Gaza and The Loss of Civilization

[Tyger]

It's about solutions. For that to happen, the history much be understood.

I was just sent this link and thought I would share it here. I know there are some on this site who value dispassionately looking at issues. A really clear discussion of the Gazan situation is difficult in a media bound to adhere to a party-line. Consider that our own NY Times submits to Israeli censorship. It's very hard to get to the truth. We need to listen to those deep within the situation - Arab and Israeli alike - who yet have not been warped into hatred and group-think.

Speaking of what Israel is doing to the Gazans is not an either/or. For those interested in being informed - read the following link. There is a preamble, which I have not copied but should be read for context. I have copied the response, which gives an excellent overview of the history of this region, and a harrowing prognosis.

I think change can come because it must come. It will come with a re-thinking of what the US supports. As the author says, Israel long ago lost the moral high ground. This mess was created by the UN (and the US and Britain and etc.) when a religious state was created. It has to be solved now with all the same players plus now a 'grown-up' Israel and a Palestinian problem of epic proportions.

GAZA AND THE LOSS OF CIVILIZATION
LINK: David Byrne - Gaza and the Loss of Civilization

TEXT: "Dear Brian and friends,

I am writing to respond to your note about Gaza and how America is responding. It deserves a response. My feelings and the actual realities are complex on several levels; the realities of the Arab-Israeli history and conflicts, global politics and modern American history/demographics. All three levels interact to create the current situation. And to understand the US posture you have to consider the history. Let me say, that, as you know I am an immigrant and child of Holocaust survivors. I am culturally Jewish, but with no religious or spiritual inclinations, an atheist. And I believe that creating the Jewish state of Israel was a historic mistake that is likely to destroy the religion behind it. The actions nation states take to assure their survival are usually in contradiction to any moral values that a religion might espouse. And that contradiction is now very evident in Israel’s behavior. Israel will destroy Judaism.

First, the history has two important intersecting threads, Zionism and the end of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism began near the end of the nineteenth century as a response to a millennium of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. An end to the diaspora and a return to the biblical homeland were seen as the only hope of escaping the persistent repression of places like Hungary, the Ukraine, Russia, etc. The British government with its Balfour declaration (1917) and the League of Nations Palestine Mandate (1922) gave impetus to that hope. And of course WWII and the Holocaust sealed the deal. The murder of 6 million Jews was seen as sufficient reason to pursue a Jewish state and the UN granted that wish with the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab States in 1947. The seven Arab states declared war and urged the Palestinians to flee. After defeating the Arab armies Israel made it very hard for them to return. Hence we ended up with a large Palestinian refugee population.

Those Arab states themselves were the result of a combination of British/French artistry in drawing the maps of the post Ottoman world as well as the subsequent tribal military campaigns that left the Saudis in charge of the Arabian peninsula (vast oil wealth soon to be found) and the Hashemites driven up into Trans Jordan. Other than the war with Israel, the conflicts and rivalries among the various Arab and Persian factions have shaped Middle Eastern and North African politics ever since then.

Over the subsequent decades following the 1948 war there was a persistent Arab bombing campaign and two more large scale Arab attacks on Israel, 1967 and 1973. Until the mid seventies Israel was seen as having the moral high ground based on the holocaust and Arab behavior. But beginning with the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in the early 80s that moral position began to erode. Israel’s behavior in Lebanon was the first major example of aggressive action and attacks against vulnerable populations. Israel began to develop a more right wing and aggressive political faction of which Netanyahu is the worst current example. The settlements in Arab territory in the West Bank are the direct result of that evolution. (And of course the mass migration of the 1990s mainly from Russia) Suicide bombings and missile attacks were the Arab response. Walling themselves in was yet another ironic Israeli response. Today’s horrors are a continuing extension of those conflicts following a cease-fire of a few years.

