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LONDON (Reuters) - A top aide to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, fired for his role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, personally oversaw the torture of at least one detained female activist earlier this year, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Saud al-Qahtani was a royal adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman until October, when he was sacked and then sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury over the Washington Post columnist’s murder.
Now three sources, briefed on the activists’ treatment, say a group of men subjected this woman and at least three others to sexual harassment, electrocution and flogging between May and August at an unofficial holding facility in Jeddah.
They described the group of about six men as distinct from the regular interrogators the women saw and said they belonged to the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, which Qahtani headed at the time, or to state security.
Qahtani was present when at least one of the women was tortured, two of the sources said.
Reuters has been unable to reach Qahtani since he was sacked in October.
A Saudi official said the allegations of mistreatment and torture of the female detainees were “false ... and have no connection to the truth.”
“The detainees were detained based on accusations related to harming the security and stability of the kingdom,” the official said in response to questions from Reuters.
Their legal rights were being respected and they were receiving medical and social care, family visits and had the right to an attorney, the official said.
The women are among more than a dozen prominent activists arrested since May amid a broader crackdown targeting clerics and intellectuals. Eleven women are still being held, activists say, including the four alleged to have been tortured.
The allegations come as Riyadh tries to get past the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, a long-time royal insider who became a critic of Prince Mohammed and went into self-exile in the United States last year.
Khashoggi was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, damaging the crown prince’s reputation and opening Riyadh up to the threat of sanctions. IN THE ROOM
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said last month at least three of the activists — most of whom had agitated for the right to drive and an end to a male guardianship system — were tortured. They did not report Qahtani’s involvement.
The sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, told Reuters that Qahtani was in the room on several occasions when one of the four detained activists was subjected to kissing, groping and electrocution. He made threats of rape and murder to the woman, the sources said.
Reuters could not determine whether Qahtani was in the room during the episodes with those three other detainees, but the sources said all of the women’s tormentors were from “Saud’s group”.At least two other detainees endured sexual insults, flogging and electric shocks that turned one of the women’s fingers blue, the sources said. Captors also made another woman kiss a male detainee while they watched, one of the sources said.
A third source said Qahtani addressed several of these women in May when they were initially transferred to Jeddah from Riyadh, telling them the penalty for treason was 20 years in prison or the death penalty.
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday said the administration is looking for more information regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose killing has been linked to the country's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“We are continuing to review. I am quite satisfied we will find more evidence of what happened,” Mattis told reporters Wednesday en route to Canada.
“I just don't know yet what it's going to be or who's going to be implicated, but we will follow it as far as we can,” he said according to a Pentagon transcript released Thursday.
Mattis's latest comments come as lawmakers slam the administration for failing to acknowledge proof that they say leaves little doubt of the crown prince’s involvement.
The Pentagon chief late last month he said that there was “no smoking gun” linking the bin Salman to the death of Khashoggi, who who was critical of the Saudi government in his columns in The Washington Post. Khashoggi was killed in October when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The CIA later reportedly concluded that bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s death.
After being briefed behind closed doors by CIA chief Gina Haspel, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that “There’s not a smoking gun, there’s a smoking saw,” referencing Mattis's earlier comment.
RTR TRUTH MEDIA - So, the United States is finally realizing the hazards of allying with a foreign nation and sharing our technology and redistributing our wealth to it. Now we have to sit back and watch as they profiteer from that generosity? Well reports are saying that the Trump administration is not amused. In my opinion it took them long enough. I do not believe this will change anything sadly as we continue to be used as pawns for Israel's wars, but it is a start.
Out of the Times Of Israel -
The United States is blocking Israel’s sale of aging F-16 fighter jets to Croatia, a member of the American-led NATO security alliance, Channel 10 news reported Thursday.
The deal, which was announced earlier this year, would see Israel sell a dozen US-manufactured F-16s from its fleet to Croatia for $500 million.
Quoting unnamed Israeli officials, Channel 10 news reported the Trump administration was angry Israel added advanced Israeli-made electronic systems to the F-16s as part of efforts to convince Croatia to buy the planes. The officials told the network the US believes Israel unfairly profited through its actions, as the F16s are American-made and were not supposed to be sold to a third-party without its approval.
