July 24, 2026 • 71 mins
In 1967, under circumstances that still seem incredibly murky, Israeli air and sea forces attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 crewmembers and injuring more than 170 others. The official story, agreed on by both the United States and Israel: this was a mistake in the fog of the Six-Day War. Perhaps a result of communication breakdowns. Yet, as Ben, Matt and Noel discover in the second chapter of this two-part series -- survivors, politicians, and activists aren't buying the official story. So what actually happened? Is there a cover-up afoot, even in the modern day?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. This is a two parter.
My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Faga. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. As my pal
Matt pointed out, this is chapter two of a two
part series on the true story of the USS liberty
(00:54):
and why even now people are certain there is a
conspiracy afoot. So please please please check out chapter one
before you continue. A lot of questions we may have
are going to be answered there, guys, I recall when
we're talking off air, informed by some phenomenal listener mail correspondence.
(01:19):
We knew going in this was going to be a
sticky subject.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh yeah, this has been a sticky subject since the
day it occurred, right, yes, And it's going back and
forth through the history of the United States looking at
it with all of us finding new revelations with a
group of folks who were directly affected by it constantly
kind of telling the same story, and then a whole
(01:46):
other group of folks who are you know, come trying
to find the truth maybe but at least coming up
with an official version of history that we all read.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's also probably now maybe even more of a sticky
subject because of the nature of our relationship with Israel
and some of the you know, concerns surrounding their politics
and you know, genocidal behavior exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And let's get into this. Let's do a brief recap,
and then we're we're going full into the icy cold
waters or the warm waters of the Snipe Peninsula. Here
are the facts, Okay, first thing you need to know, folks.
In chapter one, we explored the history of the vessel
(02:36):
involved in the USS Liberty incident. It was not always
named the Liberty. It used to be called for a
very long time, the Simmons Victory. It serviced multiple wars,
and we say serviced right, guys, because it wasn't firing
on enemy positions or enemy forces. It was kind of
(02:58):
bringing cargo in, right. So eventually, as we know this
USS Simmons Victory finds a new life as a little
ship called the Liberty. This happens on June eighth, nineteen
sixty three. There's a weird convergence of events here. It
becomes a spy ship. We don't know all the missions
(03:20):
it did on the western coast of the African continent.
And we also, I think, guys, we did a pretty
good job acknowledging that we the public have no idea
about the entirety of what the Liberty was up to.
We don't know what it was collecting. We just know
it was grabbing everything. Gary Oldman Gift everything absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, and let's just point out with the Office of
the Historian of the US Department of State Bureau of
Administration has on their website, I think you can find
out under intelligence memoranda prepared in the Central Intelligence AI
agency has a timeline. And the reason w I'm pointing
this out is because their timeline starts on the second
of June nineteen sixty seven with them leaving Spain heading
(04:09):
to where they're going off the coast of Egypt and Israel,
and then the next entry is six days later on
June eighth, which just means all of that time in
between those two days. As you're saying, Ben, they went there,
what were they doing? It's not in the record.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, you the public are excluded from that conversation, folks.
So why that's a great point, Matt. We have to
always acknowledge that, especially when no such agency is involved,
e tidelines get a little dicey, particularly specifics. We know
that the Liberty was hoovered up radio signals, morse code transmission, anything.
(04:51):
It could start from aircraft. It didn't matter if we
were talking friends or foes. We had a little bit
of fire power for fifty caliber machine guns, essentially chonky boys,
but they were not meant to be an offensive vessel.
