How soon we forget

[kraft-t]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

[hardnox604008]

One of the riddles within that riddle is what could have caused LBJ to order the carrier jets that were dispatched to defend the Liberty to return to their ship?

[schnurrbart]

I like the description of the USS Liberty----a "technical research" ship!  haha  I knew people on that ship at the time.  Several had left Monterey, CA a few months before the incident.

[schnurrbart]

In light of nothing else in the way of evidence to the contrary, the fact that Isreal admitted they made a mistake in the heat of war, what else could he do?  We could have attacked and that would have probably been enough to ensure Arab victory and the demise of Isreal for sure.  Besides at the time of the attack, LBJ figured it was the Soviets.

[hardnox604008]

The specifics aside, if I believed that when my ship was attacked by either the Soviets or the Israelis that my commanders were going to hope that there would just be an oil slick out there so that they wouldn't have to do any 'splainin' , I'd be heading for AWOL as fast as I could.

As Admiral Moorer's commission noted, nobody could have assumed that the essentially unarmed ship would survive- it was only the heroic action of the commander and crew that brought most of them home. Not all of them and a lot of them not unharmed.

[hardnox604008]

http://www.gtr5.com/evidence/warcrimes.pdf

This is the real deal, not the opensourced Wiki version that lets AIPAC edit.

You speak of the ship- yes it was a spy ship and virtually everyone with knowledge of the situation says that there is no way that it could have been mistaken for anything else or not under US flag.

[hardnox604008]

PS.  The Israeli patrol boats machine gunned the lifeboats. 

Don't care if you want to believe that they mistook it for an Egyptian horse carrier, as they claim- that is a war crime.

[schnurrbart]

Don't get your panties in a wad at me.  I'm not defending the Isrealies or LBJ other than you usually don't start a war because of an accident if it was an accident and without hard evidence (the Isrealis claim that and they are allies) to prove that they were lieing, that is what it is.  We have made major mistakes like bombing hospitals etc in the Middle east so stuff happens in war and it isn't always pretty.  I don't think anyone hoped that the ship just disappeared.  That is quite a strong accusation and I know you are prone to conspiracies but I can't believe it.  There would be no reason to hope that would happen.