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View Full Version : Cover-Ups that still Piss Me Off ...... USS Liberty and the Mayaguez Incident



Shoot the Goose
06-12-2012, 11:06 AM
Need a place to rant. Just finished updating myself as best I could about the remaining issues with the Mayaquez incident of 1975. If you have not read it, I recommend "The Last Battle" by Ralph Wetterman. Its 10 years old. I read it back then, and once again last week. From my most recent internet searches, the final sticking issue with me seems to be the foot dragging on identifying the remains of Marine Corporal Joseph Hargrove, likely recovered in 2008 from the island of Kho Tang. A positive ID of those remains would confirm the ugly but hushed truth, that we left 3 living Marines behind, who were then executed by the Khmer Rouge. We know they were left behind. But there is no "proof" that they were alive when left behind, although numerous interviews with ex-Khmer indicate such. The Mayaguez recovery mission was one giant cluster-fornication, made to look like a successful mission.

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

And as I searched the above, I came upon recent info about the USS Liberty, in part because 45th Anniversary of the attack on the Liberty was last week. What is probably most significant about that case is that so much more testimony has come to light in the last 10 years, as folks get old, and need to tell the truth before they die. I am pro-Israel, but there is no doubt in my mind that they deliberately attacked the ship in 1967, killing 34 Americans and wounding 174. And if the US was not in some way complicit in the attack too, the cover-up has been plenty disgusting all on its own.

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

Here's 68 minutes done by the BBC in 2002. It is worth the time IMMHO.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA

And then more recent stuff. Here's an article recounting the recollections of a US Intelligence Officer on Crete, who listened to it all real-time, and then that unit had all their evidence taken by higher brass, and he was told to STFU:

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/eyewitness-to-an-act-of-wara-us-air-force-intelligence-officer-speaks-out-about-the-uss-liberty/

These guys are old. And they want to tell the truth.

Conley
06-12-2012, 11:11 AM
Great thread...you might check out this article also with new (at the time) information:

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/411-The-USS-Liberty-Revisited

I'll take a look at the video.

Shoot the Goose
06-12-2012, 11:39 AM
Great thread...you might check out this article also with new (at the time) information:

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/411-The-USS-Liberty-Revisited

I'll take a look at the video.

Sorry. I missed it. That thread was before my time here :)

But the link in that OP is a very thorough article. The quantity of independent evidence is indisputable:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,3794785,full.story

The video that I linked was before much of the added recountings were made, especially about the audio from the Israeli pilots. And the video is damning enough without it.

MMC
06-12-2012, 01:01 PM
I would have to agree with you Goose. It is clear things are pointing in that direction.

Shoot the Goose
06-12-2012, 01:21 PM
I would have to agree with you Goose. It is clear things are pointing in that direction.

As I noted in the OP, I had spent some time of late just trying to follow up on Cpl Hargrove. I had read an interview with his brother who had been hoping for a quick identification on the remains from 2008, which by all accounts, lean very strongly to being him. I was not a jarhead, but good grief that entire incident, the attack on Kho Tang, has to piss off those who are/were something fierce. Regardless, as it is now four years later, and still nothing, it is clear that they do not want that final confirmation that would indicate he was left behind and executed, just like surviving Khmer said he was. Which then means that the other two members of that M-60 team were also captured, taken to the mainland, and then had their skulls caved in as the Khmer policy was primarily to not waste bullets if you could bash their skulls with a steel pipe, again just as the same Khmer said they were.

I have a small added interest too as one of my prior unit commanders, then Capt John C. Cray, went on to head up the first liason office in Hanoi established in about 1994, to help recover missing remains of service members. I believe he made full bird before retirement. The book The Last Battle deals heavily with remains recovery, although in Cambodia.

Regardless, I was pissed enough about Hargrove still when I end up getting caught up on the Liberty items from the last five years. With so many old soldiers-sailors deciding to speak up. I cannot imagine how betrayed all the surviving members and family feel. They just had their 45th reunion last week. They want the truth, and yet can't get the time of day from anyone who rates. No one can touch it.

roadmaster
06-12-2012, 01:26 PM
I use to sit around and listen to my uncles of army, navy, air-force, marines, ect and a cousin that was an air-force pilot. The tales they could tell were eye opening.

Calypso Jones
06-12-2012, 01:27 PM
Sorry. I missed it. That thread was before my time here :)

But the link in that OP is a very thorough article. The quantity of independent evidence is indisputable:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,3794785,full.story

The video that I linked was before much of the added recountings were made, especially about the audio from the Israeli pilots. And the video is damning enough without it.

the information is not indisputable. I think it all depends on the author's agenda and what you want to believe. Here's an article by a guy that has spent the last 14 years studying it.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17293

You can't deny that there is a huge faction out there that is intent on casting doubt on Israel.

MMC
06-12-2012, 01:34 PM
As I noted in the OP, I had spent some time of late just trying to follow up on Cpl Hargrove. I had read an interview with his brother who had been hoping for a quick identification on the remains from 2008, which by all accounts, lean very strongly to being him. I was not a jarhead, but good grief that entire incident, the attack on Kho Tang, has to piss off those who are/were something fierce. Regardless, as it is now four years later, and still nothing, it is clear that they do not want that final confirmation that would indicate he was left behind and executed, just like surviving Khmer said he was. Which then means that the other two members of that M-60 team were also captured, taken to the mainland, and then had their skulls caved in as the Khmer policy was primarily to not waste bullets if you could bash their skulls with a steel pipe, again just as the same Khmer said they were.

