The USS Liberty and America’s Greatest “Ally”

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Ryan McMaken
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The recent destruction of the Syrian regime, replaced by Islamists and Jihadists, reminds us that the American foreign-policy establishment in Washington continues to do the bidding of the State of Israel which exerts its influence through one of the most well-funded and extensive lobbying efforts Washington has ever known. The surreptitious alliance of terrorist Syrian Rebels, Israelis, and Americans, is just the latest manifestation of this working relationship. 

For more than thirty years now, the US has repeatedly committed American troops and American treasure to carry out the bidding of Tel Aviv with no advantage gained for ordinary American people. The Iraq War—with its thousands of American casualties—the endless drone wars, the potential war in Iran, and the American alliance with jihadists in Syria, are all at the service of the Israeli state. Trillions have now been sent to fund various war efforts for the Israeli state, a foreign parasite state that continually calls upon Americans to toil and die for its benefit.

Israeli propaganda and lobbying efforts have been so successful, in fact, that pro-Israel Americans often refer to Israel as “our greatest ally.” Yet, the State of Israel is a cautionary tale about the dangers of committing American lives and treasure to the service of a foreign state that offers nothing when it comes to the actual defense of the American homeland. 

As merely one example of the treachery of this supposed ally, it is always helpful to remember that the State of Israel is the only ally to have willfully attacked a ship of the US Navy, and to have suffered no repercussions for the attack whatsoever. I speak, of course, of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, an attack that most scholars now agree was deliberate, and which may have been intended as a false flag to get the US to declare war against Egypt. Then, as now, Tel Aviv was doing what it does: victimizing ordinary Americans and raiding the US Treasury.

Eric Margolis recounts the basic facts of the day: 

On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship ‘USS Liberty’ was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.

‘Liberty,’ a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic ‘ears’ including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.

‘Liberty’ had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over ‘Liberty,’ which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship’s electronic antennas and dishes. The ‘Liberty’ was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.

At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning ‘Liberty’ with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘Liberty’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.

Israeli gunboats circled the wounded ‘Liberty,’ firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.

Although the Israelis killed 34 American sailors and wounded 171 others, the immediate US response was to ignore it. Or, as Ralph Raico has summed it up: 

Ordinarily, such an attack would result in a state of war. In this case it did not because, among other reasons, President Lyndon Johnson’s position was, according to a US Navy Admiral, “that he didn’t care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his allies.”

Moreover, to criticize the State of Israel would mean to annoy an important constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. 

The purpose of the attack on the Liberty remains a matter of debate. Margolis provides some possibilities other than the false flag theory: 

Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts flatly contradicted Israel’s claim, made at the war’s beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel, and that Israel’s massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. In fact, Israel began the war by a devastating, Pearl-Harbor style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces.

Israel was also preparing to attack Syria to seize its strategic Golan Heights. Washington warned Israel not to invade Syria, which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt. Bamford says Israel’s offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when ‘Liberty’ appeared off Sinai, then launched once it was knocked out of action. Israel’s claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by ‘Liberty.’

Most significant, ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts may have shown that Israel seized upon sharply rising Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.

Nowadays, the incident is generally ignored, and since Tel Aviv’s unprovoked attack, the US regime has handed over to Israel more than a quarter of a trillion dollars of the US taxpayers’ money. Indeed, by 1974, Israel had become the number one recipient of US military and economic aid, all without any tangible benefit to ordinary Americans who foot the bill. Such is the nature of America’s greatest “ally.”