The USS Liberty, Sickening Truth vs Official Lies

The USS Liberty, Sickening Truth vs Official Lies

Not unexpectedly, an apparently irate reader of “A Reader Speaks Out on the Festering Shame of the USS Liberty” also spoke out on the “USS Liberty Incident” on AmericanConservativeDaily.com where this blog is syndicated.

Writing as if he were someone in the know, “Jaffrin Spes” wrote on ACD that, “The reason Israel was never condemned for the attack is because the U.S. Naval Court Inquiry in 1967 determined the attack was a case of mistaken identity. The CIA’s intelligence report of the same year determined there was no malice intended but, as often happened in war, the target was failed to be properly identified. This is hardly a new problem as even during the Iraq War many U.S. soldiers were killed by friendly fire because of misidentification.

Of course if you want to delve into Truther land of LIHOP or MIHOP you are welcome to do that. I think it is silly but to each his own. If you want to think of more sinister motives and convince anyone more than accusations will be needed.”

Being something of a silly dolt, I admit I had to research LIHOP, (”Let It Happen on Purpose”) and MIHOP, (”Make It Happen on Purpose”), two levels of conspiracy theories I discovered are most often applied to the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001.

I can assure “Jaffrin Spes” that there is no valid comparison between those poppycock theories and the events of June 8th, 1967.

To be precise, “Jaffrin Spes’ ” citing of that U.S. Naval Court Inquiry and the CIA report is a further example of the cover-up that refuses to go away and is testimony to the effectiveness of that cover-up even after 43 years. To be more blunt, “Jaffrin Spes” must be functioning in one of three roles: a governmental front, a blind apologist for Israel, or a terminally naive indidividual.

Or, maybe, a combination of all three?

The article in question, http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/, was primarily intended to present the impressions of one “C.K. Amos,” “Darwin,” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1880)

The Coming War with China

The Coming War with China

If it looks like a fish, swims like a fish, and smells like a fish, chances are that thing in front of you isn’t a giraffe or an orangutan.

Likewise, when a nation looks like it’s preparing for war, acts like it’s preparing for war, and speaks like it’s preparing for war, it’s very likely that nation is anticipating a war in the very foreseeable future.

The People’s Republic of China, the PRC, that ancient land of 1.3 billion inscrutable people, hasn’t quite been speaking in warlike terms but every other indication is that it is readying itself for a cataclysmic conflict from which it alone will emerge still standing.

Realistically, the only opponent capable of taking China on is the only superpower left on the planet, the United States of America.

Am I predicting a coming thermonuclear war between the PRC and the USA? Yes. And I further believe our country is well aware of that future and is doing nothing substantive to prevent it from happening despite its probability.

Will China initiate that conflict, as in a Japanese-style sneak attack? I highly doubt that mainly because there’s no need.

China is now in a position to wait until we collapse economically and then gradually infiltrate itself into our affairs even more so than it already has.

If and when push comes to shove and the conflict evolves into a military face-off, the Chinese know they have two strategic advantages, their population which is quadruple ours and their land mass of 3.7 million square miles, a 700,000 greater square mile area than our lower 48 states.

Aside from what’s been in the news for the last few years,. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1596)

The Thankless and the Sexless

The Thankless and the Sexless

Two stories of markedly divergent import:

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth . . . :” The U.K., the United Kingdom, aka Britain, aka England, aka the British Isles, that multi-named little island across the Pond, is getting uppity now that the threat from the former U.S.S.R. has dissipated and it no longer feels it could be annihilated overnight.

Rescued by the United States from almost certain defeat in World War I and World War II and from the threat of the Russian Bear a generation ago, the Brits since then have grown more and more forgetful of their incalculable debt to America.

Now, when America is in the throes of social upheaval, a House of Commons committee has called for an end to the “special relationship” that has existed between the U.K. and the U.S.A. for seven decades.

No longer fearful of the Huns or the Russians, the Brits can have the temerity to thumb their noses in a westerly direction.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee issued a report saying the UK should feel free to just say no to the United States and that ”there is a need to be less deferential” to their crass American cousins.

The ostensibly primary reason for this sudden attack of independence? The Iraq War.

