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.
