THE USS LIBERTY: INFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION

When I posted the article, “The Shame of the USS Liberty,” I never anticipated such a ruckus over its contents. I felt it was a one-shot deal, just a pertinent reminder of what many still firmly believe was a miscarriage of military and political justice.

The often venomous reactions to my two most recent articles have served as assurances that the subject is well worth a retrospective commemoration, at the minimum or, preferably, an exhaustive re-investigation.

To relegate the memory of the USS Liberty to nothing more than a blip in America’s history would be the equivalent of forgetting Pan Am Flight 103 which was blown out of the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988.

Simply because Libya has finally admitted its responsibility in that terrorist atrocity and has finally paid reparations doesn’t mitigate the horror of that attack nor does it relieve the burden of Libyan guilt.

So, too, with the Liberty and Israel, which indemnified the victims with some $7 million dollars. Unlike Libya, however, Israel has never admitted any guilt.

Baseless charges of anti-Semitism have been lodged because I have dared to criticize Israel, (as well as my own government), for Isreal’s unprovoked attack on the Liberty. Almost as repulsive have been suggestions that I am a supporter of President-elect Obama since I expressed the sarcastic hope that maybe he would re-open the matter of the Liberty.

Israel is an autonymous, democratic state. It is not a theocracy and to offer valid critiques of that state and its actions represents no more an attack on the Judaic religion than, for example, criticizing the actions of the Canadian government would indicate a disdain for the Canadian people.

Likewise, objecting to the Jewish Lobby in America and finding fault with its inordinate power does not constitute an exercise in hatred of Judaism any more than disdain for lobbyists for Big Oil would imply contempt for gasoline.

As far as I am concerned, allegations of anti-Semitism arising from a discussion of the Liberty, or of the Jewish lobby, is a misleading and dead issue.

Less dead are fair questions as to why I choose to revisit rumors, allegations and facts relating to the events of June 8th, 1967 at this time–or at anytime.

The chief reason would be that the vast bulk of available information on the Liberty does not involve mere rumor and the case has never been closed. Indeed, it was never adequately investigated.

Contrary to some of the sounds and furies which have arisen and critics’ claims that I had ulterior purposes in writing about the Liberty, I simply feel that to forget what happened in 1967 would be to dishonor the forty one innocent men who died and the 174 who were injured and maimed.

Any more than Israel would want the world to forget the horror of the Holocaust, I refuse...
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)