Israeli Conspiracy or Accident? USS LIBERTY

USS Liberty, yeah this was a bad idea wasn't it?

Behave in the comments, or don't I guess, not like you are going to read this one anyway.

I am more than prepared to now be labelled an antisemite and or a globalist.

References:
Batarseh, Yousef M. "The attack on the USS Liberty." PhD diss., California State University, Sacramento, 2011.

Ennes Jr, James M. "The USS Liberty: Israel Can't Seem to Get Its Story Straight." American-Arab Affairs 17 (1986): 16.

Gerhard, William D. Attack on the USS Liberty. Vol. 1. Aegean Park Press, 1981.

Laron, Guy. The Six Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East. Yale University Press, 2017.

Oren, Michael B. "The USS Liberty: Case Closed." Azure (Spring (2000).

Jacobsen, Walter L. "A Juridical Examination of the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty." Naval L. Rev. 36 (1986): 1.

Scott, James. The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a US Spy Ship. Simon and Schuster, 2009.

ST CLAIR, J. E. F. F. R. E. Y. "Infamy at Sea, Cover-Up in DC: Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty." CounterPunch (2023).

[farnow]

This won't make people mad whatsoever

[chrisbarnett]

I'll just save everyone the time and trouble: "You're a liar who supports genocide!" "No, you're a liar who supports genocide!". Glad we could that out of our system.

[joshcarter-com]

Can we be absolutely sure that the Russian Second Pacific Squadron didn’t sail through a The-Final-Countdown-style time warp and mistake the USS Liberty for a Japanese torpedo boat?

[TycoonTitian]

so from what I understand, it seems that the torpedo boat commander just really wanted to sink a ship that day

[free_at_last]

I like how Wikipedia calls it a "technical research ship." Technically, it was a ship conducting research.

[colindunnigan]

Now, see, if the US had taken a page from the Regia Marina of WW2 and painted huge horking diagonal red and white stripes on the deck there's no way the Israeli jets could have thought that the Liberty was an Egyptian ship. They would have thought it was a WW2 Italian one, but never mind that...

[No_Name_Lucas]

The ship I used to work on was involved in that incident! The USS Little Rock, her medical facilities were put to considerable use during that event.

[specialagent]

Wow, what an interesting topic that will surely result in an intelligent and civil comment section!

[cosmiccuttlefish]

2:23 I’ll have you know I was in the third group but, now I’m in the fourth group: here to watch people screaming at each other in the comments.

[EricT]

The comment here are mostly people commenting on comments being more toxic that they actually are.

[sirboomsalot]

1:08 Slight correction here; the SS Robert E. Peary, the Liberty ship that holds the construction record at 4 days and 15 hours, did not break in half and was ultimately scrapped in 1963 after a full war career which included participating in the Normandy invasion.

[mamarussellthepie]

*"I'M NOT NOT GETTING A KILL DURING THIS FUCKING WAR!!!1!1"* Crazy guy? 😮

[pgbrown]

Holy crap, dude. This guy just dances on these political land mines and I LOVE it.

[sniperfi]

You could make the argument the torpedo boat commander was overzealous and more focused on getting medals pinned on his chest. He already made his decision to attack the liberty and through his own incompetence or face saving, ignored his peers until those above him finally got a hold of him.

[Oddball_E]

"You're here for one of three reasons"

No, I'm here for the fourth reason: A History of Everything video must be watched unconditionally.

[toweringhorse]

“Israel wasn’t exactly conservative with what it was blowing up”

Seems like times haven’t changed

[williamm]

I first heard this tale in the service over thirty years after it occurred. A good friend of mine in the Marine Corps whose father was a sailor on board the USS Liberty relayed the events to us during training. His father PO White had manned a machine gun during initial attack on the ship, rushing to ready the M2 on a gun mount. Quite confused by the Israeli roundels on the mirages over head, he and others fired bursts at the offending aircraft even as they received withering cannon fire and even napalm hits. Burning his hands badly on the weapon’s barrel and receiver when he was forced to pick up the “ma deuce” after the air attack knocked the weapon from its mount, balancing it on the rail itself and without the aid of an assistant gunner, PO White laid down fire against the incoming surface attack until the surface vessels broke contact and the engagement ended. For his acts of bravery he was awarded the silver star. He never held a grudge against the Israelis for the incident that claimed the lives of several of his friends, “remember but forgive” were his words of advice on such things

[dhk]

Seems the only conspiracy was in the cover up.

[Brian_on_a_cross]

The other day i saw someone blame FDR for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour hopefully this comment section is more sane

[GusCraft]

I honestly think this is a case of glory chasing rather than trying to pull the US into the war. Why would the torpedo boat squad leader think that attacking a US ship would get the US to join his side of the war? An officer chasing glory seems far more plausible. I also think that he was in denial of the mounting evidence that the ship was a US vessel. I suspect that he believed that it was an enemy ship pretending to be American. Basically like tunnel vision. He got so focused on sinking the ship that he was tuning out the “distractions” which were actually evidence that it was a US ship. By now we’ve all seen how Israel fights its wars. It’s no secret that Israel is quite liberal with its use of explosive ordinance.