As you pointed out Nol in chapter one, is a
(05:13):
small small ship as wartime craft go, and its job
was not to attack. Its job was to intercept.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
And to basically be invisible. Right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I mean, it's like we described it sort of as
the maritime equivalent of like the unmarked van sitting outside
of like a mafia headquarters.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah yeah, mind us We're just a little We're just
a little pop up food truck, right. But we it's like,
have you this has happened to a lot of us
in the audience. We've talked about this in previous episodes. Folks,
you may find yourself in a strange place where you
walk into a restaurant that doesn't look very well attended
(05:57):
and they seem surprised that you're This happens all the
time in New Jersey. It's gonna be the best pizza
in your life. Maybe they're not focusing on being a
pizza restaurant. Oh no, what are they're doing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Right, something fall off a truck?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Wait, what do you want?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You want like a you want like a pizza? Yeah,
you're a pizza restaurant, oh man? And then you know
you'll wait forty five minutes for them to go and
get a pizza off a truck, and it's going to
be the best pizza you've ever had.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Or some guy named Ray made it. As we know,
all of the pizza joints are called Rays, at least
they were when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah right right, Rai's pizza is pretty awesome.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
I didn't go to Ray's, man, I don't know about Rays.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Was it really that good?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
There's there were like four chains or something called.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean, they're they're way above CCI's pizza no offense
to secon.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Yeah, Ceci's was no good.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, they did bring back the pizza buffet, I say,
but make it good.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah. I've been to a few. I've been to wait,
let me correct that, I've been to one pizza buffet
in a different part of the world, and it was
just amazing. It was astonishing, and it included some very
strange takes you don't see in the US, like, of course,
oh gosh, I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Ben, I will say, I walk back what I said.
We don't need a pizza buffet. No one should have
more than a couple of pieces of pizza in one
sitting well, face is to overkill.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, buffet is a very American thing. It shouldn't be
all you can eat. It should be all you should eat.
You know. But a story for another evening for apps.
As you were saying, Matt, we know that things go
begin to go horribly wrong, horrifically wrong for the USS
Liberty once it relocates to the Mediterranean off the Sinai
(07:55):
Peninsula controlled by Egypt. Uncle Sam orders the ship, orders
the vessel to stay in international waters, but to kind
of bump the boundary there to be as close as
possible is such that they're not encroaching on sovereign maritime waters,
(08:15):
but they are able to listen in on any communication
from the shore. And they're doing this because they're pretty
sure war is going to break out.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yes, I want to read a little bit more from
that source I cited earlier, just where that has the
timeline here. Officially, I find it very interesting and it
leaves me with questions about what was actually happening when
you're talking about that staying in international waters.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
On June eighth, at two fifty am, there is a
duty officer who received phone instructions from Joint Reconnaissance Center
directing Liberty to comply with the one hundred mile operating
area restriction. That's exactly what you're talking about, Ben. Then
at nine to fifty am, so seven hours later, Liberty
(09:02):
was orbited by two unidentified Delta wing single engine jet fighters,
presumably Israeli Mirages. Then at twelve seventeen pm that same
it says Calm sixth Fleet orders Liberty at least one
hundred miles away from coast of Uar and Israel and
twenty five miles from Cyprus, and it says this message
(09:26):
apparently was not received by Liberty prior to this attack.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Despite the fact, let's point this out, we'll talk about
it board, despite the fact that this is a ship
literally designed to interpret, intercept, and receive communications. The calms
are down, right, This is like, this is like texting
(09:53):
AT and T and getting a response from AT and
T that says, we didn't get it. We left you
on red. Isn't that your job how.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
To reach you?
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It just seems it seems odd, right, And here's maybe
the weird thing for me. We're talking about orders from
on high, right, when when something like this comes down,
you're getting an order you as a ship, and the
person who's commanding that ship is getting an order from
people above you in the chain of command in that instance, correct,
(10:29):
we always wonder about parallel orders from others who are
also above you, but in a different I don't know
how to even say this. Guys, somebody from one branch,
let's say, from the Navy. That's the person above you
in the Navy that is ordering you to do this thing.
But then there's someone from a different three letter agency
(10:50):
that is also above you, that is giving you a
parallel separate command that is contradictory to the one you
got from your commanding officer. What happens in that point
and who actually is the person that gets listened to
and which orders are followed?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Is that a chain of command question? Like is there
not a definitive answer to that? Or I guess it
gets a little murky when it comes to some of
these overlapping agencies and priorities.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Great question there always should be like a there always
should be a single traceable chain of command, and if
there are any turf wars, those are theoretically going to
be decided before it gets down to the surface or
up to the sky. So what could have happened is
(11:33):
that the liberty is receiving contradicting orders from multiple vectors.
