An
Israeli Double-Feature:
52nd
Anniversary of Israel’s Attack on the USS
Liberty
Israel Is a Dictatorship, Not a Democracy
By
Paul Craig Roberts
June
09, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- Two days ago the US celebrated
the 75th anniversary of D-Day with accolades to
the armed forces and thanks to surviving
veterans.
The country stood strongly with the
military.
But today two days later is the 52nd
anniversary of a day of shame when Washington
turned its back on the US Navy.
It was June 8, 1967 when the USS Liberty,
a surveillance ship stationed off the coast of
Egypt was attacked by Israeli fighter aircraft
and torpedo boats.
The Israelis were unable to sink the
Liberty, but managed to kill 34 American sailors
and wound 174. Seventy percent of the crew were
casualties of the Israeli attack.
The
White House, fearing the Israel Lobby, prevented
the US Navy from going to the defense of the
Liberty, thus sacrificing American lives, and
further dishonored the US Navy by ordering
Admiral McCain, father of the former US Senator
John McCain, to orchestrate a cover-up.
The surviving crew were threatened with
court-martial and imprisonment if they spoke
about the event.
It was 20 years before one of the
surviving officers wrote a book about the
greatest act of shame the US government ever
inflicted on the US military.
In
2003, 36 years after the Israeli attack on the
Liberty, Admiral Tom Moorer, former Chief of
Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, convened the Independent
Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on
USS Liberty, the Recall of Military Rescue
Support Aircraft while the Liberty was Under
Attack, and the Subsequent Cover-up by the
United States Government. The Commission
consisted of Adm. Moorer, Gen. Raymond Davis,
former Assistant Commandant of the US Marine
Corps, Rear Adm. Merlin Staring, former Judge
Advocate General of the US Navy, and Amb. James
Akins, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
You can
read the report online, here for example:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Moorer_Report
The
report is devastating.
Among the report’s conclusions, these
stand out:
“That
due to the influence of Israel’s powerful
supporters in the United States, the White House
deliberately covered up the facts of this attack
from the American people;
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“That
due to continuing pressure by the pro-Israel
lobby in the United States, this attack remains
the only serious naval incident that has never
been thoroughly investigated by Congress; to
this day, no surviving crewmember has been
permitted to officially and publicly testify
about the attack;
“That
there has been an official cover-up without
precedent in American naval history; the
existence of such a cover-up is now supported by
statements of Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, USN
(Ret.), former Judge Advocate General of the
Navy; and Captain Ward Boston, USN, (Ret.), the
chief counsel to the Navy’s 1967 Court of
Inquiry of Liberty attack;
“That
the truth about Israel’s attack and subsequent
White House cover-up continues to be officially
concealed from the American people to the
present day and is a national disgrace;
“That a danger to our national security exists
whenever our elected officials are willing to
subordinate American interests to those of any
foreign nation, and specifically are unwilling
to challenge Israel’s interests when they
conflict with American interests; this policy,
evidenced by the failure to defend USS Liberty
and the subsequent official cover-up of the
Israeli attack, endangers the safety of
Americans and the security of the United
States.”
After
interviewing many of the survivors, Captain Ward
Boston, who was assigned to cover up the attack
and afterward repudiated the cover-up, and Bill
Knutson, the executive officer of the USS
America fighter squadron that was called back on
orders from the White House, and lengthy
discussions with Adm. Moorer, my former
colleague at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, I have written about the
Israeli attack on the Liberty a number of times.
Some of them are available in the archive
on this website, for example:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/07/26/the-israeli-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-paul-craig-roberts/
All who
discount the influence of Israel on the US
government are ignorant fools.
Netanyahu Elevates Himself to Dictator
We hear
every day that “Israel is the only democracy in
the Middle East,” but is Israel a democracy or a
dictatorship?
In a
democracy even the highest members of the
government are accountable to law, but this
isn’t the case with Netanyahu.
After a two-year investigation the
Israeli attorney general announced his intention
to indict prime minister Netanyahu on charges of
bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-indicted.html
This is
like Mueller indicting President Trump for
colluding with Putin to steal the US
presidential election.
All would be over for Trump, but not for
Netanyahu.
Netanyahu simply removed the Israeli
justice minister, Avichai Mandelblit, and
appointed himself to the post, thus immunizing
himself from prosecution.
https://www.rt.com/news/461082-netanyahu-justice-minister-charges/
As
prime minister Netanyahu had already assigned
himself the ministries of Defense, Health, and
Education.
Now he is Justice minister as well.
How much of a government can be in the
hands of one person before that person becomes a
dictator?
Think about it this way:
If President Trump were also Secretary of
Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the
Treasury, and Secretary of Homeland Security,
would he be a president or a dictator?
Trump
has none of these posts, but some Democrats
accuse him of being a dictator.
What then does that make Netanyahu?
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate
editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was
columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News
Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many
university appointments. His internet columns
have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts'
latest books are
The Failure of Laissez Faire
Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West,
How America Was Lost,
and
The Neoconservative Threat to
World Order.
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The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
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