The report also quoted the officials saying Croatia is furious about the holdup of the sale and recently told Israel to work out the matter with the US. The officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the sale during his meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels on Monday.
“I’m in favor but Defense Secretary Mattis is against [the sale] — its him who is blocking it,” Channel 10 quotes Pompeo saying.
Netanyahu and his Croatian counterpart announced the agreement in January and Croatia’s top defense body gave its OK two months later.
Israel has been seeking a buyer for the aging fleet that its Air Force stopped using a number of years ago, according to Hadashot TV news. Some 30 old planes have been retired by Israel’s Air Force in recent years.
Thanks to courageous investigators, many anomalies in the official explanation of the events of 9/11 were posted on the Internet in the following months, providing evidence that this was a false flag operation, and that Osama bin Laden was innocent, as he repeatedly declared in the Afghan and Pakistani press and on Al Jazeera.[1] The proofs of this appalling fraud have been accumulating ever since, and are now accessible to anyone willing to spend a few hours of research on the Web. (Although, while preparing this article, I noticed that Google is now making access to that research more difficult than it was five years ago, artificially prioritizing anti-conspiracy sites.)
For example, members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have demonstrated that it was impossible for plane crashes and jet fuel fires to trigger the collapse of the Twin Towers. Even Donald Trump understood this. In fact, speaking of “collapse” is perhaps misleading: the towers literally exploded, pulverizing concrete and projecting pieces of steel beams weighing several hundred tons hundreds of meters laterally at high speeds. The pyroclastic dust that immediately flooded through the streets, not unlike the dust from a volcano, indicates a high temperature mixture of hot gasses and relatively dense solid particles, an impossible phenomenon in a simple collapse. It is also impossible that WTC7, another skyscraper (47 stories), which had not been hit by a plane, collapsed into its own footprint at near free-fall speed, unless by “controlled demolition.”
(We at RTR Truth Media ask the reader to go to Unz.com and pour over a wide variety of information and research we have found so valuable. We are preserving this article and sharing it with our readers as we find it essential to understanding and to coming to terms with 9/11. I would like to personally thankLAURENT GUYÉNOT. By clicking his name it will take you to more of his articles.)
Testimonies of firefighters recorded shortly after the events describe sequences of explosions just before the “collapse”, well below the plane impact. The presence of molten metal in the wreckage up to three weeks after the attack is inexplicable except by the presence of incompletely burned explosives. Firefighter Philip Ruvolo testified before Étienne Sauret’s camera for his film Collateral Damages (2011): “You’d get down below and you’d see molten steel—molten steel running down the channelways, like you were in a foundry—like lava.”
Aviation professionals have also reported impossibilities in the behavior of the planes. The charted speeds of the two aircraft hitting the Twin Towers, 443 mph and 542 mph, exclude these aircraft being Boeing 767s, because these speeds are virtually impossible near ground level. In the unlikely event such speeds could be attained without the aircraft falling apart, flying them accurately into the towers was mission impossible, especially by the amateur pilots blamed for the hijacking. Hosni Mubarak, a former pilot, said he could never do it. (He is not the only head of state to have voiced his doubts: Chavez and Ahmadinejad are among them.) Recall that neither of the black boxes of the jetliners was ever found, an incomprehensible situation.
And of course, there are the obvious anomalies of Shanksville and Pentagon crash sites: no plane or credible plane debris can be seen on any of the numerous photos easily available.
Among the growing number of Americans who disbelieve the official version of the 9/11 attacks, two basic theories are in competition: I called them “inside job” and “Mossad job”. The first one is the dominant thesis within the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, and blames the American government, or a faction within the American Deep State. The second one claims that the masterminds were members of a powerful Israeli network deeply infiltrated in all spheres of power within the US, including media, government, military and secret services.
This “Mossad job” thesis has been gaining ground since Alan Sabrosky, a professor at the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Military Academy, published in July 2012 an article entitled “Demystifying 9/11: Israel and the Tactics of Mistake”, where he voiced his conviction that September 11th was “a classic Mossad-orchestrated operation.” This insert is from Resurrect the Republic / RTR Truth Media
Dr. Alan Sabrosky - Brendon O'Connell on Resurrect the Republic with Tom Lacovara-Stewart - Israeli High Tech Intelligence 9/11 to Talpiot
On Resurrect the Republic with Tom Lacovara-Stewart a long anticipated conversation with Brendon O'Connell and Dr. Alan Sabrosky joining the RTR TRUTH MEDIA group RELOADED to discuss Israeli Tech world dominance, the Talpiot program and getting together a world conference to discuss these issues.