Once Israel declared itself a Jewish state in 1948 the Palestinians had only three options; accept a division of the land into two states, accept being second-class citizens in the Israeli state or perpetual conflict because they could not win. The Arab states chose the third option because it is in their interest to maintain unity against their common enemy, Israel. They could even share a common enemy with the hated Persian Shiites in Iran. So rather than helping the Palestinians develop by investing in education, health care, jobs, infrastructure etc. the Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia help keep them poor but well armed. Palestinian refugees would remain a festering sore in the Middle East to remind the world of Israel’s perfidy. And of course any aid that did come ended up in corrupt pockets not in helping development. The obvious counter example was Jordan, which developed itself, with little help from their Arab brethren and eventually made grudging peace with Israel. The difference in Jordan was good Arab leadership that recognized that Israel was not going way and war forever was not a good development policy.

At the geopolitical level several threads played out. The UN became a place where the Israel and Arab conflicts became a symbolic pawn in the Cold War, especially in the Security Council with the US on the Israeli side and the USSR on the Arab side (with exceptions i.e. the Saudis). That hardened the US position and associated in American minds Israel with our side and the Arabs with the other guys.

Even though I have no support for the Israeli position I find the opposition to Israel questionable in its failure to be similarly outraged by a vast number of other moral horrors in the recent past and currently active. Just to name a few; Cambodia, Tibet, Sudan, Somalia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentina, Liberia, Central African Republic, Uganda, North Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Venezuela, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Zimbabwe and especially right now Nigeria. The Arab Spring ,which has become a dark winter for most Arabs and the large scale slaughter now underway along the borders of Iraq and Syria are good examples of what they do to themselves. And our nations, the US, the Brits, the Dutch, the Russians and the French have all played their parts in these other moral outrages. The gruesome body count and social destruction left behind dwarfs anything that the Israelis have done. The only difference with the Israeli’s is their claim to a moral high ground, which they long ago left behind in the refugee camps of Lebanon. They are now just a nation, like any other, trying to survive in a hostile sea of hate.

We should be clear, that given the opportunity, the Arabs would drive the Jews into the sea and that was true from day one. There was no way back from war once a religious state was declared. So Israel, once committed to a nation state in that location and granted that right by other nations have had no choice but to fight. In my view therefore, neither side has any shred of moral standing left, nor have the nations that supported both sides.

So now let’s at look at why the US behaves as it does with a nearly uncritical support of Israel. You are right to criticize our media in so many ways, but that only makes things worse it does not really explain why. They are simply doing what they think their audiences want to hear. And they are mostly right.

Part of it has to do with post war American evolution and perceptions of Israel and the Arabs. When I was a boy in the fifties, through my teenage years anti-Semitism was still common in America. If you were Jewish you did not go to work for IBM or GE. You did not join the Navy. You did not go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I could not play tennis at my local country club. I regularly heard derisive, anti-Semitic comments from some of my classmates. But by the mid sixties along with the civil rights movement, toleration in general increased and anti-Semitism declined, almost vanishing. Support of Israel was part of that tolerance and was seen as a noble response to the Holocaust. The Arabs were seen as the oppressors and enemies of the US. That perception was given particular impetus by the oil embargo of 1973 and of course the Iranian revolution, even though it was Persians not Arabs, because Americans don’t see that distinction. (We should never forget that we have a Republican dominated Congress, half of whom do not own a Passport and see ignorance as a virtue.) The Israelis were seen as innovative and benign, people who made the desert bloom. To this was added the growing and ironic support from the US religious right who saw the route to salvation as the Israeli defeat of the Arabs leading to a second coming of Christ. (Of course, we Jews would have to convert to Christianity to survive the second coming.) 9-11 amplified the American antipathy to the Arab world. Seeing the delight throughout the Arab world at the fall of the twin towers did not endear the Arabs to the American people. We can add Saddam, Khaddafi and Osama Bin Laden to the pantheon of iconic American villains. The UN is no longer seen as legitimate and almost always acting against US interests.

So my generation and most of today’s American leadership grew up with the Israeli’s as heroic good guys and Arabs/Persians as greedy bad guys. The younger generation, my son Ben’s age (24) have a much more balanced view. Israel’s behavior in their youth, the last two decades, has destroyed whatever moral standing the Israeli’s had with them. In addition the pro Israeli lobby in America has been very effective in the political arena and their Arab counterparts have been counter productive. So our leaders who group up with noble Israel and evil Arabs and supported by Jewish political contributions are unequivocally pro Israeli while young people are more divided as is at least some of the Jewish community. Eventually demography will win out as a new more skeptical generation comes to power, a generation for whom Israel will not carry the same moral weight as it did for their parents.

