Our Partners in Peace

May 30, 2012 12:17 PM

On June 8th, 1967 the USS Liberty (AGTR-5), was on a routine patrol. It's something we don't talk about in America.

Thirty four men dead. One hundred and seventy something wounded.

Their Skipper was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor

The crew heard, and recorded the sounds of a massacre. full on, line em up next to a ditch and shoot them in the head Holocaust.

Then when they realized we were listening, they came in with Mirage fighters, and opened fire on a ship flying an American flag.

They say it was just a mistake.

Oops.

posted by timsteil (38 comments total)

Surely US nationals know about this? It's got to be relatively famous, I've heard about it in the UK.
posted by jaduncan at 12:22 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's something we don't talk about in America.

Yeah, please don't speak for all of us.
posted by HumanComplex at 12:23 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Hmm, I grew up in an active US military household and I have never heard of this. Crazy.
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2012

Same on both accounts for me as well, Doleful.
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:25 PM on May 30, 2012

You'd be surprised, jaduncan. Most American's would assume that any country who sank a US naval ship in Cold blood would have suffered some kind of consequences--whether a military response or at least a serious reexamination of US military aid to the nation. But in this case, there was no press outrage, and so, there was no popular outrage. So it goes.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:25 PM on May 30, 2012

Jaduncan, just for the record...I was raised in a heavily military area (surrounded by multiple bases from multiple branches, at least half my school aged friends were from military families, many Navy) and had a strong personal focus on U.S. history during middle and high school. It's been my experience that almost nobody in the U.S. is ever taught about this incident at anywhere below the college level and VERY seldom even there. I discovered it myself on Wikipedia only a few years ago. Whenever I've brought it up in conversation, at least one person has claimed it can't possibly have happened or even goes so far as to say I'm being anti-semetic by bringing it up.
posted by trackofalljades at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

There's a pretty detailed account of the atack on the USS Liberty in James Bamford's book about the NSA, Body of Secrets.

.
posted by mosk at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Most of us don't. I certainly didn't know that they had recorded the IDF's execution of unarmed prisoners.
posted by Jon_Evil at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

The Oops link starting off with "Due to the fact that the entire mainstream media (MSM) is owned by the Israeli zionists..." does not comfort me as to credibility.
posted by bitmage at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2012 [14 favorites]

(oops--americans. stupid pinky finger.)
posted by saulgoodman at 12:27 PM on May 30, 2012

Well, I had never heard of this, and now I'm going to spend some time reading about it. I don't have the impression it's a very well-known event in the US - I don't recall hearing anything about it in the course of my undergrad history degree.
posted by brennen at 12:28 PM on May 30, 2012

Non-military but lifelong US citizen: I've seen it alluded to a number of times, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of those were from MeFi. Don't recall ever hearing about it outside the internet.
posted by glhaynes at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2012

(oops--americans. stupid pinky finger.)

You don't happen to work for the Romney campaign do you?

sorry ;)
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Lifelong US citizen, raised in a military household: Never heard of this, surprised by absolutely no detail of it.
posted by kafziel at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2012

Have they released the USS Liberty recordinggs of the massacre? I'm not finding it.
posted by francesca too at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hear about this regularly as it's something that's constantly being brought up as something that no one knows about. Not sure how all the rest of you were still in the dark.
posted by andoatnp at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2012

The Oops link starting off with "Due to the fact that the entire mainstream media (MSM) is owned by the Israeli zionists..." does not comfort me as to credibility.
posted by bitmage at 12:27 PM

That's my bad. It looked interesting, and quite honestly I went to take a leak right after I clicked, came back, and it looked OK. I didn't hear that first part. And yes I will toss the bullshit flag on that. Please ignore that link, and my lack of due diligence.
posted by timsteil at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2012

Well, I had never heard of this, and now I'm going to spend some time reading about it.

Please do some independent research. This FPP offers a highly one-sided, editorialized account of the incident.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2012

I, on the other hand, am baffled that no one seems to have heard about this. I learned about it in a "History of Israel" module in Hebrew school, of all places.
posted by elizardbits at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2012

Also, "Holocaust"?

Does that word have some other meaning that I'm not familiar with?
posted by andoatnp at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

Rumors of a POW massacre in El Arish have circulated pretty much as soon as the guns died down.

Except, guess what: that is not what happened.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=66&x_article=1291
posted by ocschwar at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have heard about this. I think James Bamforth might have mentioned it in his book "Body of Secrets." I would not expect Americans to know of this incident.
posted by Jurbano at 12:35 PM on May 30, 2012

I hear about this regularly as it's something that's constantly being brought up as something that no one knows about. Not sure how all the rest of you were still in the dark.