Dr. Alan Sabrosky
Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a writer and consultant specializing in national and international security affairs. In December 1988, he received the Superior Civilian Service Award after more than five years of service at the U.S. Army War College as Director of Studies, Strategic Studies Institute, and holder of the General of the Army Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research. He is listed in WHO'S WHO IN THE EAST (23rd ed.). A Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and a 1986 graduate of the U.S. Army War College, Dr. Sabrosky's teaching and research appointments have included the United States Military Academy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Middlebury College and Catholic University; while in government service, he held concurrent adjunct professorships at Georgetown University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Sabrosky has lectured widely on defense and foreign affairs in the United States and abroad.
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On this channel, I talk about suppressed history by connecting the past to the present. On the daily, we're inundated with breaking news headlines propagated on the radio, television, and social media. It's my goal to provide context so that we can collectively navigate through this information labyrinth. ReallyGraceful The extragraceful backup channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCStE6_g3oP7DO5poxBvwOkA/ JOIN INTERNET FRIENDS CHAT: https://discord.gg/QVjXuSS Examples of her work:
The insanity of a school seeking to punish a male teacher for not ogling a minor female in the shower has taken this agenda to an all new insane level.
School Punishes Male Teacher For Refusing To Watch A Naked Girl In The Boys’ Locker Room
A Florida school district allowed a self-described transgender female student access to the boys' locker room, with no warning to parents. The first time she walked in, she caught 'boys (literally) with their pants down.'
A Florida school district allowed a self-described transgender - an "actual female" student regular access to the boys’ locker room, with no advance warning to the boys or their parents. The first time she walked in, she caught “boys (literally) with their pants down, causing them embarrassment and concern by the fact that they had been observed changing by an obvious girl,” says a complaint letter to Pasco County School District from Liberty Counsel, a pro-bono constitutional law firm.
With a “gag order,” school administrators forbade teachers from talking about the change, and ordered a male P.E. teacher to supervise the potentially undressed girl in the Chasco Middle School locker room, the letter says. When he refused to “knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise in a state of undress,” administrators told him “he will be transferred to another school as discipline for ‘not doing your job in the locker room.'”
In an email, an administrator initially threatened to put the male coach on administrative leave, telling him that refusing to supervise a potentially naked female student would “not be tolerated,”said Liberty Counsel attorney Richard Mast. The school’s other P.E. teacher, who is female, also objected and was ignored.
Pasco parents have yet to be informed by the school of this situation, yet the transgender student continues (a girl) to have open access to private male areas, according to Liberty Counsel. Despite the initial September incident, then legal contact in October, the elected board for the district with 70,500 students has so far taken no action and administrators have refused to budge.
“Unfortunately these things are going on across the country, primarily with school psychologists and guidance counselors,” said Mast. He noted that it’s standard for public schools to pass transgender policies without informing parents, voters, or taxpayers first. That means the public only hears about it after children have been affected, withholding all opportunities for parents to prevent their child’s exposure to this kind of sexual indoctrination, confusion, and exploitation.
A male physical-education teacher in a Florida school district has been told he will be transferred to another school as discipline for not doing his job.
His job?
“Walk into and supervise the locker room.”
And why didn’t he?
There possibly was a teen girl showering there with the boys in her class.
Chasco Middle School in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, has drawn the attention of the non-profit legal group Liberty Counsel for adopting the transgender activist agenda.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said the Pasco County School Board must “reign in these rogue school employees and administrators and reject their unauthorized LGBT policies and practices that violate parental and employee rights and the privacy rights of students.”
Liberty Counsel has written a letter to Cynthia Armstrong, chairman of the Pasco County School District Board, in response to an unwritten “policy” that allowed a girl to use the boys bathroom and required “others to refer to her with false gender pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him.’
Liberty Counsel said the school’s two P.E. teachers, identified as Robert O. and Stephanie C., objected to administrators’ orders “to allow the girl into the bathroom, with no forewarning of the boys, or their parents, so that the boys could take steps to protect their privacy.”