As the committee expressed it, “The perception that the British government was a subservient ‘poodle’ to the US administration leading up to the period of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath is widespread both among the British public and overseas:” http://bit.ly/cti7hw

And there you have it: The House of Commons feels humiliated and subservient because America led the charge into Iraq with its Brit poodle trailing behind and now they want to cut the leash. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1595)

THE SHAME OF THE USS LIBERTY

THE SHAME OF THE USS LIBERTY

Fortunately, or unfortunately, some news stories have lives of their own. It’s as if they don’t want to die, which is sometimes a very good thing.

Such a story is the disgraceful tale involving the USS Liberty, a disgrace which began more than forty one years ago and continues to this day.

Neither the disgrace nor the shame of the USS Liberty applies in any way to its crew or to its captain, William McGonagle, who subsequently received the Congressional Medal of Honor in recognition of his bravery and refusal to leave the Liberty’s bridge despite being wounded. The shame is on America, the shame is on our shameless politicians, and the shame is on Israel.

For those still unaware of what transpired on the afternoon of June 8th, 1967 in the waters off the Sinai Peninsula, the USS Liberty was a converted Victory ship, a 455 foot vessel then being used for intelligence gathering during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It was attacked by Israeli air and naval forces, strafed and torpedoed, leaving 34 sailors dead and 174 injured, many severely.

A confessed news junky, I had never heard about the Liberty until a decade or so ago. Back in January, 2008, I posted an article here, an interview with Rick Aimetti, a petty officer first class assigned to Damage Control aboard that U.S. Navy vessel. He was one of the survivors and still vividly recalled the events of that day.

The fortuitous circumstances of that interview are detailed here, “Remembering the USS Liberty,” (January 10, 2008, http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=19.)

A calm, composed man, Rick was nevertheless passionate in his recollections, especially about the friends he lost, but also in his certainty that it was a deliberate attack by a presumed ally on an American ship.

That assault continued for hours even though the Liberty was clearly marked and flying the stars and stripes.

Israeli helicopter gunships first took out the ship’s antennae and shot down the flag mast before launching torpedoes in an attempt to, first, cripple the Liberty’s communications and, second, to sink it.

It struck me that with a new president taking office precisely one month from today there was a possibility, however remote, that President Obama would do what seven presidents before him failed to do, namely, give official, government recognition of the Liberty heroes who died that June day, and to acknowledge why they died and were wounded.

That Israel attacked and killed 34 and injured 174 Americans on the Liberty is indisputable. Israel ultimately admitted as much and paid reparations. What it never did was concede intent. Instead, Israel to this day alleges it was a “mistake,” a mistake which could only have been made by two blind Israeli helicopter pilots and three blind Israeli torpedo boat captains.

Petty Officer First Class Rick Aimetti was a witness and a survivor of the attacks on the USS Liberty but he can hardly be considered an objective observer. Running for cover, seeing your dead and bleeding fellow sailors, and trying to keep your ship from going down aren’t situations conducive to objectivity.

His status as an eye-witness has been supported by numerous other accounts, however. Our military and our politicians just love investigations, studies, and inquiries even if they rarely uncover the truth, that whole, nothing but the truth that scares the uniforms off our military and which makes our politicians dive for cover when they can’t admit it.

Such is the truth of the USS Liberty. It has festered on the American conscience for over four decades now.

Five years ago, the National Security Agency, which was instrumental in the outfitting and in the mission of the Liberty, declassified, (under pressure), documents, recordings, and interviews relating to the assault on the USS Liberty: http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/.

Although that wealth of material and information is fascinating, it nevertheless is transparently slanted as can be seen in the interviews of personnel who admit to being pro-Israel and even in the greatly redacted translated transcripts of the Israeli pilots: http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/recordings.cfm.

Far more objective is this analysis of the events of June 8th, 1967: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html. There Eric Margolis dares to spell out the truth and dares to explain and substantiate what really happened that day.

It’s an ugly and shameful truth about the USS Liberty.

Perhaps President Barack Hussein Obama will address that truth and redress the grievances of the crew members such as Rick Aimetti?

One can always hope for “change” from Obama, no?

Festering stinks, literally.
(http://genelalor.com/)