I don’t think there is any honor to go around here. Israel has lost its way and commits horrors in the interest of their own survival. And the Arabs and Persians perpetuate a conflict ridden neighborhood with almost no exceptions, fighting against each other and with hate of Israel the only thing that they share.

It is also worth noting that the largest Muslim populations are not Arab and the largest, Indonesia is fairly peaceful. So it is not about religion. The Arabs have been engaged in tribal conflicts for centuries that have been from time to time quelled by Imperial powers like the Ottomans and strong men like Saddam and Ibn Saud. And in those wars they have committed horrors on their own people. Observe the genocidal destruction of Homs by Hafez Assad just to point to a recent example. The Zionists brought another tribe to the war. It is of course a tribe that is also divided, like the Arabs, in to factions, some of which are fanatical and war like and others more moderate. The comments about the racism of the Zionists are fair, but the Arab world does not lack for similar attitudes. One need only see how the vast number of South Asian, Philippine and African near slaves are treated even in the more benign countries like the UAE.

So given that history and current reality and even though I believe the creation of Israel was an historic disaster, I am a member of the tribe, (perhaps its more pacifist, atheist wing) I find objectionable the unique singling out of Israel for condemnation. So if we are prepared to boycott, condemn, shame, etc, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Iranians, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Russians, the Nigerians, the Taliban, the Venezuelans, the Zimbabweans, the Sudanese, the south Sudanese, the Central African Republicans, and lets not forget the Americans and the British, all of whom are as guilty as Israel, then I will join the demonstration. (Two small things that might help would be if the rich Arab states provided some funding and development assistance for the Palestinians and if the Palestinian government didn’t steal all the aid.)

We find ourselves at an historic impasse. There is no way back. Israel will do whatever it takes to survive. They will not leave. And the Arab identity has become opposition to Israel. It will be centuries, if ever, before they accept the existence of Israel. So both sides will always rightly feel threatened. There will be no other state there but perpetual tribal war with an occasional truce. And in that perpetual state of tribal war there be ample opportunity for horrors on both sides. We can only hope to lower the level of violence, but true peace will remain illusive.

Peter Schwartz

 

[manxman]

No doubt our 2 new zio-trolls will be along shortly, spewing forth their racist garbage, looks like this rabit hole will be keepin you busy a lil while, but you will get as much sense out of them, as other americans have when questioning zio-trolls about their murdering of 34 US seamen, aboard USS Liberty in international waters, a sustained 2 hour attack on her, left her a burnt out shell, whilst the seamen were butchered by Israeli machine gun fire from torpedo boats the ISRAELI's had painted up with Jordanian insignia, when are Amricans going to wake up to the fact that their pet is vicious little bastard that needs put-down.

Liberty is simple to explain, Johnston had personally assured Siria/Egypt that Israel would not attack them, he brokered a cease-fire, and sent USS Liberty [the worlds most advanced eaves-dropping platform] to make sure, the israeli's tried to sink her for hours whilst jamming all her signalling, and at the same time took out Siria's airforce totally, whilst it was still on the tarmac stood-down because of the cease-fire.

[one Israeli pilot refused point blank his orders to fire on her, he was jailed for 3 years, he could clearly see all the liberties insignia and flags, he ended up living in america, and wrote a book about it, ]

oh and by the by, they would have sunk her theres no doubt, and murdered everyone aboard, thats how it was supposed to go down, it was the Russian Destroyer 626/4 that steamed in and stuck by her until US forces were allowed to approach about seventeen hours later, but you will only get the Russian bit from survivors.


quote
The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as 'murderous bastards.' It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident.




Sheesh another rabbit hole for you.

 

[Tyger]

[one Israeli pilot refused point blank his orders to fire on her, he was jailed for 3 years, he could clearly see all the liberties insignia and flags, he ended up living in america, and wrote a book about it, ]

This says it all. So much to say - your post is great, Manxman.

