from the sea. They flew recon flights for hours before, and they damn well knew that was an American ship. The US sailors repeatedly flew multiple US flags, including one extremely large one, as well as responded via radio dozens of times. Some of the Israeli speedboats were so close that the Americans could see the individual faces of the the Israelis without telescopes.
Democracy Now: The Loss of Liberty – Why Did the U.S. Allow Israel To Attack Its Largest Spyship Killing 34 Americans and Wounding Over 170 Others?
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/10/27/the_loss_of_liberty_why_did
USS Liberty Memorial web sites
http://www.gtr5.com/
http://www.uss-liberty.com/
http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/
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Chicago Tribune: New revelations in attack on American spy ship, Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,43090.story
Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.
"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger. Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War. For Lockwood and many other survivors, the anger is mixed with incredulity: that Israel would attack an important ally, then attribute the attack to a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the U.S. Navy's most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport that was half its size and had a dissimilar profile. And they're also incredulous that, for years, their own government would reject their calls for a thorough investigation.
"They tried to lie their way out of it!" Lockwood shouts. "I don't believe that for a minute! You just don't shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!" Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping. Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.
The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel's reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.
snip
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Ray McGovern, former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, LBJ’s personal intervention that stopped the Navy from responding to the Liberty distress call and the two most likely explanations for the attack: Israel’s desire to assault the Golan Heights without US foreknowledge and to cover up the execution of Egyptian prisoners of war.
MP3 here. (10:11)
http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_06_03_mcgovern.mp3 (right click, save as)
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Joe Meadors, former US Navy signalman and survivor of both the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and on the Gaza Peace Flotilla, describes the details of the Liberty assault, why they believe it was intentional, the recall of the USS Saratoga‘s fighters twice that day from assisting the Liberty on orders from Lyndon Johnson, the massive cover-up, why the Israelis were unable to sink the ship despite their best efforts, different theories on the Israeli’s motivations, his motive for participating in the Gaza Peace Flotilla, the violent, though not deadly, raid on the ship he was on, the mistreatment of the kidnapped while in Israeli custody, the murder of American Farouk Dogan and the American politicians’ silence.
MP3 here. (18:48)
http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_07_19_meadors.mp3
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