A narrowly avoided catastrophe
In the weeks and months before the Six Day War the Soviet Union was spreading its influence into the Middle East, it backed radical governments in Egypt and Syria such as Nessar who had become the Arab worlds chief spokesman for the Arab world on the Israeli problem.
When the Six Day War begun Israel became victorious in the early hours of the war (it had begun) destroying most of the Egyptian air force in air strikes in Sinai, they were completely caught by surprise and over 80% of their air force was destroyed in a matter of hours.
During this time the Soviet navy had increased their presence near the war moving 20 war ships into the eastern Mediterranean, the US responded by sending in the US SIxth Fleet to be within one hundred miles of the Israeli coast, except for the USS Liberty which came near the Sinai coast.
They were in international waters flying the American flag, what need would they have for an armed escort?
On Thursday the 8th of June it had reached its destination, what was on shore was a nearly complete Israeli victory, they had seized the West Bank and were pushing forward to capturing Jerusalem itself!
On at least nine different occasions Israeli aircraft buzzed the Liberty, Israel was Americas allies, and it was obvious they knew just that, it was a clear summers day, what could go wrong?
That was when Israeli Mirages begun attacking the Liberty crippling it after firing rockets and machine guns at its deck, in this horrific incident 34 Americans were killed!
The Liberty had been crippled but was still able to send out a distress call to the American Sixth Fleet.
Knowing full well that the Liberty had been attacked the aircraft carrier USS America went into condition November, nuclear armed A-4 bombers and their fighter F-4 escorts were launched, the US had been prepared to retaliate against Egypt since they presumed it was them that had attacked the Liberty.
Ready aircraft had been launched (the ready meaning nuclear armed aircraft).
The US embassy in Cairo was warned that an attack was coming, the US had been ready to nuke that city and possibly kill thousands of people instantly and have hundreds more die slowly from radiation poisoning!
The aircraft were already on their way when Defence Sectary Robert McNamara gave the order for the aircraft to turn back not wanting to see a mushroom cloud over Cairo, McNamara wasn't the perfect defence sectary but he was right about what he said about going all the way with nuclear weapons, and that was essentially the complete destruction of nations!
Apart from widely accepted fact that Israel had attacked an American ship and killed 34 of its crew is bad enough, but imagine if the Sixth Fleet had gone all the day and incinerated Cario and killed thousands of people that lived there!
This clearly was a narrowly averted catastrophe that would have ever lasting effects to this day!
When the Six Day War begun Israel became victorious in the early hours of the war (it had begun) destroying most of the Egyptian air force in air strikes in Sinai, they were completely caught by surprise and over 80% of their air force was destroyed in a matter of hours.
During this time the Soviet navy had increased their presence near the war moving 20 war ships into the eastern Mediterranean, the US responded by sending in the US SIxth Fleet to be within one hundred miles of the Israeli coast, except for the USS Liberty which came near the Sinai coast.
They were in international waters flying the American flag, what need would they have for an armed escort?
On Thursday the 8th of June it had reached its destination, what was on shore was a nearly complete Israeli victory, they had seized the West Bank and were pushing forward to capturing Jerusalem itself!
On at least nine different occasions Israeli aircraft buzzed the Liberty, Israel was Americas allies, and it was obvious they knew just that, it was a clear summers day, what could go wrong?
That was when Israeli Mirages begun attacking the Liberty crippling it after firing rockets and machine guns at its deck, in this horrific incident 34 Americans were killed!
The Liberty had been crippled but was still able to send out a distress call to the American Sixth Fleet.
Knowing full well that the Liberty had been attacked the aircraft carrier USS America went into condition November, nuclear armed A-4 bombers and their fighter F-4 escorts were launched, the US had been prepared to retaliate against Egypt since they presumed it was them that had attacked the Liberty.
Ready aircraft had been launched (the ready meaning nuclear armed aircraft).
The US embassy in Cairo was warned that an attack was coming, the US had been ready to nuke that city and possibly kill thousands of people instantly and have hundreds more die slowly from radiation poisoning!
The aircraft were already on their way when Defence Sectary Robert McNamara gave the order for the aircraft to turn back not wanting to see a mushroom cloud over Cairo, McNamara wasn't the perfect defence sectary but he was right about what he said about going all the way with nuclear weapons, and that was essentially the complete destruction of nations!
Apart from widely accepted fact that Israel had attacked an American ship and killed 34 of its crew is bad enough, but imagine if the Sixth Fleet had gone all the day and incinerated Cario and killed thousands of people that lived there!
This clearly was a narrowly averted catastrophe that would have ever lasting effects to this day!
Labels: israel, nuclear war, six day war, us navy, uss liberty
posted by Paul Iddon @ 5:23 PM
1 Comments:
At July 14, 2009 8:41 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Seriously? I had no idea the US army has those kind of weapons just right there sitting waiting for some action. I mean is it really that safe for us to arm aircraft with nuclear weapons in conventional warfare? Fuck.
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