“Administrators told them that informing the boys so they could take steps to protect their privacy would be ‘discriminatory,’ and subject them to discipline,” Liberty Counsel said.
“Robert also objected to administrators’ orders that he continue to walk into and supervise the locker room, despite a girl potentially being nude or undressed in that area. The administrators told him that the girl in question had ‘every right to use the locker room,’ including the right to disrobe in the open locker area, and shower in its open showers, where Robert is required to periodically walk in and supervise.”
Liberty Counsel declared to the district that Robert “will not knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise in a state of undress.”
“Now, Robert has been told by administrators that he will be transferred to another school as discipline for ‘not doing your job in the locker room.’”
The legal group said the girl “was admitted to the boys locker room for the first time, and walked in, catching boys (literally) with their pants down, causing them embarrassment and concern by the fact that they had been observed changing by an obvious girl.”
“Boys immediately came out of the locker room, and approached Stephanie and Robert, seeking assistance. The P.E. teachers were powerless to respond, because administrators had placed a gag order on them, and told them that they could not answer the boys on these questions.”
A WND call to the district Wednesday afternoon got a message saying the office was closed. The call then was disconnected.
Liberty Counsel explained to the district that there is no law requiring that girls be allowed in boys’ restrooms. The group asserted “objective biological sex – male and female – is (and should remain) the determining factor for access to gender-appropriate public school facilities.”
Find out how the fake news media and the lying press altered this story – hiding key facts from the public and eventually burying it in order to keep the public in the dark.
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Mom Dresses Six-Year-Old Son As Girl, Threatens Dad With Losing His Son For Disagreeing A Texas custody case splits a 6-year-old child’s gender identity in two.#SaveJames#Christianity#TransAgenda
Save James Website:
http://savejames.com/
Donate:
http://savejames.com/donate/Mom Dresses Six-Year-Old Son As Girl, Threatens Dad With Losing His Son For Disagreeing - By Walt Heyerhttps://thefederalist.com/2018/11/26/...As our court systems become little more of what Christ said of the Pharisees, evil becomes the accepted good and good the accepted evil, we have this agenda being normalized and weaponized. Six-year-old James is caught in a gender identity nightmare. Under his mom’s care in Dallas, Texas, James obediently lives as a trans girl named “Luna.” But given the choice when he’s with dad, he’s all boy — his sex at birth. In their divorce proceedings, the mother has charged the father with child abuse for not affirming James as transgender, has sought restraining orders against him, and is seeking to terminate his parental rights. She is also seeking to require him to pay for the child’s visits to a transgender-affirming therapist and transgender medical alterations, which may include hormonal sterilization starting at age eight.
Jeff Younger has twin 6 year old boys, James and Jude. Jeff is currently in a very tenuous custody battle as he and his ex-wife each fight for full custody. When the boys were 3 years old, Jeff’s ex-wife Anne (a local pediatrician in Coppell) decided that James should not be a boy. She began dressing him as a girl, calling him by the name “Luna” and enrolled him in “social transitioning” therapy to prepare him for chemical castration. This process can begin at age 8. She has enrolled him in Coppell Schools as a girl. He is currently in 1st grade. The teachers and administrators know that he is a boy, but the other parents and students are unaware. Courts have enjoined Jeff from dressing James as a boy at school, from teaching him that he is a boy, and from sharing religious teachings on sexuality and gender. He has literally been accused of abuse for affirming his son’s biological sex and by simply stating that his son is a boy. This has also caused him to lose 2 jobs now because this “abuse” was “anonymously” reported to his employers. James can choose how he wants to dress when he is at home – and when he is with his father, he happily chooses to be a boy and enjoys doing typical boy activities. Jeff is required to pay for the transgender therapy and sexual mutilation of his own son. His right to free speech and ability to protect and father his sons has been restricted. The court costs, legal fees, and child support have drained his finances, in addition to the job loss and he is completely on his own fighting to protect his children.
Please visit www.savejames.com for complete details, copies of court documents and ways you can help.
The Loss of Liberty -- Why Did the U.S. Allow Israel To Attack Its Largest Spyship Killing 34 Americans and Wounding Over 170 Others?
