June 8 is the 44th anniversary of the attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War. With bombs, napalm and torpedoes, 34 Americans were killed, 171 wounded and the lightly armed ship was damaged beyond repair.
The president of the U.S. forbade pursuit of the attackers. The survivors were prohibited from telling their stories then and have been able to talk about them only recently.
While the attackers gave only lame excuses, later Adm. Thomas Moorer, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged that the attack “could not possibly have been a case of mistaken identity.” To my knowledge, no apologies have been made.
Has any other nation, at any time in our history, attacked a U.S. Navy ship without suffering dire consequences? But since this was perpetrated by “our only ally in the Middle East,” we are expected to overlook and forget Israel’s deadly attack on the USS Liberty.