I have a small added interest too as one of my prior unit commanders, then Capt John C. Cray, went on to head up the first liason office in Hanoi established in about 1994, to help recover missing remains of service members. I believe he made full bird before retirement. The book The Last Battle deals heavily with remains recovery, although in Cambodia.

Regardless, I was pissed enough about Hargrove still when I end up getting caught up on the Liberty items from the last five years. With so many old soldiers-sailors deciding to speak up. I cannot imagine how betrayed all the surviving members and family feel. They just had their 45th reunion last week. They want the truth, and yet can't get the time of day from anyone who rates. No one can touch it.

Well you know where we are on leaving a man behind. Alive or dead! He aint Heavy, He's My Brother and I am..... My Brother's Keeper! Huah!

Shoot the Goose
06-12-2012, 01:49 PM
the information is not indisputable. I think it all depends on the author's agenda and what you want to believe. Here's an article by a guy that has spent the last 14 years studying it.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17293

You can't deny that there is a huge faction out there that is intent on casting doubt on Israel.

Calypso. I have provided some excellent links in this thread. One I borrowed from a prior thread here. Would be nice if you would take the time to read them. Sure there are those with nefarious agendas. And then there are those whose agenda is just honor, and the truth. If you were to take the time to watch the video, you would see the Captain of the ship, in uniform, Medal of Honor around his neck, almost weeping because of the cover-up that he could not stop. He wanted to address the truth before he died.

Let's point out one more thing. From the article that you quoted, about a book written by someone already identified as very pro-Israel in an article that I had earlier linked. Your author having been confronted by a retired Intelligence Officer. Its all there. Anyway, here's your "article":



Another Anti-Semitic Canard Dies
By: Nathan Guttman (http://thepoliticalforums.com/bioAuthor.aspx?AUTHID=1454)
Ha'aretz | Thursday, July 10, 2003


New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's sinking of an American spy ship, the USS Liberty, off the coast of Gaza during the1967 Six-Day War.
Israel has always said it had no idea the ship was American, but conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists still claim Israel sank the ship in the full knowledge that it was American.


The documents, originally defined as top secret, were made public by Florida Judge Jay Cristol, who has been investigating the Liberty incident for years and published a book on the subject last year. On Monday, the NSA gave him a transcript of conversations held by two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots who were hovering over the Liberty as it was sinking, and these tapes confirm Israel's claim that the sinking of the ship, which killed 34 American servicemen and wounded 171, was a tragic error.


See what I highlighted ? The ship was NOT SUNK. Further, the NSA has been seriously repudiated in much of what was earlier provided. And your article is nine years old. Much of what we provided includes far more recent interviews, with folks who finally decided to talk. The NSA was part of the cover-up as well. That has been well documented. If you would read.

Frankly, you didn't take the time to look. If you do, you will see that my reference that the volume of information from first-hand credible sources renders it near indisputable.

Shoot the Goose
06-12-2012, 01:56 PM
Well you know where we are on leaving a man behind. Alive or dead! He aint Heavy, He's My Brother and I am..... My Brother's Keeper! Huah!

Believe me, I know. The mission was so poorly planned though, and the fault for that leads right up to Gerald Ford, who damn near micro-managed the whole thing, that the Marines got their butts kicked on Kho Tang. The withdrawal was under heavy fire, communications sucked, and 3 live men were left behind. And about 7 already deceased.

JohnAdams
06-15-2012, 06:39 PM
Need a place to rant. Just finished updating myself as best I could about the remaining issues with the Mayaquez incident of 1975. If you have not read it, I recommend "The Last Battle" by Ralph Wetterman. Its 10 years old. I read it back then, and once again last week. From my most recent internet searches, the final sticking issue with me seems to be the foot dragging on identifying the remains of Marine Corporal Joseph Hargrove, likely recovered in 2008 from the island of Kho Tang. A positive ID of those remains would confirm the ugly but hushed truth, that we left 3 living Marines behind, who were then executed by the Khmer Rouge. We know they were left behind. But there is no "proof" that they were alive when left behind, although numerous interviews with ex-Khmer indicate such. The Mayaguez recovery mission was one giant cluster-fornication, made to look like a successful mission.

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

And as I searched the above, I came upon recent info about the USS Liberty, in part because 45th Anniversary of the attack on the Liberty was last week. What is probably most significant about that case is that so much more testimony has come to light in the last 10 years, as folks get old, and need to tell the truth before they die. I am pro-Israel, but there is no doubt in my mind that they deliberately attacked the ship in 1967, killing 34 Americans and wounding 174. And if the US was not in some way complicit in the attack too, the cover-up has been plenty disgusting all on its own.

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

Here's 68 minutes done by the BBC in 2002. It is worth the time IMMHO.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA

And then more recent stuff. Here's an article recounting the recollections of a US Intelligence Officer on Crete, who listened to it all real-time, and then that unit had all their evidence taken by higher brass, and he was told to STFU:

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/eyewitness-to-an-act-of-wara-us-air-force-intelligence-officer-speaks-out-about-the-uss-liberty/

These guys are old. And they want to tell the truth.

Perhaps someday I'll let you all know what I personally saw when I was in207During the first gulf war...talk about you'd be pissed. :flag: