Liberty & Death

The Chosen Ones

With Israel now battling against a handful of Middle Eastern countries, the implicit understanding between both the US and Israel is that when push comes to shove, the big brother (US) will be there to back up the little brother (Israel).

Everyone from President Biden to Ben Shapiro (who is definitely not a Mossad asset) has been assuring the citizenry that Israel can fight its own wars and that the US won’t in any circumstance deploy any troops to Israel.

Well, it was only a matter of time before that promise was broken, as 100 American troops have been deployed to operate an advanced anti-missle system. But no need to worry, this is simply a temporary move and they’ll be out of there in no time…

Now that Israel has been actively at war for the past year or so, it has sparked a never-ending dialogue about the role of the US in foreign affairs and specifically their role in the Middle East.

What you’ll rarely hear about in these conversations is the times that these US has been backstabbed by Israel despite always aiding them in numerous ways, with the most salient being financially.

While there are many examples, the one we’ll be focusing on today is one that seemingly been forgotten about and only discussed by the brave few willing to put up with the potential of cancellation. With that being said, let’s set sail for the Sinai cost aboard the USS Liberty.

Whoops…

The USS Liberty was a CIA intelligence gathering platform whose main function was to monitor transmissions in the 1967 Six Days War. The war, lasting from June 5th to the 10th, was an eventual Israeli victory against the Arabian coalition of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq that resulted in a dramatic increase in the country’s land mass that included the Golan Heights (from Syria), West Bank & East Jerusalem (from Jordan), and the Gaza Strip & Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt).

On the 8th of June, the USS Liberty was sailing on international waters and had a large US flag clear as day to prevent any confusion as to who the ship belonged to. Strangely, there was a series of communication failures that prevented the message forbidding the ship to stay at least 100 miles off of the Sinai coast, and therefore, the ship came within 14 miles.

Israeli colonels Shmuel Kislev, head of Air Force Operations, and Yeshayahu Baneket, head of Air Force Intelligence, became cognizant of the ship and came to different conclusions; Baneket wanted to have positive confirmation on the identity of the ship, while Kislev told pilots that if its status of a military ship on any kind can be confirmed, then it must be attacked.

After a flight leader confirmed it was not only a military ship, but an American ship as well, the Israelis attacked it with rockets, cannons, and machine guns for 20 minutes straight.

After receiving word about the attack, Captain Joseph Tully, the commander for the USS Saratoga, launched 12 F4 phantom fighters to aid the USS Liberty.

However, strangely enough, the US Secretary of Defense at the time, Robert McNamara had these fighter jets recalled. More importantly, this move can only be executed with the presidential approval of Lyndon B Johnson.

Famously, LBJ professed that he wanted to recall the the jets because “I don’t care if that bleep ship goes to the bottom of the ocean, and every sailor aboard that ship dies, I’m not going to embarrass our allies Israel.”

It’s almost like there might have been something more motivating than simply not embarrassing your ally (cough cough blackmail).

Anyways, the initial 20 minute attack would not be the last, as three torpedo boats with six torpedos total were launched at the ship. Despite all but one of them missing, the one that landed proved to be deadly, causing 25 deaths among impact. All in all, 34 Americans were killed with 172 more being wounded.

Despite the conspicuous American flag on the ship, Moshe Oren, the commander of the torpedo boat squadron, later said that he mistakenly thought that it was the Egyptian boat El Quiser.

While a convenient excuse, it’s still a very shaky one at best, given that the Liberty, coming in at 10,150 tons, was more than 5x bigger than its Egyptian counterpart and had a much different body profile.

Also, according to the official story, Israeli leadership recognized their initial mistake, called American leadership, and McNamara recalled the jets. However, this doesn’t add up given that the attacks were renewed for another 80 minutes after the jets were recalled.

Despite these discrepancies, the story becomes even more abnormal.

Loud Silence

After the two hour attack that killed dozens of men and brutalized many more, the crew headed to Malta, where the Sixth Fleet commander Isaac Kidd ordered the survivors to the ship name from their uniform and to go ashore in civilian clothes.

Basically, right after seeing their brothers blown to bits and nearly losing their lives, they were expected to pretend like nothing happened.

Furthermore, they were strictly told to grant no interviews and to not discuss the situation among one another, let alone with family or friends. If they did so, they would face jail time for violating national security “or worse.”

You can use your imagination to think about what that “or worse” could possibly mean.

