Was the Israili attack on the Liberty deliberate or mistaken?

[TCO]

I honestly don't know.

1. On the accident side:

A. Never ascribe to evil, what is more easily explained by stupidity! (see F also.)

B. It is a common reaction to friendly fire incidents to be angry...and even to suspect deliberate action.

C. What did they hope to gain from it?

D. How could they expect to keep it a secret?

E. How come no one has come forward to "break the secret"?

F. Isr air/naval forces are actually NOT as good as the popular myths about them. Moshe Dyan had a point about how to look good in war "fight Arabs". Not that surprising that the ****ed up an open ocean recognition test, since they are a not that great military...and definitely not very naval minded (not equivalent of US, which is only credible blue ocean force in the world and basically has maintained same level of practice and capability as in WW2.

G. Why attack your own ally...and also take a chance of having the most powerful nation in the world obliterate Israel (6th FLT could...and can **** Isr up any time it wants to.)

H. (weakness of arguments by conspiracy advocates): Some of the more recent accusations (CO of ship, Moorer) appear to be pre-prepared versions of the Ennes story, made by very elderly men.



2. On the deliberate side:

A. Isr have been known to do some risky things (killing people in restaurants in Sweden, etc.)

B. Coordinated arms attack.

C. Many higher ups in US State, etc. believed it was deliberate.

D. My father, USN veteran and served with some of the men injured, thought it was deliberate...and he was not the type inclined to conspiracy theories.

E. Vessel was an intel gathering ship.

F. Have heard from Isr in chat rooms and such comments to the effect of "well you deserved it any way". So, if that is the ethic...perhaps that could have been the ethic at the time?



--------------------------------

Here is a website from the conspiracu advocates (members of the Liberty's crew): http://www.gtr5.com/

Here is a website from an accident advocate: http://ftp.hometown.aol.com/libertyi...xxintro01.html (mostly it consists of poking holes in the Ennes claims...perhaps Cristol's book is a better attempt to actually document what happened, from accident POV.)


P.s. You have to be careful on some of the charges/countercharges. For instance wrt discussion of deck logs, both Ennes and the counter-revisionist AOL guy are not completely accurate on the normal practices wrt Navy Deck logs.

[Eli]

(6th could...and can **** Isr up any time it wants to.)

Meh.

[TCO]

You're the one who said, you thought you were a better Jew by not endangering yourself so that your mother wouldn't worry.

[TCO]

So what do you think, Eli? Was it deliberate or not? You can be my little Mossad inside the Mossad. Give me some inside scoop. Tell me the secrets of the Levants.

[Eli]

Your overestimation of my knowledge is flattering, TCO.

All I see is a huge risk with no motive - doesn't make too much sense.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Eli
Your overestimation of my knowledge is flattering, TCO.

All I see is a huge risk with no motive - doesn't make too much sense.

Ok...but keep your feelers out.

[chequita guevara]

Motive was to keep the U.S. from snooping on Israel as it prepared to invade Syria at a time when the U.S. was pushing for a cease-fire.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Comrade Snuggles
Motive was to keep the U.S. from snooping on Israel as it prepared to invade Syria at a time when the U.S. was pushing for a cease-fire.

yes, only there is no evidence that Israel ever knew this was a US spy ship, or that Israel ever expected to get away with attacking a US asset.


Why would Israel care about US resistance?
Israeli intentions to invade Syria were more ad-hoc that your idiotic sources tell you, and at the time US had excellent humint on Israeli cabinet decisions, and Israel knew it.

The more fearful enemy for Israel would have been the Soviet Union, which threatened to actually get physically involved.

[TCO]

Siro, please become a Mossad member like Ostrovsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Ostrovsky

and then find out the truth and let me know.

[TCO]

BTW I heard Ostrovsky interview Ennes and O was skeptical of the conspiracy.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Personally I believe it was deliberate, and I feel that they knew that the US wouldn't get too worked up about it because of Israel's strategic position.

[TCO]

If so, they took a big chance because the US Navy almost went to war.

[Imran Siddiqui]

They tend to be risk takers. After all, the bombed Iraqi nuke sites back when they were still friends with the US.

[TCO]

Yep...and the raid on Entebbe. There is something bold and beautiful in that.

So, how come you did not take a job with the FBI/CIA helping them penetrate Pakistan?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by TCO
BTW I heard Ostrovsky interview Ennes and O was skeptical of the conspiracy.

Originally posted by TCO
Siro, please become a Mossad member like Ostrovsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Ostrovsky

and then find out the truth and let me know.

Ostrovsky is a liar.

He was a Mossad cadet that never finished the school because he had issues. He used to fabricate things and was found psychologically unfit. Since then Mossad psychological testing has become much more rigorous.

So what he did after he was kicked out, is to go on and fabricate stuff about Mossad, given the large knowledge he gained in school. Some of his stuff probably bears root in reality, but some is very clearly fictional.


As to your request - I see no reason why current Mossad employees would have knowledge regarding the incident.

If it was intentional like you suspect, it would probably have been known to very little, especially in Mossad (as it had nothing to do with the incident) and it would have been compartmentalized and burried after that.

I've had access to interesting stuff, but most of my historical knowledge still comes from open sources. Israeli journalists are really good at research and Israeli former intelligence chiefs are really bad in keeping their mouth shut.



However based on my service experience, and seeing stuff from "behind the scenes", I can tell you that the accident explanation is very very convincing to me.

A war room which handles such stuff is a place of havoc with lots of mistakes being made, because people work in shifts, they are lacking sleep and they make poor decisions under pressure.

I heard of an incident where a brigade commander personally directed and over-saw an aerial assault at a group of suspected figures he later learned were his own soldiers.

This type of things constantly happens. It's called fog of war. Intelligence is even worse than own-forces awareness. It is not always exact or full. Often it is misleading or poorly judged.

Also most of Israel's forces, including staff, are reservists. This means they are poorly updated on current events current intelligence and even new info on our own forces. They often don't properly follow procedures, don't know or even dislike much of the existing staff, and are very arrogant.


So lots of room for errors, and its a surprise than anything functions really.