective.
I don’t “like or dislike” the Israeli’s any more than I like or dislike the Pashtun tribes. Tribes are part of the human condition and our “in-group” preference has evolved to be very high and the opposite of in-group preference is fucking over the “other”…..shit happens.
I always find it so curious that those who bray the loudest in the complaint against some other….whether it is the Jew, the Banker, the Deep State, even Liberals, Blacks, big corporate invariably failed with that particular group or were “wronged” by that group. Shit happens.
We will never eliminate tribalism or predatory behavior….or apparently, mob mentality it’s just who were are. Doesn’t excuse our behavior…..Attack on Liberty BAD!!!!!! but it certainly provides some information for those willing to think.
We both know that eliminating the jew is not likely to change things….but changing ourselves will make the jew less relevant……
“We both know that eliminating the jew is not likely to change things….but changing ourselves will make the jew less relevant……”
You don’t know that; neither do I. The only personal change available to a Palestinian to make Israeli Jews less relevant is to escape the Levant and the refugee camps that Apartheid Israel has stuffed generation after generation into while occupying their stolen land. You have plenty of campfire stories to tell of Israel’s glories, yes?
What you and I and everybody else knows is that you are a Zionist troll. “Shit happens” is your strongest argument and your predictable riposte. Think much?
Brothers have been slaying each other since Cain and Abel. That’s your justification for ‘meh…shit happens’ on the anniversary of Israel’s INTENTIONAL 3-hour attack on the Liberty, and the unspeakable war crimes they happily committed. Israeli Pilots, after the Liberty was all but destroyed: “Let’s leave something for our Navy to do!”
Israel’s unprovoked attack in International waters was not a ‘Shit Happens” event. It was more than sufficient cause to destroy Israel, who knew they were attacking U.S. Sailors. There’s never been a better reason to melt a country with nuclear fire.
It will happen eventually, and the rest of the world will dance with joy because Israel and everyone who supports its destructive national psychosis deserves nothing less. That includes their double-citizens running this country. I hope to be alive on that day and I will celebrate every day thereafter.
Trolls like you will be silenced forever.
I grew up in a Navy family. My father and his three brothers were career Navy. I know that today, our sailors would love to hear you spouting your Liberty bullshit in a bar. They would rip your tongue out with pliers.
You are lonely because you are a coward without a cause. A click-bait troll who spends his always idle time spreading for Zionists.
Oh. My. Getthisidiot.
TruNews recently did a heart-wrenching interview with a few of the survivors who are releasing a new book. They believe the attack was planned and with full knowledge and support of the US govt all the way up to the President. Inspired me to buy a couple t-shirts to help support them.
Part 1
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1zqKVazRWBLxB
Part 2
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1zqKVazMvPYxB
You can find the USSLVA site and store here:
https://www.usslibertyveterans.org/
i see little between the jews or ragheads both liars
When I was in the USAF, I had the opportunity to talk to a few “weapons” officers who were in the Saudi royal line. I asked one why couldn’t Abraham’s descendents just agree to be distant relatives and admit the God of Abraham was the God of both of them.
He said the God of the Jews is NOT the same God as the God of Islam.
So, now… I’m thinking are there THREE?
HOLY Heavens. There are three. Think about it.
But not too long. Someone will be along shortly to correct me, probably.
Somewhere around 2007 or earlier I looked up the USS Liberty and evidently the 40 or 50 years of classification had run out. There were pages of survivors testimony on what they experienced on that day. It gave me the impression that Moshe Dayan and LBJ agreed that if the war appeared lost, Israel would sink the USS Liberty, blame the Egyptians and LBJ would nuke Cairo. This explains why the two ready aircraft sent to the rescue and were called back had nuclear weapons. Also reports that other Nuclear armed US Planes were on the runways and the entire plan was called off 3 minutes before Cairo was nuked.
pssssst. I “heard” that too.
How come everyone on the planet hates the Jew?
Only people filled with hatred hate anyone.
Not all of us. Some of us know there are good people in Israel. My Christian Zionist Missionary friend, Margy, goes every year and promises me it is true.
I believe her. I really do.
I don’t hate Jews that eat bacon and play banjo.
I don’t know if anyone remembers, or cares, but this is TBP, where free speech is promoted (although not always paid for… hint: send money to Admin to support his efforts).
So, yes… I still have the McGonagle interview but cannot share it directly. The old guy rambled on and said things he probably did not mean to say to me.
Since he really didn’t tell me much any of us didn’t already know (except how he and his crew stayed on deck waving the flags as Israel’s pilots looked down at them so he KNEW they knew), I will never actually play it for anyone or transcribe it.
But, it did make the front page of the OU campus paper once upon a long time ago.
It was an eye opener to me to meet him there. If I hadn’t noticed the Medal of Honor hanging around his neck, I would have never known.
A crazy and strange coincidence.
Did you know McGonagle was awarded the Medal of Honor in a secretive ceremony?
Was the interview “off the record?” If not, then you should publish it. The truth deserves its day in the sun.
hopefully some of you will come back to this post & see this–good article about the liberty by ray mcgovern–
i got to thinking about lyndon johnson’s role in this & if he really recalled the help being sent to the liberty,and if so,why?
assuming that he really did recall the planes sent to defend the liberty,i wonder if that is why he dropped out of the 1968 potus campaign–to this day it’s one of the most surprising political moves in the country’s history–
perhaps he was forced out–
Tampa,
That is a worthy thought…maybe someone twisted his arm out of the socket for a change.
I have truly learned to despise him for too many reasons to list.