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[QUOTE]Originally posted by First of Two: [QB] See? That's more like it (although it rapidly became not about the single point of discussion I proposed - the flags... but I digress) [QUOTE]Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: [qb] Which is irrelevent. Israeli pilots had already identified the ship as American, [/qb][/QUOTE]A routine Israel Navy reconnaissance flight at dawn on June 8 sighted Liberty at about 6:00 A.M. steaming southeasterly and south more than 70 miles further west of El Arish. Positive identification was made and the information passed to Naval Intelligence Headquarters and the Liberty was marked on the battle control board at Naval Headquarters. [b]Five hours later, the Liberty mark was considered old information and removed from the battle control board. [/b]At 11:00 A.M., shifts changed and the information about the Liberty was not known to the officer who assumed command. At about 1:00 P.M., when the presence of a ship steaming west, 14 miles off the coast of the Sinai and reported to be shelling Israel Army positions from the sea became a tactical issue, the Navy Officer in command did not know about the dawn sighting of Liberty many miles to the west. There is no evidence or transcript extant that suggests that the pilots in the air at the time knew that their target was a US ship. The Israelis had already been informed that no US ship was within 100 miles of the coast. (Unfortunately, the Liberty never received any of the several orders to withdraw.) [QUOTE][qb] and even if they hadn't, NO Arab ship came ANYWHERE close to even looking like the Liberty - this includes the US Navy markings on the hull and the VERY distinct "moon-bounce" and other unique equipment mounted on the vessel. The day was clear and sunny. The Liberty was in INTERNATIONAL waters, and if it HAD been an Egyptian or other hostile ship, it is VERY unlikely that the Israelis would have left it alone for so long already after the beginning of the war. Even if we accept the excuse that they confused Liberty with El Quseir, keep in mind: a) Liberty had four times the tonnage of El Quiseir, and was twice the length. b) Liberty was painted grey, and flew American colors; El Quseir was SILVER and flew Egyptian colors. c) As an enemy ship, El Queseir's silhouette was available and known to Israeli pilots. It is unlikely that they would have confused it with something else. d) El Queseir had been OUT OF COMMISSION and waiting to be scrapped in Alexandria. In an interview on February 18th of this year, NSA Director Olivery Kirby stated that it was unlikely that Israel would not have been aware of the above facts. [/qb][/QUOTE]Fair enough. However: "THE BOATS OF CHERBOURG (pg 68-69) 1988" [QUOTE]"The son of Amiral Erell, Udi was an ensign aboard one of the torpedo boats. He could see the smoke from a long distance as the boats raced at top speed toward the scene. As the vessel came into view, Erell's skipper scanned an identification book containing pictures of the ships in the Arab fleets and consulted with the commanders on the other boats. The squadron commander concluded that the ship was the Egyptian supply vessel EL QUSEIR. Ensign Erell, looking over his skipper's shoulder at the picture and glancing up at the burning vessel, fully agreed, even though he would later recall that the mast in the picture was not positioned identically with the mast of the target vessel...." "Nevertheless, the squadron commander sought to confirm the vessel's identity before attacking. When the Israeli signalman flashed the message "What ship?" Udi Erell saw the response flickering through the smoke four miles away---"AAA", the signal meaning "Identify yourself first." The same signal had been flashed, the Israelis were aware, by the Egyptian destroyer challenged off Haifa during the Sinai Campaign in 1956. Americans on the bridge of the Liberty would later state that the signals flashed were the ship's name and its international call sign, not what the Israelis believed they saw. Even with binoculars, Erell could make out "no flag". The sqaudron commander ordered his boats to commence torpedo attacks. The vessels peeled off to make their runs and fired five torpedos. Only one hit home. The boats raked the burning ship, now dead in the water, with their guns." "Fire was halted when one of the officers reported seeing the identification markings CTR-5 on the ship's hull, markings that were not those of an Arab vessel. Notified of this, Haifa ordered the sqaudron commander to pick up survivors and definitely establish the ship's identity......Drawing closer to the burning vessel, they were able to make out a flag. It was not opened by a breeze and could not immediately be identified, but it was clearly not Egyptian...." "Udi saw a splash of red on the flag and heard a report being sent back to Haifa that the vessel might be Russian. The report caused shock and consternation when passed on to General Staff headquarters. The shock was not abated when the torpedo-spadron commander reported half an hour later that he had identified the vessel as American." [/QUOTE]At worst, this sounds like a case of "Shoot first, answers aren't that important," and not a "calculated" attack. (You'll note that this, also, falls into the realm of "believing the people who were there.") [QUOTE][qb]The Liberty itself could’ve been painted red white and blue and Israel STILL would have attacked. They were well aware the ship was not Egyptian: they attacked it because for whatever reason, an American spy ship was a threat to them. [/qb][/QUOTE]This is where that "extraordinary claim" bit comes in. WHY would Israel attack its only ally? I've seen two theories... but they've both been discredited: #1 To prevent the US from knowing Israel was going to attack the Golan Heights. Except that documents show that Israel had notified the US of this fact 8 hours before the Liberty was attacked. When theory #1 was found to be untrue, they turned to Theory #2... #2 To prevent the discovery of an Israeli "massacre" of Egyptian soldiers. A massacre which, much like the Jenin "massacre: of a couple years ago, was eventually investigated and turned out not to have happened. [QUOTE] [qb]Assuming they hadn’t seen the flag before the attack, you still have to explain why Israeli pilots failed to identify the Liberty based on site on the ship’s size and shape and markings (remember: even Israel admits they identified the ship that morning, then “moved“ its marker off a plotting table); [/qb][/QUOTE]see above [QUOTE][qb] why Israel jammed AMERICAN radio frequencies during the attack (if they thought they were attacking an Egyptian ship, why not jam, I dunno, Egyptian frequencies?), [/QUOTE][/qb] There are a limited number of radio frequencies available, and jammer's aren't always selective (hence the phrase "They're jamming all frequencies!") What are Egypts? What are the US's? I don't know. (And if all frequencies were jammed, how did the Liberty manage to call for help? It's a matter of record that two carriers launched planes in response to a Liberty SOS) [QUOTE][qb] and why Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned Liberty motor-boats as well as targeting crewmen on the ship. (Of course, here’s another problem: at the range the torpedo boats were, the ship’s markings could hardly be ignored. So why would the torpedo boat crews machine gun American servicemen? If the initial attack had been an accident, maybe they should’ve said “oh shit, sorry ’bout that!” and not “fire at will!”) [/qb][/QUOTE]The name Liberty on the curved stern of the ship was not larger than 18 inches and because of the curvature of the stern, was extremely difficult to read under any circumstances. The ships identifier, "GTR-5" was painted on both sides of the ship near the bow and near the stern but only the number "5" was ten feet tall. The "GTR" was substantially smaller. It was the sighting of these markings by the second wave of aircraft that identified the ship as not an Arab ship and resulted in immediate termination of the air attack. You'l notice [URL=http://gidusko.50megs.com/agtr5/]this pic[/URL] was taken at a much closer range than any aircraft before the helicopters approached. I don't know the range of the torpedo boats at the time they launched. What was it? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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