Will comment later - busy day ahead. Ciao.

 

[Constance]

. . . oh and by the by, they would have sunk her theres no doubt, and murdered everyone aboard, thats how it was supposed to go down, it was the Russian Destroyer 626/4 that steamed in and stuck by her until US forces were allowed to approach about seventeen hours later, but you will only get the Russian bit from survivors.

I've read about the USS Liberty outrage but I've never heard this part. Words fail me.

 

[manxman]

This fella.

John Hrankowski

It was 2 destroyers, only one sat close enough to get the number, the other sat on the horizon, stood by incase Liberty started sinking, sorry it's been awhile, was going of memory and one old 'favorites' now duff link.

You havent heard it, cos they are'nt allowed to talk about it, it was cold war season, but old men who get angry lose any fear, and say it how was.

and a quote.

"If it was an accident, it was the best planned accident I've ever heard of" - USS Liberty survivor


This sums it up really, bearing in mind Mr Moorer could'nt of been any more descriptive, kept things simple.

Admiral Thomas Moorer
Former Chief of Naval Operations
and
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff


MEMORANDUM:

From: Admiral Thomas H. Moorer

Subject: Attack on the USS Liberty June 8, 1967

Date: June 8, 1997

I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. I have flown over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thousands of hours, searching for ships and identifying all types of ships at sea. The Liberty was the ugliest, strangest looking ship in the U.S. Navy. As a communications intelligence ship, it was sprouting every kind of antenna. It looked like a lobster with all those projections moving every which way.

Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American. After all, the Liberty's American flag and markings were in full view in perfect visibility for the Israeli aircraft that overflew the ship eight times over a period of nearly eight hours prior to the attack. I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move. I think they realized that if we learned in advance of their plan, there would be a tremendous amount of negotiating between Tel Aviv and Washington.

And I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information the USS Liberty. The result was a wanton sneak attack that left 34 American sailors dead and 171 seriously injured. What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.

I have to conclude that it was Israel's intent to sink the Liberty and leave as few survivors as possible. Up to the point where the torpedo boats were sent in, you could speculate on that point. You have to remember that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, not a fighting ship, and its only defensive weapons were a pair of 50-caliber machine guns both aft and on the forecastle. There was little the men could do to fight off the air assault from Israeli jets that pounded the Liberty with bombs, rockets, napalm and machine gun fire for 25 minutes.

With the Liberty riddled with holes, fires burning, and scores of casualties, three Israeli torpedo boats closed in for the kill. The second of three torpedoes ripped through a compartment at amidships, drowning 25 of the men in that section. Then the torpedo boats closed to within 100 feet of the Liberty to continue the attack with cannons and machine guns, resulting in further casualties. It is telling, with respect to whether total annihilation was the intent, that the Liberty crew has reported that the torpedo boats' machine guns also were turned on life rafts that were deployed into the Mediterranean as well as those few on deck that had escaped damage.

As we know now, if the rescue aircraft from U.S. carriers had not been recalled, they would have arrived at the Liberty before the torpedo attack, reducing the death toll by 25.
The torpedo boat commanders could not be certain that Sixth Fleet aircraft were not on the way and this might have led to their breaking off the attack after 40 minutes rather than remaining to send the Liberty and its crew of 294 to the bottom.

or 2 russian destroyers steaming over the horizon

Congress to this day has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace. I spent hours on the Hill giving testimony after the USS Pueblo, a sister ship to the Liberty, was seized by North Korea. I was asked every imaginable question, including why a carrier in the area failed to dispatch aircraft to aid the Pueblo. In the Liberty case, fighters were put in the air not once, but twice. They were ordered to stand down by Secretary of Defense McNamara and President Johnson for reasons the American public deserves to know.

The captain and crew of the Liberty, rather than being widely acclaimed as the heroes they most certainly are, have been silenced, ignored, honored belatedly and away from the cameras, and denied a history that accurately reflects their ordeal.

