USS Liberty Challenge/Reward

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...

For some reason, I cannot reply directly to Hillel's post.

The main point, which Hillel does his best to avoid is:

Congress never conducted an investigation solely concerning
the USS Liberty affair, and Cristol's web page does not refute
that.


ojunk (Mike Weeks) wrote:

http://libertyincident.com/documents.htm

Finally! After lots of name calling, changing the
subject and non sequiturs, Weeks gives a source
which he alleges contains information concerning
Congress investigating the Liberty and concluding
that the attack was an accident.

First, rather that 5 or 6 Congressional investigations,
there are only two alleged investigations into the USS
Liberty. But, as we will see, these two committees did
not conduct conclusive investigations into the major
points of controversy concerning the USS Liberty.

1) House Armed Services Committee Investigation

Lo and behold, rather than "A Report on the attack on the
USS Liberty," the link takes you to a report on "Review of
Department of Defense Worldwide Communications."

The only connection with the attack on the Liberty was
the misrouted message ordering the Liberty to leave the
area due to the hostilities. No other aspect of the
attack on the Liberty was looked at. The topics
not looked at included:

a) Whether the attack was intentional,

b) Whether Israel had previously identified
the Liberty,

c) Whether rescue aircraft were recalled,

d) Whether an American intelligence plane
recorded conversations between the attacking
Israeli aircraft and their controllers, and
what those conversations were.

In fact the only issue considered in the report
deals with problems with DOD communications.

If this is an example of what Cristol alleges was a
Congressional investigation of the Liberty which
exonerates the Israelis, Cristol is a failure.

2) Senate Foreign Relations Committee Investigation

Lo and behold, rather than "An Investigation into the
attack on the USS Liberty," the link takes you to
hearings on the "Foreign Assistance Act of 1967."

It is not a report giving conclusions of an
investigation into the attack on the USS Liberty;
it is merely hearings. They are two different things.

However, there are some comments by Senators which
indicate their feelings on the assault on the USS
Liberty:

Senator Hickenlooper: "I think it was a deliberate
assault on [the USS Liberty.] ... I think they had ample
opportunity to identify it as an American ship. ...
It is inconceivable to me that the ship could not
have been identified."

Senator Aiken: "I think, not only the committee, but the
public wants better information than they have had so far."

Senator Mundt also expresses doubts about the failure of
the attacking Israeli pilots to identify the ship "in
broad daylight."

So, based on the only three Senators who were quoted, the
conclusion of the Committee, if there had been a report,
would have been the rejection of the contention that
the attack was accidental.

If this is an example of what Cristol alleges was an
investigation of the Liberty which exonerates the
Israelis, Cristol is a failure.

Cristol is 0 for 2. Cristol is a failure.

There was no Congressional investigation of the
USS Liberty which concluded that the Israeli
attack was an accident. And this was from the
link that Weeks provided. Maybe Weeks will
continue to provide other links which disprove
his contentions.

#It is not the job of Congress to investigate everything.
#The US Navy's Court Of Inquiry did a pretty good job establishing
#the facts. (And please read those 727 pages before you claim
#your "facts." Mike did it, no reason why you can't.)
#
#Congress trusted the Navy investigation, which seems to be pretty
#professional and unbiased.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
The main point, which Hillel does his best to avoid is:

Congress never conducted an investigation solely concerning
the USS Liberty affair, and Cristol's web page does not refute
that.

Congress never conducted an investigation of *MOST* affairs. Congress
usually investigates only if there is a high profile case or there
are indications that the executive branch lied; e.g. Joseph McCarthy
communists' hunt, Iran-Contra affair, Watergate.

Unless you can show some good reasons why US Navy's Court Of Inquiry
can't be trusted in the Liberty case, I don't see why Congress should
waste its time duplicating the court's job.

wrote in message . com...

[snip]

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
The main point, which Hillel does his best to avoid is:

Congress never conducted an investigation solely concerning
the USS Liberty affair, and Cristol's web page does not refute
that.

Congress never conducted an investigation of *MOST* affairs. Congress
usually investigates only if there is a high profile case or there
are indications that the executive branch lied; e.g. Joseph McCarthy
communists' hunt, Iran-Contra affair, Watergate.

Congress has thoroughly investigated every disaster involving
the US Navy EXCEPT for the USS Liberty.

[snip]

#Congress never conducted an investigation of *MOST* affairs. Congress
# usually investigates only if there is a high profile case or there
# are indications that the executive branch lied; e.g. Joseph McCarthy
# communists' hunt, Iran-Contra affair, Watergate.

(Issac Goldberg) wrote in message . com...
Congress has thoroughly investigated every disaster involving
the US Navy EXCEPT for the USS Liberty.

Really?!
Would you like to compare the The USS Stark Incident
(see http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id344.htm), with
37 American seamen dead, to the Liberty?

Can you please tell us what special investgation Congress did about
the Stark and not about the Liberty? Come on, you made a claim now
prove it.

BTW my impression is that Congress usually accepts the Navy's Court
of inquiry conclusions; e.g. USS Greeneville. If you have some
counter examples, where Congress rejected the Navy's Court
of inquiry conclusions, then please post them.