Trying to beat the odds and get your kid into an elite college? How about coming up with a couple of million to erect a building with your name on it? A reminder every time an admissions officer passes by that your kid is entitled to a special benefit — a merit-free admission. What’s that you say —not realistic for an ordinary millionaire. How about the route that at least thirty-three parents took? Pay a crooked operator to phony up a few academic or athletic credentials and punch your kid’s ticket to future fame and fortune. That’s not how it’s done in the U.S. plutocracy. Only the really rich get away with bribery (legalized); the rich, but not enormously so, get caught and the rest of us are stuck on the outside looking in. Want to know how hundreds of millions of dollars, preferably billions, unlock the gates to academia’s snootiest and most sought-after institutions? Read “Getting Into College the U.S. Way — Legal vs. Illegal Bribery in a Plutocracy.”
“When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (Sherlock Holmes) It took 42 years for one U.S. leader to speak out about Israel’s deliberate and murderous attack in 1967 on the USS Liberty costing 34 American lives. That voice was Admiral Thomas Moorer’s, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff— “a wanton, sneaky attack…they [Israelis] could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.” Which, of course, is exactly what the Johnson administration did. In this article, we explore the aftermath of the attack, the few brave souls willing to put careers and livelihoods on the line to speak truth to power and the gargantuan deception cooked up by the Israelis with lots of U.S. help that has kept the truth a deep, dark secret for over four decades. Even today, the Liberty’s fate remains hidden in plain sight. Woe to the U.S. truth tellers who expose other Israeli war crimes. We cover all that and more in “Murder on the High Seas: The Day Israel attacked America Part 2”
How’s this for the greatest act of treachery and deception in U.S. Naval history, arguably in all of American history perpetrated by none other than the President of the U.S. and his cronies with lots of help from the perp — Israel, aka “America’s best friend and ally.” For their collective war crimes, 34 young American seamen paid the ultimate price. Fifty-two years later, their deaths still go unacknowledged by a government under the spell of its “best friend.” For a stomach-turning description of the carnage Israel inflicted on the USS Liberty in 1967, there is no better source than Admiral Thomas Moorer, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (hardly the home of wide-eyed peaceniks) — “Unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on the USS Liberty bridge and fired 30mm cannons and rockets into the ship. Survivors estimate that 30 or more sorties were flown over the ship by a minimum of 12 attacking Israeli planes. The torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes but machine-gunning firefighters and stretcher-bearers… The Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine gun at close range three of the Liberty’s life rafts that had been lowered into the water…to rescue the most seriously wounded.” The aftermath was equally reprehensible. According to the Admiral, “[survivors were] … betrayed and left to die by our own government… rescue aircraft were recalled — not once, but twice —through direct intervention by the Johnson administration. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s cancellation of the Navy’s attempt to rescue the Liberty… was the most disgraceful act… I witnessed in my entire military career.” Read, if you can stomach it, “Murder on the High Seas: The Day Israel Attacked America” (Part 1 of 2) and mourn a country that after 52 years still refuses to honor the memory of 34 American lives cut way too short. Let the Liberty be a cautionary tale of a U.S. president and his minions willing to put the interests of another country above their own.