After the soldiers were sworn to secrecy, the press was given extremely limited information to prevent the full story from being covered.

When the case was brought to the Board of Inquiry, a judicial-like body dealing with cases within the military, it was the first and only time that they refused to accept testimony from American service members who survived the attack.

Not only that, but Admiral Merlin Staring was given only 24 hours to go through a 600 page Court of Inquiry investigation report.

These types of actions are simply unprecedented in American military history and for what cause? To maintain our relationship with an ally who, frankly speaking, doesn’t do much for us anyways?

When getting into the specific stories of individual servicemen, it is astounding how far they went to execute this cover-up.

Bill Lemay, after his extensive hospital stay recovering from brutal injuries, was about to return to his life and try to put the tragic event behind him and rediscover normalcy. However, a naval officer took him to the side and told him that his name was now “Smith,” he was never on the USS Liberty, and to never say a word about it ever again.

If I had to guess, Smith probably never mentioned it and most likely told himself that he was never on that ship so many times that he probably believed it after a while.

Not every person aboard that ship went gently into that good night; Phillip F. Tourney has been vocal about what transpired that day and has done numerous interviews discussing the issue. It seems like that threat might have been an empty one…

He further details that while the USS Liberty was there to gather intelligence, they were only there to spy on the Egyptians and were given strict orders to to drop any Israeli secrets that were picked up by accident.

He also discusses that the captain of the ship, Captain William Loren McGonagle received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the attack, as he attended to his crew and refused to give up control of the ship despite sustaining significant blood loss after brutal injuries to his arm and thigh.

In another unprecedented move, the Medal of Honor was not given to him by the President and was not in the White House, as it was presented to him in a naval yard in Virginia Beach with basically no one there.

The amount of strange details surrounding this event are numerous and if I tried to list them out, they’d be longer than the original Obamacare bill.

But don’t worry, Israel being our respectable and reliable ally did not let this (purposefully executed) incident occur without paying their fair share of reparations.

Because of their unparalleled generosity, prudence, and compassion, the Israeli government paid the families of the servicemen aboard the USS Liberty roughly $7M (about $60M in today’s money) over two years. For reference, the ship that they blew to smithereens cost $40M ($340M in today’s money) to build.

For an even clearer reference as to how inconsequential that amount is, when taking the roughly $38.5B we’ve sent Israel in the past 365 days, that means that Israel received the amount they sent us, after adjusting for inflation, every 14 hours or so.

Truly nasty work.

The betrayal of the American people to satisfy the needs of foreign entities, inconspicuous elites, and other unworthy subjects seems to be a common theme in the past century or so of American history.

Not only was the American public betrayed due to the constant lies, cover-up, and deception, but the brave men who willingly put their lives on the line to die for this country are simply pawns in the eyes of the Machiavellian characters that make decisions for this country.

What is a bit more disappointing to see is the “free-thinking conservatives” like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro who continually deny any wrongdoing by the Israelis, even though we know they know that’s not the truth.

Ben Shapiro’s case is pretty obvious; at best, he has a special place in his heart for Israel given his Jewish heritage. At worst, like hinted at earlier, he’s a controlled-opposition Mossad agent meant to continue the Pro-Israel & right wing coalition going.

Kirk’s reasons for his stance on the USS Liberty, and his stance on Israel generally, is a bit more discrete. Kirk’s biggest financial backer Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot with a net worth north of $10B, is a Russian Jew who is, obviously, a massive pro-Israel proponent that has donated more than $2B to “education, hospitals, and Jewish causes,” according to Forbes.

With that being said, Kirk may be pro-Israel because he genuinely believes that it’s in the US’s best interest to maintain this relationship. However, if he were to suddenly have a change of heart and flip on the issue, he simply wouldn’t be able to express these opinions given the clear financial leverage that these types of donors exert over the recipients of their cash.

I guess that’s just how the game of politics is played.

And boy is it a dirty game.

I know the question you’ve been asking yourself as you’ve been reading this: why in the world would the US cover this up? Is offending Israel really that big of a deal?

The simple answer is yes. Why? Man oh man, how deep the rabbit hole goes…

Will I write a memo about the relationship between the West (specifically the US) and Jews/Israel that goes all the way back to Jesus and the Pharisees? Yes.

When will that happen? Only time will tell…

If you enjoyed reading this story or any others, feel free to send it to any friends, family members, co-workers, or more that would like it.

Thanks for reading and until next time.

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