What could have also happened during that chain of command
is that someone was able to say, we did our
due diligence and we transmitted the orders, and someone after us,
(11:55):
for some reason or another, did not transmit them. And
then also of course human error.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Mm hm, oh gosh, human arrow. We always talked about
that being chopped up with a lot of these major incidents,
especially accidents or things that are covered up because it's
it's not very it's not a good look that some
small accident caused a major incident. Well, was the one
we just talked about, the sands of incident, the slap
(12:22):
slapped in sands incident. How it appears that there are
a lot of small accidents mistakes that caused a tragedy. Right,
Potentially that could be what we're looking at here, and
that is one of the big reasons why a full
investigation into this is so appealing, especially to the folks
who were directly affected, but to a lot of other
people well in the United States but around the world
(12:45):
that just want a deeper understanding of the specifics here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Absolutely, and you can find some of these in our
in chapter one, we looked at some direct sources from
the NSA, from some d classified documents we're going to
talk about tonight, kid, you not folks. The best way
to find these right now, Uh, you can technically go
to n s A dot gov, forward slash liberty, a
(13:13):
more a more stable link I will say that is
edit less likely to have its history edited. Is to
go to the wayback machine. And I hate saying that,
but it is so true. You could go to web
dot archive, dot org, or go to the wayback machine
and check the website n s A dot gov slash liberty,
(13:34):
and you'll see, as Matt was saying, like as you
were saying, Matt, you'll see this blow by blow breakdown
of multiple checks and balances. What we do know right
now is that the facts are indisputable. There's an interesting
there's there's an interesting coincidence if coincidences exist that we
(13:57):
didn't talk about in chapter one, which which is this
The attack on the USS Liberty happens exactly to the day,
four years after the Liberty is created. So we said
it was created on June eighth, nineteen sixty three. On
(14:19):
June eighth, nineteen sixty seven, Israeli forces attack the USS
Liberty in international waters during the Six Day War. And
we're talking like you were saying earlier, we're talking multi product.
Attack jets are circling over, embombing. Naval forces are launching torpedoes.
(14:40):
One hundred and seventy plus people are wounded, thirty four
people die, and the ship is like. The attackers only
stop attacking the ship when they are certain they have
scuttled it. They think this thing is going to sink.
This is again bears repeating the deadliest attack on a
US ship since World War Two. This is nuts. Oh yeah,
(15:04):
as we took pains to note in our earlier episode,
in our previous chapter, from day one, from the day
up until twenty twenty six, right as we record on Monday,
July twentieth, the government of Israel has always maintained that
this was a mistake, fog of war stuff, and the
(15:28):
government has repeatedly paid compensation to the tune of billions.
Apologized immediately after the attack. It was a US investigation.
They agreed with the Israeli investigation. They said this was
not on purpose. It was what at least one historian
called a classic screw up. A lot of other historians
(15:52):
don't agree.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, just to the tune of the compensation of this,
just jumping to Snoops, just to give some detail here.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
This is directly from Snoops.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Israel apologized for the attack and in nineteen sixty eight
paid three point three million to the US government for
families of those killed, three point six million a year
later to the wounded, and in nineteen eighty six million
for the material damage to the liberty.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yes, and that third payment was agreed to be the
final piece of the settlement. Here's where we left off, folks.
The issue is actual survivors of the attack don't buy
the official explanation. They don't accept that official apology, and
they think the well plainly, but a lot of the
(16:42):
survivors believe that the compensation where the blood price, if
you want to call it, that is only part of
a cover up. So we left off with the survivors.
How about we take a break for a word from
our sponsors and pick up there. Here's where it gets great, Guys,
(17:05):
I know we've all read these stories.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
They're harrowy.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
There are tons of stories straight from survivors talking about
the details of the attack. These are folks who are
actually on the liberty.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The primary person I've seen is Phil Turney t O
U R n. E Y, who's written at least there's
one prominent book that he's written that you can find
at Ussliberty dot org, which is, I believe been like
the an official veterans organization or association for survivors of
(17:41):
the Liberty. Yeah, you can find that just looking on
their website right now. It's called Stay Afloat by Phil Tourney.
It's the book, and on that website you can also
find images and a little bit of information on all
the folks that died, as well as information on survivors
(18:02):
who are still alive, people who made it out of
the incident. Because there were one hundred and seventy one
injured right that survived, plus several many other crew members
a board who were not injured or killed.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, estimates range from one hundred and seventy to one
hundred and seventy four. There are a lot of people
who survived and are alive now. Because we have to
keep in mind this was the late sixties, and we
have to also make a point here, folks, here, it's
stuff they don't want you to know. We can assure
(18:35):
you that these are not people chasing some financial windfall.