The USS Liberty was an electronic intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of what became known as the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War. 34 Americans were killed and more than 170 were wounded in the attack.
Israel and its supporters have long maintained that the attack was a "tragic case of misidentification," an explanation that Lyndon Johnson's administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States.
After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining whether it was an accident.
On Wednesday, a former top Navy attorney publicly said for the first time that President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ordered the U.S. military investigation to conclude that the Israeli attack was an accident.
The attorney, retired Captain Ward Boston, said the White House ordered investigators to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Boston was the senior legal counsel to the Navy's 1967 review of the attack. He said he was prompted to come forward following the publication of the recent book "The Liberty Incident" which concluded the attack was an accident.
"The Loss of Liberty", excerpts from the independent documentary about the Liberty attack produced by Howard Films, written and directed by Tito Howard.
James Bamford, investigative journalist and author of the books "The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency" and "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency."
Admiral Thomas Moorer, retired four-star admiral who served as chief of Naval Operations and as a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is the only American admiral to command both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and chief of naval operations for two terms and chairman of the joint chiefs for two terms. He led a year-long independent commission investigating the bombing of the USS Liberty and is now calling for a full Congressional investigation.
June 8, 1967, Israeli forces attack the USS Liberty. They kill 34 American servicemen, wounding 171 others. It will be the highest casualty rate ever inflicted on a U.S. naval vessel, with 7 out of every 10 crew members killed or injured. It will also be the only peacetime attack on a U.S. naval vessel that, to this day, the Congress of the United States of America formally refuses to investigate. The facts, as known, are as follow:
24 May 1967. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) orders USS Liberty, an intelligence-gathering vessel, to depart Abidjan for eastern Mediterranean, via Rota, Spain.
1 June 1967. Commanded by Capt. William McGonagle, Liberty arrives at Rota to load technical support material and supplies.
2 June 1967.Liberty departs Rota at top speed of 18 knots en route to a point 13 miles off the Gaza Strip, well within international waters.
5 June 1967, 7:45 (all times cited are local Liberty time). Israel attacks Egypt, simultaneously putting out false reports that Egypt had attacked first. Captain McGonagle asks Vice Admiral William Martin at Sixth Fleet headquarters to send a destroyer as an armed escort and auxiliary communication center, noting that Liberty’s “self defense capability limited to four .50 caliber machine guns and small arms.”
6 June 1967. Admiral Martin replies “Liberty is clearly marked United States ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation . . . Request for escort denied.”
0030: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Reconnaissance Center (JRC) orders Liberty to go from 12½ to 20 nautical miles off coast. An error by the U.S. Army Communications Center at the Pentagon results in message never reaching the ship.
0130: JRC orders Liberty to approach no closer than 100 miles to the coasts of Egypt and Israel. Due to misrouting it will take 16½ hours for message to reach Liberty.
0600: Israeli Nord 2501 Noratlas (flying boxcar) reconnoiters Liberty.
0603: Reconnaissance aircraft reports to Israeli naval headquarters that “GTR-5” is written on the ship, identifying it as an NSA intelligence vessel.
0720: Fresh American flag is raised.
0900: Jet aircraft approaches Liberty, then veers off towards Gaza. Liberty crewmen unable to identify markings.
1000: Two unmarked, rocket-armed, delta-winged jets circle Liberty three times. Liberty officers can count rockets and see the pilots, but see no identifying marks on the plane. The jets radio Israeli headquarters that the ship is flying an American flag.
1030: Israeli “flying boxcar” with Israeli markings circles Liberty at about 200 feet. Crew member Larry Weaver says, “I was actually able to wave to the co-pilot, a fellow on the right-hand side of the plane. He waved back, and actually smiled at me.”
1055: Pinchas Pinchasy, naval liaison officer at Israeli air force headquarters, reports to Naval Headquarters that the ship cruising slowly off El Arish is “an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy, named Liberty, whose marking was GTR-5.”
1100 & 1130: Israeli reconnaissance aircraft again circle Liberty.
1205: Three Israeli motor torpedo boats leave Ashdod at high speed headed toward Liberty. They are followed by Israeli air force fighters, loaded with 30mm cannon ammunition, rockets, and napalm.
1215 & 1245: Israeli reconnaissance aircraft again circle Liberty.
