Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Getting away with murder

June 7 2005

Getting away with murder

THE FIRST time Israel got away with murder of Americans was in 1967 when unmarked Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats launched a vicious attack on the USS Liberty, killing 34 US sailors and wounding 171.
As survivors of the June 8 attack prepare to mark its anniversary this week, reminders are stark of a series of incidents since then which have shown that American administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, have not been able to withstand Israel's influence in the corridors of power in Washington that has allowed the Jewish state to exploit the "strategic relationship" it has with the US for the last four decades.
These included theft and resale of American technology to rivals of the US, spying in America and using the information to benefit Israel as American expense and steering American policies in a direction that has worked against American interests and made enemies for the US as well as undertaking false flag operations designed to trigger American actions against Arabs and Muslims.
There are strong indications that Israel also played a key role in the Sept.11, 2001 attacks that were blamed on Osama Bin Laden and acted as a catalyst for American military action against Iraq and Afghanistan, with signs emerging of action being planned against Iran and Syria. All these actions have benefited and will benefit Israel at the expense of American-Arab/Muslim relations.
If no one in American politics is not talking about it, it is simply because of the immense clout Israel wields in the US. It is not an exaggeration to state that Israeli intelligence agencies possess enough and more information on American politicians that could be used anytime to pressure the victims into seeing things the Israeli way. In addition are the big shots in American economy who directly or indirectly control the US banking and media industries.
It has been well established that Israel had carried out the attack on the USS Liberty with a view to tricking the US into war with Egypt. No American was supposed to have survived the bombing of the communications and spying ship in the Red Sea.
It clearly fitted in with the Israeli motto: "By Way Of Deception Thou Shalt Do War."
There are many indications that Israel applied pressure in Washington in order to mask the truth in the Liberty episode. This started with the recall of two rescue teams of aircraft dispatched from the aircraft carriers America and Saratoga to aid the USS Liberty. Both were ordered to return to base before reaching the Liberty on direct orders of from the Lyndon B Johnson administration.
Congress has never launched an investigation into the attack and a military inquiry was told by the Johnson administration to conclude that it was a case of "mistaken identity" — never mind that the Liberty flew a huge stars and stripes on its deck and the ship was bristling with communication antennas, clearly indicating that it could not be an Arab vessel since no Arab country possessed such a ship.
So much for the Israeli argument that the attack was an accident and that the assailants thought they were attacking an Egyptian horse carrier ship. Never mind that horse carrier ships do not fly the US flag and have dish antennas all over them. Never mind that the attacks came after clearly marked Israeli aircraft flew over the ship several times to identify it before unmarked boats and planes attacked it. , Never mind why Israel used unmarked aircraft if it really thought the ship was Egyptian and a legitimate target in a situation of war.
American analysts have for long concluded that the use of unmarked boats and planes established that Israel intended to frame Egypt for the sinking to drag the US into the war on Israel's side.
More importantly, some of the Israelis who took part in the attack have told survivors years after the incident that they knew they were attacking an American ship.
In 1982, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and revealed that he had recognised the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.
Even today, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is refusing to release the daily briefings of Johnson at the time.
Legal motions and sworn declarations filed in federal court this week have refuted Bush administration claims that the CIA can never release the daily briefs given to Johnson in the 1960s because that would damage national security and violate presidential privilege. The fate of the case remain uncertain.
The CIA has filed a sworn declaration with the court claiming that every single word of the two specific briefs had to be kept secret because release would contribute to a "mosaic" of knowledge about sources and methods and violate presidential privilege. But it does not explain why 30 briefs or excerpts of briefs of the same period already have been publicly released without any harm.
The facts of the Liberty case are clear:
In 1967, Liberty was the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering ship of the US.
On June 8, at the height of the Arab-Israeli war, Liberty was in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula when it was attacked without warning by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats.
At 8am, eight Israeli reconnaissance flights flew over the ship, which was flying a large American flag. Six hours later, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks concentrated 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.
Twenty-five minutes later, , three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking and burning the ship. A torpedo hit the Liberty midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.
When crewmen lowered life rafts to rescue personnel and in preparation for abandoning ship if necessary, the torpedo boats machine-gunned the life rafts and crewmen.
The attacks lasted a little over two hours. During that time, Liberty's calls for help reached the US Sixth Fleet, despite Israeli jamming efforts, and the carriers Saratoga and America launched aircraft to assist the beleaguered vessel. But that help never arrived. The aircraft were recalled on direct orders from the White House.
Liberty was crippled, but it limped it to a neutral port, with 34 of its sailors dead and another 171, including its captain wounded.
Less than an hour after the attack, Israel told Washington its forces had committed a "tragic error" and claimed it had mistaken the Liberty for an ancient Egyptian horse transport. However, the then US secretary of state, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink the Liberty. Three different reports drawn up by the Central Intelligence Agency said that the then Israeli defence minister, Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack.
However, the White House overrode all such assertions and reports.
The Liberty's surviving crew members were told to remain silent about the attack and were warned that they could be court-martialled if they talked. They were not called to testify in a navy court of inquiry, and the US Congress never convened an investigation of the incident.
McGonagle, captain of the Liberty, was quietly awarded the Medal of Honour for his and his men's heroism, but it was not presented by the president at the White House — as was the custom — but at an obscure ceremony at a naval yard. The graves of the Liberty's crew member's were inscribed "Died in the Eastern Mediterranean" with no reference that they had given their lives in hostile action.
Why did the Israelis attack the ship?
Apart from its desire to involve the American in a war against Egypt, Israel had several other reasons to stage the attack. These included a fear that the US ship was intercepting Israeli military communications that indicated plans to seize and occupy the Golan Heights and also showed that Israeli agents were masquerading over the radio as Arab military commanders, including the late King Hussein of Jordan, and giving misleading instructions to their units.
Washington had warned Israel not to invade Syria, which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt. Israel's offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when the Liberty appeared off Sinai, but the planned action that led to the seizure of the Golan was carried out once the US ship was put out of action. Israel's claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by the Liberty, which could also have shown that Israel had exploited Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.
Why did Washington opted to cover up the incident, which is described as "America's worst shameful secret"?
Some say that Johnson preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party.
A member of the Johnson White House has said he believed that Johnson offered Jewish liberals unconditional backing of Israel, and a cover-up of the Liberty attack in exchange for the liberals toning down their strident criticism of his policies in the then raging Vietnam War.
But the issue is not dead. Survivors of the Israeli attack are striving to keep the flame alive, and, perhaps, at some point, it might come out without ambiguity that the US administration chose to stand by Israel than its own soldiers. However, the Liberty attack fades in signifiance when seen against what Israel had been doing with the US since then. Today, isn't it clear that the thousands of American soldiers who were killed and maimed in action in Iraq went down fighting a proxyy war for Israel?
And the US administration is continuing to cover up.