I was appalled that six of the dead from the Liberty lay under a tombstone at Arlington Cemetery that described them as having "died in the eastern Mediterranean," as if disease rather than Israeli intent had caused their deaths.

The Naval Academy failed to record the name of Lt. Stephen Toth in Memorial Hall on the grounds that he had not been killed in battle. I intervened and was able to reverse the apparent idea that dying in a cowardly, one-sided attack by a supposed ally is somehow not the same as being killed by an avowed enemy.

Commander McGonagle's story is the stuff of naval tradition. Badly wounded in the first air attack, lying on the deck and losing blood, he refused any treatment that would take him from his battle station on the bridge. He continued to direct the ship's defense, the control of flooding and fire, and by his own example inspired the survivors to heroic efforts to save the ship. He did not relinquish his post until hours later, after having directed the crippled ship's navigation to a rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer and final arrival in Malta.

I must have gone to the White House 15 times or more to watch the President personally award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Americans of special valor. So it irked the hell out of me when McGonagle's ceremony was relegated to the obscurity of the Washington Navy Yard and the medal was presented by the Secretary of the Navy. This was a back-handed slap. Everyone else received their medal at the White House. President Johnson must have been concerned about the reaction of the Israeli lobby.

The Liberty Veterans Association deserves the encouragement of everyone who wants the facts of the Liberty incident revealed and proper homage paid to the men who lost their lives, to their families, and to the survivors. I have attended many of their reunions and am always impressed with the cohesion of the Liberty family. They arrive in town with their whole entourage grandmas, grandpas, grandchildren. They promote the memory of the boys who were killed and I respect them for that. They are mostly from small country towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew up, and they represent the basic core of America that has enabled us to be a superpower for so long. These are the kind of people who will make certain that our Liberty and freedom survive if fighting is what it takes.

Admiral Thomas Moorer Rejects Israeli's Excuse


And just so theres no doubt about the cover-up starting as Liberty was under attack.

Cover-Up Alleged in Probe of USS Liberty

A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident.

In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt. Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

It was “one of the classic all-American cover-ups,” said retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.

Torpedo hole in USS Liberty
“Why would our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own?” Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack.

Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate.

Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized 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.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.

The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.

The USS Liberty Cover-Up


See how they could have produced the 'lead pilot' before congress, baffle's the mind how cover-ups in america just remain 'open secret's'.

 

[Tyger]

Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized 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.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.

The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.

The USS Liberty Cover-Up

See how they could have produced the 'lead pilot' before congress, baffle's the mind how cover-ups in america just remain 'open secret's'.

I had not been aware of all this.

This is what we are hearing from former Israelis soldiers who have made the decision to join peace movements. The consequences of speaking truth to power, of bucking the Israelis government, are not inconsequential nor tolerated.

It is interesting that the news of the captured Israeli soldier recently - which was used to justify breaking the cease-fire - was nearly at once censored. We then find out that no such thing occurred. I think that they discovered the soldier was alive and not in enemy hands. They were in a bind. It would be interesting to know just how that soldier really died. We will never know, of course.

 

[Fedora Chronicles]

This isn’t just about Gaza and the loss of civilization but the loss of civilization everywhere… It’s a part of the human condition. It’s not just Israel and the Islamic world, it’s the rivalry between China and Japan (that has cool down a bit for the past few decades but could erupt over anything like Thailand) It’s Ireland VS Northern Ireland VS England, it’s German VS. France or Germany VS Russia… It’s Yankee VS Red Sox fans…

Human history is full of endless rivalries without end. The problem we face now is the proliferation of atomic weapons and falling into the hands of zealots who want to prove their mythology of their own god is right and they’re willing to kill a few million just to make a point.

look at what’s going on everywhere and the amount of venom between two people who vehemently don’t agree on. Best example I can see is on a lot of the forums around the internet – people are willing to ruin relationships and actually threaten people for posting thoughts and ideas that differ from them. If you’re not on board with

Fine example is a costuming – I like to collect parts of movie costumes like fedoras, jackets, and other accessories. I was a part of a forum about one specific costume and when things got slow one staff member would just make up stuff to make himself more important than he really was. He would lie about having lunch with “Bruce” to talk about The Die Hard movies, Steven and George about the Genre project they were working on… and that everything the actual costume director said about this costume item were wrong but everything HE said was right.