1341: Israeli torpedo boats spot Liberty and call for an immediate air strike.
1358: Two unmarked delta-winged Mirage jets attack Liberty. After taking out gun mounts, they target ship’s antennae and bridge with heat-seeking missiles.
1405: Three unmarked Dassault Mystère IIIC jets attack with napalm and rockets. Ship tries to contact Sixth Fleet headquarters, but five of Liberty’s six shore circuits are jammed. Radio operator manages to send distress signal from Captain McGonagle: “Under attack by unidentified jet aircraft, require immediate assistance.” Attack lasts approximately 22 minutes, involving 30 to 35 sorties, killing nine men and wounding around 60. Israeli pilot reports to base: “Great, wonderful, she’s burning, she’s burning.”
1409: Captain Joe Tully of the USS Saratoga acknowledges call for help, dispatches four F-4 Phantom jets, and informs Liberty that help is on the way. Within minutes U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara orders rescue jets to return: “Tell Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately.” Rear Admiral Geis relays message and tells them to re-launch jets in 90 minutes.
1424: Three French-built 62-ton Israeli motor torpedo boats approach Liberty in attack formation. Because the Israeli fighters had destroyed the American flag, Captain McGonagle orders the signalman to hoist the “holiday ensign,” the largest flag the ship has.
1435: Torpedo boats launch five German-made 19-inch torpedoes at Liberty. One torpedo strikes starboard directly into NSA area, accounting for 25 of the 34 men who would be killed. Torpedo boats then circle, machine-gunning the ship with armor-piercing projectiles for another 40 minutes.
1450: Commander of Sixth Fleet orders carriers USS America and USS Saratoga to send aircraft to defend Liberty.
1500: NSA Sigint Command Center receives first notice of the attack from either the America or Saratoga: “USS Liberty has been reportedly torpedoed by unknown source in Med near 32N 33E. Request examine all communications for possible reaction/reflections and report accordingly.”
1505: Message sent to Liberty from Sixth Fleet: “Sending aircraft to cover you. Surface units on the way.” Liberty is off the air and does not receive the message.
1511: First “official” notice that Liberty is under attack reaches National Military Command Center in Washington.
1515: After the order to “prepare to abandon ship” comes over the loudspeaker system, the lifeboats are lowered into the water. Israeli torpedo boats move in closer and fire on them, as well as those still on deck, making them all unusable. “I watched with horror as the floating life rafts were riddled with holes,” recalled Lieutenant Lloyd Painter, in charge of the evacuation. Said Petty Officer Rowley, who also witnessed the event: “They didn’t want anyone to live.” After destroying the life rafts, the Israeli boats departed. Next, two Israeli SA-321 Super Frelon Hornet assault helicopters carrying soldiers in battle dress circle ship several times, then depart.
1520: Commander of Sixth Fleet announces that 12 aircraft will be launched at 1545 to arrive near Liberty at 1715.
1532: Walt Rostow, President Johnson’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, notifies the president of the attack.
1536: Israeli torpedo boats return, then leave.
1545: USS Saragota and America launch second rescue flights.
1555:Liberty regains its transmitter; still has no receiver.
1600:Liberty transmits: “Flash, flash, flash. I pass in the blind. We are under attack by aircraft and high-speed surface craft.” Deputy Director Louis Tordella is informed by Deputy Director of Joint Reconnaissance Center, Captain Vineyard, that “consideration was then being given by some unnamed Washington authorities to sink the Liberty in order that newspaper men would be unable to photograph her and thus inflame public opinion against the Israelis.” Tordella makes an “impolite” comment about the idea, writes a memo of the conversation for the record, and stores it away.
1605:Liberty transmits: “Request immediate assistance. Torpedo hit starboard side.”
1614: American embassy relays Israeli apology to White House, Department of State, and Sixth Fleet that an unidentified “maybe Navy” ship has been erroneously attacked.
1615: Two unidentified jets approach Liberty, then veer off.
1630: Israeli jets and three torpedo boats return, offer assistance. Captain McGonagle refuses their help. Boats leave after 12 minutes.
1717: Deputy Secretary of Defense orders that all news releases on attack are to be made in Washington. Soon after, Israeli helicopter approaches Liberty and requests permission to land. McGonagle refuses. Helicopter departs.