These are not a bunch of folks chasing some sort
of racial prejudice. They want the truth of their experience
and the folks that they lost to be acknowledged, and
they ask really reasonable questions, not conspiratorial in any way.
(18:59):
They say stuff like, if this attack was made an error,
then why for Pete's sake did it continue to the
point of crippling the ship? Right? Why why did the
attacking forces get close enough to see this was an
American vessel and still not haul off the strike. It's
(19:22):
not like Egypt and the US were super duper BFFs
at this point.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh yeah, well it wasn't. It wasn't even until nineteen
eighty that it was officially acknowledged to the American public
that napalm.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Was used on this vessel. Which is, if.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You're going to drop napalm on a naval vessel, chat,
doesn't I mean that seems like going an extra mile.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Right, go, there's nowhere for the crew members to go.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Reminder, napalm is like like weaponized burning, like gasoline sticky
kind of stuff, right, isn't that the deal?
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Napalm is nasty, especially if there's no way to extricate
yourself from the situation.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, if you got hit by it, it would basically
coat your skin and you know, burn you alive.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Oh yeah, man, Noel, napalm is nasty stuff. Don't try
it at home.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, I don't know about you, guys. I learned about
it for the first time we were researching the Vietnam War,
and you know, you've heard the term I think growing up,
maybe as like the term was around, it was in
popular culture.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
It was just a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But not until we researched the Vietnam War and learned
about trying attempting to burn down swaths of jungle and
like what it was being used for, including villages and
all kinds of stuff. You understand the horrors when you
get to see the images that were brought back from
the Vietnam War and you see human beings that, as
(20:51):
you're saying, Noel, get get hit by just a little
bit of it.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
It's a very terrible way to go.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Would it be standard procedure to drop that on a ship.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
In times of war? It can happen with enemy forces,
but it is non ideal.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
It doesn't seem like the first go to, you know,
material to use against a ship.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's a good question. It's typically going to. I mean
it changes over time, right, But it's also a matter
of what the attacking forces possess. So if people have
only napalm, that's what they'll use. But they didn't just
have apaul. They chose to use nepal. As you were saying, Matt,
(21:40):
and look over the years, similar experts, people who are
not on the vessel have asked very similar questions. A
lot of people have come forward. I think this is
going to surprise anybody unfamiliar with the cover up or
allegations thereof a lot of people have come forward, are
bringing explicit statements arguing that the United States covered the
(22:06):
entire thing up, that the United States knew it was purposeful,
and for one reason or another decided to play along
like it was an accident. I want us to go
check out the Mercury News courtesy of AP June eighteenth,
two thousand and eight. There's a guy of a special
(22:26):
interest to us. His name is Ward Boston. He's a
former Navy attorney. He was assigned as a legal advisor
to the Military Board of Inquiry in the US looking
into the attack in decades, decades after the fact. Like
way in two thousand and two, Boston came forward and
(22:49):
accused the President of the United States for participating in
the cover up.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And that's Lyndon B. Johnson, by the.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Way, right, Yeah, that the JUMBOMLF President, Glyndon B. Johnson. Yeah.
Boston claimed that Johnson worked in ordinarily, I would say,
in Congress, but he worked in step with the sect deaf,
the Defense secretary at the time, Robert McNamara, and these
(23:18):
guys apparently explicitly without euphemism, they told the head of
the inquiry and all the people involved in the inquiry
to quote conclude that the attack was a case of
mistaken identity. And Boston again, he's a big deal guy.
(23:39):
He's a Navy attorney. He says, they wanted us to
say it was mistaken identity, to say it was a
screw up, despite quote overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And
he didn't. He wasn't just like saying this on a podcast,
no offense does. He was saying this in a signed affidavit,
(24:00):
which means there would be legal consequences if he were
proven to be false in his statements.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Dude, simply because we mentioned Robert McNamara. This is a gentleman.
We have mentioned before. There's a little coup in Chile
in the nineteen seventies, seventy three. I believe this, dude,
is very interesting. The Church Committee, I don't know if
you ever heard of that. We've talked about it on
this show. Look into it. This guy was the head
of the World Bank for a while after he did
(24:31):
his time with the US government doing some things, very
interesting individual. Highly recommend you look more into him, as
we likely will again in the future sometime, because he'll
come up again.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yes, yes, he keeps, he keeps coming up. Yeah, just
like the dullest brothers. It's it's a pickle, right, it's
a bag of badgers. One of our first questions, one
of the questions at least the survivors of the Liberty
Attack we're asking back in two thousand and two or so,
(25:07):
it was why did why did Ward Boston wait so long?