If you wanted to continue to be a member of this group you had to except his lies for truth. You had to “admit” that you believed his lies and if you challenged him in public you would become the whipping boy of the week.

I didn’t go to these jacket discussions since I already had one and if I wanted another I knew where to go… the actual guy who actually made the real jacket, not some knock-off. When I posted I shared my actual trips. I would actually go to places where I heard of there being paranormal sightings. I shared this one experience of stumbling upon a satanic ritutal in Sterling Ma and the same guy who was making up bunk about jackets said I was lying about that experience.

Followers of this guy’s jacket cult jumped in. People who weren’t there and didn’t even know me at the time insisted that they “KNEW” my experience didn’t happen.

When the Jacket King was outed as a liar by his own fake, doctored photoshoped pix and every lie he told since 2004 unraveled there was this huge epiphany about cults within groups and how someone with “the facts” can manipulate people into buying bogus products, giving all their money to charismatic leaders, or drinking the Kool-Aid. What are you willing to do over stupid “facts” about something as stupid as the accuracy of a jacket? Are you willing to threaten people who don’t believe your make-believe truth?

Suddenly people started to think about the people they went after because they were out to protect their leader. If he lied, and he said other lies, than does that mean that other people told the truth.

Some people continued to believe the lies despite the evidence that was in their face because it’s too painful for weaker people to admit they were wrong. Troops, that was over a jacket! Imagine if it was about who’s moon god is more powerful or more true?

If these characters were willing to call others in the middle of the night and say “Because you don’t believe in the truth about the jacket… I’m gonna kill your family” imagine what would have happened if their leader said he was a god or the son of a god. Some of this bunk is perpetuated to this day.

What if the argument over Roswell continues for the next few hundred years, and the museums become churches, and the mythology of Roswell becomes a religion about celestial beings coming to Earth only to have primitive man take them and their craft and steal their secrets. Could a holy war erupt over whose truth is more true by what we’re debating now? When stories and myths become religion and someone says “we must slay the non-believers” that’s when things get really ugly fast.

What we’re seeing in Israel is the clash of two mythologies that might have gotten out of hand.

 

[Tyger]

Human history is full of endless rivalries without end. The problem we face now is the proliferation of atomic weapons and falling into the hands of zealots who want to prove their mythology of their own god is right and they’re willing to kill a few million just to make a point.

Exactly so. If one has suicide bombers - anything goes for some fanatics.

 

[Constance]

This fella.

John Hrankowski

It was 2 destroyers, only one sat close enough to get the number, the other sat on the horizon, stood by incase Liberty started sinking, sorry it's been awhile, was going of memory and one old 'favorites' now duff link.

You havent heard it, cos they are'nt allowed to talk about it, it was cold war season, but old men who get angry lose any fear, and say it how was.

and a quote.

"If it was an accident, it was the best planned accident I've ever heard of" - USS Liberty survivor


This sums it up really, bearing in mind Mr Moorer could'nt of been any more descriptive, kept things simple.

Admiral Thomas Moorer
Former Chief of Naval Operations
and
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff


MEMORANDUM:

From: Admiral Thomas H. Moorer

Subject: Attack on the USS Liberty June 8, 1967

Date: June 8, 1997

I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. I have flown over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thousands of hours, searching for ships and identifying all types of ships at sea. The Liberty was the ugliest, strangest looking ship in the U.S. Navy. As a communications intelligence ship, it was sprouting every kind of antenna. It looked like a lobster with all those projections moving every which way.

Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American. After all, the Liberty's American flag and markings were in full view in perfect visibility for the Israeli aircraft that overflew the ship eight times over a period of nearly eight hours prior to the attack. I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move. I think they realized that if we learned in advance of their plan, there would be a tremendous amount of negotiating between Tel Aviv and Washington.

And I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information the USS Liberty. The result was a wanton sneak attack that left 34 American sailors dead and 171 seriously injured. What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.