1729: Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, commander of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, protests decision to recall rescue planes to Secretary of Defense McNamara. At that point President Johnson comes on the phone and says he didn’t care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his allies. Admiral Geis tells Lt. Commander David Lewis, head of the Liberty’s NSA group, of the remark, but asks him not to repeat it until after he dies. It is a promise Lewis will honor.
1915: Captain McGonagle, wounded and exhausted, dictates first report on estimated casualties: 10 dead; 15 severely wounded; 75 total wounded; undetermined missing. His estimates would prove low.
9 June 1967:
After midnight: Soviet guided missile destroyer sends flashing-light message in English: “Do you need help?” Liberty responds: “No thank you.” Soviets answer: “I will stand by in case you need me.”
0600: USS Navy destroyers Davis and Massey arrive.
Mid-morning: Dead and wounded are evacuated by helicopter.
1450: Israeli Lt. Col. Michael Bloch telephones Commander Castle that Liberty, because it was not flying a flag, had been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Queseir. State Department assures Congress that attack was accidental.
10 June 1967: Vice Admiral McCain orders Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd to convene Navy Court of Inquiry.
11 June 1967: Admiral Kidd boards Liberty with small staff to head Navy Court of Inquiry.
14 June 1967: Liberty arrives in Malta. Total news blackout imposed. Rear Admiral Kidd warns crew: “You are never, repeat never, to discuss this with anyone, not even your wives. If you do, you will be court-martialed and will end your lives in prison or worse.” Secretary of Defense McNamara informs media that, “Department of Defense will have no further comment.”
15 June 1967: Secretary of State Dean Rusk tells NATO ambassadors in Luxembourg that Israel’s attack was deliberate. His remark is reported in European, but not U.S. papers.
18 June 1967: Israeli Court of Inquiry exonerates Israeli government and all those involved, saying that its torpedo boats erroneously reported the Liberty’s speed at 30 knots instead of 5, and that the Liberty flew no flag and had no identifying markings. Later, Israel will honor Motor Torpedo Boat 203, the one that fired the deadly torpedo at the Liberty, by putting its wheel and bell on display in its naval museum, among those maritime items of which it is most proud.
July 1967: Shortly after the burial of six Liberty crewmen in Arlington National Cemetery, a monument is erected describing the six as having “Died in the Eastern Mediterranean.” Libertysurvivors complain that the marking is evasive and improper.
September 1967: State Department legal adviser Carl Salans finds many discrepancies with the Israeli report. His report is classified Top Secret.
11 June 1968: Captain McGonagle is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Medal, usually presented by the President of the United States at the White House, is presented by the Secretary of the Navy during a hastily arranged ceremony at the Washington D.C. Navy Yard. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the Chief of Naval Operations, calls the way the Medal is presented a back-handed slap. “Everyone else received their medal at the White House,” Moorer will later observe. “President Johnson must have been concerned about the reaction of the Israeli lobby.”
1980: National Security Agency Director Marshall Carter tells investigative author James Bamford that, regarding the attack on the Liberty, “There was no other answer than that it was deliberate.”
1981: National Security Agency review, “Attack on a Sigint Collector, the USS Liberty Incident,” rejects the Israeli Court of Inquiry’s “mistake” theory and accuses Israeli fighter pilots and torpedo boat crewmen and commanders of perjury.
1982: Israeli senior lead pilot approaches former Congressman Pete McCloskey and admits that he recognized the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He said he refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.
6 October 1982: A new headstone for the six Liberty crew members at Arlington National Cemetery is unveiled. This one reads: “Killed USS Liberty June 8, 1967.”
1986: Lt. Commander Walter H. Jacobsen writes in Naval Law Review: “To speculate on the motives of an attack group that uses unmarked planes and deprives helpless survivors of life rafts raises disturbing possibilities, including the one that the Liberty crew was not meant to survive the attack...”
6 November 1991: Columnists Evans and Novak publish interview with Dwight Porter, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon in 1967, in which Porter says that during or immediately after the attack on the Liberty the CIA station chief showed him transcripts of intercepted Israeli messages. One has Israel ordering the attack on the Liberty, another has an Israeli pilot replying it’s an American ship. When the order to attack is repeated, the pilot insists he can see the American flag. The pilot is told again: “Attack it.”
