Photograph Source: The U.S. Navy – Public Domain
Fifty six years ago today Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. surveillance ship, in international waters during the early days of the Six-Day War. The attack was unprovoked. All told, 34 sailors, two marines, and one NSA employee were killed and 176 injured. Israel and the U.S. Government asserted it was an accident of mistaken identity. They claim the USS Liberty was mistook for an Egyptian ship. Israel did formally apologize for the attack and paid reparations to the survivors, the families of the killed service members, and the U.S. Government in the total amount of $13 million dollars ($78 million in 2022 dollars).
Many believe the attack was deliberate and that there was a coverup. What follows are excerpts form an article published in Counter Punch by FLVCS member and long-time contributor Mel Goodman. To read the article in see The USS Liberty: a Well-Planned Attack.
The opinions expressed by Mel Goodman are wholly his own and do not imply in any way Florida Veterans for Common Sense, Inc. endorsement or agreement.
Excerpts from The USS Liberty: a Well-Planned Attack
Today marks the 56th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which has been described by too many U.S. and Israeli accounts as an accident. In fact, the attack took place after eight hours of aerial surveillance by Israel, and it involved a two-hour air and naval attack that killed 34 sailors and wounded an additional 172 servicemen. This marked a casualty rate of 70% in a crew of 294. The Israelis claimed that they were attacking an Egyptian ship, but the configuration of the Liberty clearly marked it as the world’s most sophisticated intelligence ship, one that could only belong to the United States.
The air attack lasted nearly a half-hour as unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on the Liberty’s bridge, and fired 30 mm cannons and rockets into the ship. …. According to a survivor, Israeli pilots acknowledged the ship was flying the American flag and they still attacked.
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Numerous U.S. officials testified that the attack had been a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship that had been monitoring Israeli military communications at the start of the Six-Day War in 1967. But they did so only after leaving their official positions and were no longer serving in President Lyndon Johnson’s administration.
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The official cover-up of the attack on the USS Liberty by the Johnson administration is without precedent in American naval history. The Congress never investigated the attack, and no surviving crew member was permitted to publicly testify about the attack.
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In addition to lying about the Liberty, the Israelis also lied about the start of the Six-Day War.
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On too many occasions in U.S. history, the use of force was been justified with either corrupt intelligence or just plain lies. This was the case in the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War. We shouldn’t tolerate the lies of our presidents, and we shouldn’t tolerate the lies of foreign officials, which was the case in the Six-Day War and the attack on the USS Liberty.
Thanks to my FLVCS brothers and sisters for acknowledging this ugly incident and its heinous aftermath. During a Zoom meeting with my Partners for Palestine friends, we talked about this being the date for remembering Israeli and American wrongdoing. I told them I recently purchased a signed copy of James Ennes’s book on the attack, and I again looked to see the name of my friend, now deceased–Richard Baker who was left permanently scarred, physically and mentally by that day. Semper fi, and Airborne, Dan Callaghan.