I have to conclude that it was Israel's intent to sink the Liberty and leave as few survivors as possible. Up to the point where the torpedo boats were sent in, you could speculate on that point. You have to remember that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, not a fighting ship, and its only defensive weapons were a pair of 50-caliber machine guns both aft and on the forecastle. There was little the men could do to fight off the air assault from Israeli jets that pounded the Liberty with bombs, rockets, napalm and machine gun fire for 25 minutes.

With the Liberty riddled with holes, fires burning, and scores of casualties, three Israeli torpedo boats closed in for the kill. The second of three torpedoes ripped through a compartment at amidships, drowning 25 of the men in that section. Then the torpedo boats closed to within 100 feet of the Liberty to continue the attack with cannons and machine guns, resulting in further casualties. It is telling, with respect to whether total annihilation was the intent, that the Liberty crew has reported that the torpedo boats' machine guns also were turned on life rafts that were deployed into the Mediterranean as well as those few on deck that had escaped damage.

As we know now, if the rescue aircraft from U.S. carriers had not been recalled, they would have arrived at the Liberty before the torpedo attack, reducing the death toll by 25.
The torpedo boat commanders could not be certain that Sixth Fleet aircraft were not on the way and this might have led to their breaking off the attack after 40 minutes rather than remaining to send the Liberty and its crew of 294 to the bottom.

or 2 russian destroyers steaming over the horizon

Congress to this day has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace. I spent hours on the Hill giving testimony after the USS Pueblo, a sister ship to the Liberty, was seized by North Korea. I was asked every imaginable question, including why a carrier in the area failed to dispatch aircraft to aid the Pueblo. In the Liberty case, fighters were put in the air not once, but twice. They were ordered to stand down by Secretary of Defense McNamara and President Johnson for reasons the American public deserves to know.

The captain and crew of the Liberty, rather than being widely acclaimed as the heroes they most certainly are, have been silenced, ignored, honored belatedly and away from the cameras, and denied a history that accurately reflects their ordeal.

I was appalled that six of the dead from the Liberty lay under a tombstone at Arlington Cemetery that described them as having "died in the eastern Mediterranean," as if disease rather than Israeli intent had caused their deaths.

The Naval Academy failed to record the name of Lt. Stephen Toth in Memorial Hall on the grounds that he had not been killed in battle. I intervened and was able to reverse the apparent idea that dying in a cowardly, one-sided attack by a supposed ally is somehow not the same as being killed by an avowed enemy.

Commander McGonagle's story is the stuff of naval tradition. Badly wounded in the first air attack, lying on the deck and losing blood, he refused any treatment that would take him from his battle station on the bridge. He continued to direct the ship's defense, the control of flooding and fire, and by his own example inspired the survivors to heroic efforts to save the ship. He did not relinquish his post until hours later, after having directed the crippled ship's navigation to a rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer and final arrival in Malta.

I must have gone to the White House 15 times or more to watch the President personally award the Congressional Medal of Honor to Americans of special valor. So it irked the hell out of me when McGonagle's ceremony was relegated to the obscurity of the Washington Navy Yard and the medal was presented by the Secretary of the Navy. This was a back-handed slap. Everyone else received their medal at the White House. President Johnson must have been concerned about the reaction of the Israeli lobby.

The Liberty Veterans Association deserves the encouragement of everyone who wants the facts of the Liberty incident revealed and proper homage paid to the men who lost their lives, to their families, and to the survivors. I have attended many of their reunions and am always impressed with the cohesion of the Liberty family. They arrive in town with their whole entourage grandmas, grandpas, grandchildren. They promote the memory of the boys who were killed and I respect them for that. They are mostly from small country towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew up, and they represent the basic core of America that has enabled us to be a superpower for so long. These are the kind of people who will make certain that our Liberty and freedom survive if fighting is what it takes.

Admiral Thomas Moorer Rejects Israeli's Excuse


And just so theres no doubt about the cover-up starting as Liberty was under attack.

Cover-Up Alleged in Probe of USS Liberty

A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident.

In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt. Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

It was “one of the classic all-American cover-ups,” said retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.

