Israel attacked a US navy ship 47 years ago and killed 34 sailors and wounding another 170 out of a crew of 294. They were going to sink the ship and kill everyone on board. A communications sailor got out an SOS message to the sixth fleet and the Israels withdrew.
The planes were in the air to repel the attack and President Johnston pulled them back. They didn't want to create an incident with Israel.
Israel proved that they can kill Americans with no consequences.
They did it again when the American citizen was on the ship from Turkey to Palestine to break a blockade a few years ago and was killed when Israel entered the ship in international waters.
Israel runs our foreign policy in the region.
Their lobby has been immensely successful.
The retired CIA officer, who used to write up and at times deliver, the daily briefings to the president, Ray Mc Govern wrote an article today about this forgotten incident.
The crew has never been granted a hearing on the incident.
Referring last week to the controversy of the swap of five Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bode Bergdahl, President Barack Obama claimed, “The U.S. has always had a pretty sacred rule: We don’t leave our men or women in uniform behind.” The only exception, he might have added, is when Israeli forces shoot them up; then mum’s the word.
Mr. President, try explaining that “pretty sacred rule” to the USS Liberty survivors. I know them well enough to sense the hollow echo that Obama’s claim will leave in their ears – and in the ears of the families of those who did not survive.
The crew of the USS Liberty has been “left behind,” in a figurative as well as a physical sense. There is no way to retrieve the bodies of those washed out to sea through the large hole made by the Israeli torpedo that hit the Liberty amidships, killing 26 of the crew.
There is a way, however, to stop throwing salt in the survivors’ wounds, as every U.S. president since Lyndon Johnson has done in acquiescing to the false narrative that it was all a terrible case of mistaken identity and confusion by Israeli command and control. That salt burns – especially on anniversaries of the tragedy, raising troubling questions about the power of the Israel Lobby and the Israeli government over U.S. politicians.
Leaving the USS Liberty Crew Behind
Justifying the swap of Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bergdahl, President Obama cited a principle of never leaving U.S. soldiers behind, but that rule was violated in the shabby treatment of the USS Liberty crew, attacked 47 years ago by Israeli warplanes