I'm not a rocket scientist or anything, so take this with a grain of salt, but maybe that's why you were always hearing it brought up as something people don't know much about? Because most people actually don't? Just a crazy theory.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:35 PM on May 30, 2012

And perhaps tim steil can enlighten us about how often the US Navy goes on "routine patrols" right into an area where two countries are at all out war with each other?
posted by ocschwar at 12:35 PM on May 30, 2012

full on, line em up next to a ditch and shoot them in the head Holocaust.

For God's sake, timsteil. Why do you feel the need to do this? That word does not appear anywhere in the article you linked to.
posted by clockzero at 12:36 PM on May 30, 2012 [6 favorites]

I thought the Bamford summary in Body of Secrets, mentioned by mosk above, was good.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 12:36 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

My first thought upon beginning to read this post was it was going to be another version of the lighthouse and aircraft carrier story. Even so, I always apply the principle of Do Not Mistake Conspiracy For What Can Be Explained By Stupidity to things like this.

The unlinked Wikipedia article as much more info.
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:36 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

The declassified recordings themselves are available here on the NSA's site, BTW, to the commenter upthread who asked.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:37 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeeesh, co-opting the Holocaust AND linking to a weird Zionist-y conspiracy nut? Yeah, a post on this topic would be interesting, but maybe rethink this one a touch.
posted by lazaruslong at 12:37 PM on May 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'd love to know more about this, but all of the Jewish shadow government conspiracy bullshit is a bit hard to swallow, and the framing is incoherent.

I'm as critical of the state of Israel as anyone, but this here is a mess.
posted by Stagger Lee at 12:38 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

The USS Liberty incident is one I'm reasonably familiar with -- but it is almost entirely due to my continuing self-education. I didn't hear about it in HS or in College (though I didn't major in History, so it's not unreasonable).

It also deserved a lot more coverage and awareness than it's gotten.

This FPP is framed really horribly, and it should be removed pending timsteil's cleaning it up a bit (for the bad link) and toning down the rhetoric. There's a good post in there somewhere but this one isn't it IMO.
posted by chimaera at 12:39 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm not a rocket scientist or anything, so take this with a grain of salt, but maybe that's why you were always hearing it brought up as something people don't know much about? Because most people actually don't? Just a crazy theory.

Previously on Metafilter: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4.

That's two posts containing reference and two posts solely about the USS Liberty. I reiterate my point that I don't understand how people don't know about this, and why every time it gets brought up it's treated as if it's some kind of secret that people are being let it on.
posted by andoatnp at 12:40 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

The USS Liberty: Case Closed

Yes, the author is now Israel's Ambassador in Washington (so add however many grains of salt you feel necessary), but he meticulously documents his claims. Leaving aside the particulars of the case, Oren makes an appeal to common sense that is difficult to overcome:

"Common sense would also dictate that the Israelis, in the process of handily defeating three Arab armies, could have easily sunk a single, lightly armed ship if they had wanted to. In such a case, they would not have attacked the Liberty in broad daylight with clearly marked boats and planes - submarines could have done the job - nor would they have ultimately halted their fire and offered the ship assistance."

posted by BobbyVan at 12:40 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Friendly fire is a fact of war.

The US and other forces with modern cutting edge equipment have bombed their own soldiers and shot their own planes out the sky with alarming regularity.
posted by PenDevil at 12:42 PM on May 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

The crew heard, and recorded the sounds of a massacre. full on, line em up next to a ditch and shoot them in the head Holocaust.

I disagree that this was like a Holocaust. Not every massacre is similar in scope and horror to the genocide of the Holocaust.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:42 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's something we don't talk about in America.

I also have a problem w/ this statement. Despite the fact that it's self-refuting, it's also a kind of smarmy way of suggesting a conspiracy without offering an actual argument.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:42 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Mirages expended their ammunition three and a half minutes into the attack, and were replaced by two Dassault Mysteres armed with napalm bombs. The Mysteres released their payloads over the ship and strafed it with their cannons. The entire superstructure of the ship from the main deck to the bridge caught fire.

You know who else was massacring people with napalm in 1967?
posted by Trurl at 12:44 PM on May 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

This fact sheet the NSA produced (.pdf) looks into the question of whether the attack was premeditated in one section and notes the following:

--There is no conclusive evidence from SIGINT that all parties knew of the LIBERTY in advance of the attack.
--Israel is not ed for its outstanding intelligence posture.
-- Dedication to cause .
--Extremely effective manner in which the battle was fought .
-- Reconnaissance conducted pr ior to the attack must have been
repeated.

Pretty much all of these facts suggesting a knowing, premeditated attack.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:45 PM on May 30, 2012