8 June 1997: Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, appointed Chief of Naval Operations shortly after the attack on the Liberty, tells a reunion of survivors: “I have to conclude that it was Israel’s intent to sink the Liberty and leave as few survivors as possible. Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American.”
November 1998: Captain McGonagle breaks his long silence: “After many years I finally believe that the attack was deliberate. I don’t think there has been an adequate investigation of the incident . . . The flag was flying prior to the attack...” McGonagle will die four months later, on March 3, 1999.
References
Two 12-page articles have appeared in AMEU’s bimonthly publication The Link:
“The USS Liberty Affair,” by James E. Ennes, Jr. This issue is available in PDF download from the AMEU website. Search by author or year (1984).
“Remember the Liberty,” by John Borne, with an introductory memorandum by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This issue is available in PDF download from the AMEU website. Search by author or year (1997).
Ennes, James, Assault on the Liberty, 2002 edition. Available from AMEU, $25.00 Ennes was the lieutenant on watch at the time the Israelis first attacked the Liberty. A full chapter is devoted to Israel’s motives for knowingly attacking the ship.
Bamford, James, Body of Secrets, 2001 edition. Available from AMEU, $19.95. Bamford offers several important pieces of information previous classified. On page 226, e.g., he tells of President Johnson’s reaction:
At 11:29 A.M. (5:29 P.M.), Johnson took the unusual step of ordering the JCS to recall the fighters while the Liberty still lay smoldering, sinking, fearful of another attack, without aid, and with its decks covered with the dead, the dying, and the wounded. Onboard the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, Rear Admiral Lawrence R. Geis, who commanded the carrier force in the Mediterranean, was angry and puzzled at the recall and protested it to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.
Admiral Geis was shocked by what he heard next. According to information obtained for Body of Secrets, “President Lyndon Johnson came on with a comment that he didn’t care if the ship sank, he would not embarrass his allies.” Admiral Geis told Lieutenant Commander David Lewis, the head of the NSA group on the Liberty, about the comment but asked him to keep it secret until after Geis died. It was a promise that Lewis kept.
Tito, Howard. The Loss of Liberty. This is a 50-minute video made in 2001, and includes graphic footage of the attack, and interviews with high ranking naval personnel. The video is also available through AMEU for $22.50.
Triplett, William, “Death on the USS Liberty,” in “VVA Veteran,” Sept-Oct. 2002. Offers chilling interviews with survivors. Larry Weaver, a 21-year-old bosun’s mate on the Liberty, who was not expected to live, was airlifted to the USS AMERICA, where he immediately underwent the first of 26 major surgeries. He was subsequently flown to American hospitals in Crete, Italy and Germany, and then sent to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital for recovery. He recalls:
“I was four days in intensive care in a wheelchair in Philadelphia, and I was told an admiral wanted to talk to me,” Weaver recalls. “I went to meet him in a room and he closed the door and deadbolted it, which kind of scared me. He then took his stars off, saying, “I’m not an admiral now. Tell me what you know.” Weaver told him, emphasizing, among other points, that throughout most of the attack, because of his position on the ship, he had had a clear view of the Stars and Stripes flying off the ship’s bow, clearly identifying the Liberty as American. The Israelis claim the spy ship was flying no flag. “The admiral then said, ‘Okay,’ and put his stars back on and he pointed at me. And he said, ‘Larry, if you repeat this or talk to anyone about this you’ll be put into prison and we’ll throw away the key.’”
Green, Stephen. i>Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel. Published in 1984 by William Morrow and Company, Inc., this work remains a primary source on the attack and cover-up.
Borne, John. The USS Liberty: Dissenting History Versus Official History. Published in 1995, this book focuses on the contradictions in the various official explanations that have been given for Israel’s attack on the Liberty.
The official web site for the USS Liberty is: www.ussLiberty.org.
"What I Saw That Day" by Phil Tourney
A survivors account of what happened aboard the USS Liberty while under attack by the Israeli Defense Forces during the Six Days War
http://www.amazon.com/Israels-Holocau...
LONDON (Reuters) - A top aide to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, fired for his role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, personally oversaw the torture of at least one detained female activist earlier this year, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.