Torpedo hole in USS Liberty
“Why would our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own?” Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack.

Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate.

Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized 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.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.

The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.

The USS Liberty Cover-Up


See how they could have produced the 'lead pilot' before congress, baffle's the mind how cover-ups in america just remain 'open secret's'.

Thank you, Manxman, for providing further details about this outrage. Each is more appalling and nauseating than the last. For example, this (which I also had not known about), from Admiral Moorer's letter:

Congress to this day has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace. I spent hours on the Hill giving testimony after the USS Pueblo, a sister ship to the Liberty, was seized by North Korea. I was asked every imaginable question, including why a carrier in the area failed to dispatch aircraft to aid the Pueblo. In the Liberty case, fighters were put in the air not once, but twice. They were ordered to stand down by Secretary of Defense McNamara and President Johnson for reasons the American public deserves to know.

And this one:

Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized 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.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.

The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.

What power does Israel hold over the elected government of the US that would prevent members of the US Congress from demanding open hearings on the Liberty atrocity? I cannot imagine what it could be. Of course it's equally possible that this country's elected representatives avoid disclosing all this because, if generally known, it would surely reduce the numbers of young men and women in this country who voluntarily join its military services. I think the net effects of such a disclosure could go a lot farther than that, in fact, to the displacement of the political parties in power. We need a People's Court in this country to deal with 'leaders' such as Johnson and McNamara, Bush and Cheney and their cohorts, and others before them. Even if it comes after the fact of their betrayals of trust and human values, even when they're dead and gone, this country as a whole needs a major cleansing that can only come with recognizing, in the full light of public scrutiny, what has been done in our name.

 

[Tyger]

What power does Israel hold over the elected government of the US that would prevent members of the US Congress from demanding open hearings on the Liberty atrocity? I cannot imagine what it could be. Of course it's equally possible that this country's elected representatives avoid disclosing all this because, if generally known, it would surely reduce the numbers of young men and women in this country who voluntarily join the military services of this country. I think the net effects of such a disclosure could go a lot farther than that, in fact, to the displacement of the political parties in power. We need a People's Court in this country to deal with 'leaders' such as Johnson and McNamara, Bush and Cheney and their cohorts, and others before them. Even if it comes after the fact of their betrayals of trust and human values, even when they're dead and gone, this country as a whole needs a major cleansing that can only come with recognizing, in the full light of public scrutiny, what has been done in our name.

I have the same question: what is going on here? I know that for decades the accuastion of anti-semitism was a constant directed at anyone who might mention the plight of the Palestinian refugees. One was either for Israel or one was anti-semitic. Criticism was strangled. Israel had free reign.

I agree 100%. We have to make those who are chosen to govern accountable. It needs to end. The obscene amount of our treasure going to support global violence, it has to end.

P.S. The answer has always been - oil, money, a foothold in a region where our greed says we have 'national interests'.

 

[Constance]

All true, Tyger. Those answers you cite -- "oil, money, a foothold in a region where our greed says we have 'national interests'" -- are no answers at all, except for a people that has been broadly brainwashed with 'patriotic' slogans and soundbites. Americans as a whole don't read enough or think enough to come to the issues of our time and our government's reckless and immoral behavior in the rest of the world to be able to sort it out critically.

 

[mike]

It's about solutions. For that to happen, the history must be understood.

And its pretty simple to understand.

In the 7th century some child raping , illiterate numb nut declared a certain geno type to be descended from apes and pigs (contrary to modern evolutionary science)

And here centurys later this ideology is still at the core of a superstition practised by ignorant idiots.


There is indeed a good case that Islam is a crime against humanity.


This superstition is anti life, kill all the infidels, and get rewarded for dying in the process.

They do not value life, they value death. The death of the infidel and the martyr alike is pleasing to their magic sky man.

Please do enlighten us as to the solution to this sickening bullshit ?

Lots of people in Iraq want to know the answer as they flee their date with a beheading.

"Violates the human rights of half the people on the planet, and doubles as a political ideology indistinguishable from nazi-ism. It would be funny if it wasnt so obscene.....