And he says something that we've heard so many times before.
He's saying, look, those were the orders I was given
right in the military as part of this inquiry, and
if you are in the military, you follow orders. He says,
(25:29):
he finally felt a moral compulsion higher than the chain
of command. After there was a book published which he encountered.
The book is called The Liberty Incident and Spoilers three
two one. That book ultimately argues that it was a mistake,
(25:49):
that it wasn't unintentional, and he didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
This person Ward is very important because recently in the
United States in June, there was a guy named Thomas
Massey who was a congressman who stepped forward and put
some of Ward's statements into the Congressional record. So the
things that he's talking about with McNamara and Johnson were
(26:14):
a little bit of it was said out loud to
Congress by Thomas Massey, which you know, it just becomes
a part of the American story now because it's in
the records. Literally, it's in that weird you say something
in front of Congress, now it's official.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Which, by the way, folks, literally anything unless they take
certain parliamentary moves or security moves to redact it. The
congressional record is full of bonker stuff.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
Oh my god, a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
It just it gets weird, Like we're talking about some
of the most intelligent, some of the most important, and
some of the dumbest stuff you will ever read is
in the congressional record.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Remember when a bunch a big to do is made of,
like Trump deleting his tweets when he was president, and
how that's not supposed to be allowed because it's technically
part of you know, the official record.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Any communication that he makes.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Oh my god, I didn't even think about his social
media posts being a part of They absolutely are supposed
to people in the future. There, No, it's uh, it's
not supposed to delete them.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
They're supposed to be or at the very least, they're
supposed to be like archived in some very you know,
real way.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Can you imagine the library a couple of years from
now and there's you could just scroll through them.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yet they're going to be absolutely insane.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I'd love it if you could just pull up you
could have a random button at the library and yeah,
just like just random. One guy loves Ai. So maybe
you can talk to the president after Okay, too soon,
but but you know.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
You'll also off if you ask me.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You'll also get to see a sick a sick Katari airplane.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Are they still they're still tweaking it to make it,
to make it right?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, we're cooked.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Man.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I think I got brainwashed when I went to Kaitar
because I I freaking liked that place.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
I think we all did. And we're not we're not
talking about uh, we're not talking about Katari culture. We're
not talking about time. I'm talking about our gap.
Speaker 7 (28:34):
Oh for sure. And I will say when I described
that trip to people, I say, gosh, it was so nice.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Everyone was so friendly and clean, but there was sort
of a vague undercurrent of oppression. It just wasn't like
front and center, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I would just say the general intelligence of every human
being I spoke to was so hot on an average Yeah, yes, yeah,
especially walking around this place. No fence Americans, but us
do better?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, we know that do better is something a lot
of these survivors are saying. We mentioned, We mentioned one
survivor earlier. Again, there are hundreds. We also want to
mention folks like Maurice Schaeffer, who encountered it says that
he and his fellow crew members encountered an order similar
(29:27):
to what Ward Boston would later encounter. He says, and
you can read this and outfits like Zito dot com
a cover up. Survivors of Israel's attack on US ship
still waiting for answers fifty eight years later. This is
from last year. Thank you to Prem Thaker, our journalists there.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
And here's the quote from Schaeffer. He says, we were
instructed that we could not talk about the attack, and
if we did, we would be in major trouble. That
was the major beginning of the cover up. In our eyes.
The big part of the cover up was already underway
in Washington. I mean, this is quite a damning observation.
(30:11):
And to say they were told to hush up about it,
but just to be devil's advocate, isn't sort of like
not airing dirty laundry or talking about things that are
maybe a little bit controversial sort of still par for
the course, even with it not in the face of
some sort of really really intense cover up.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, it's a great question, man, because this we also
can't forget. This is complicated by the fact that it's a.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Spy ship exactly right, Right, that's that extra layer of
let's not you know, let's not air this out to
the public.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's kind of like they were already there were already
told shut up when you get on the boat.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, if it is something that we do not know
that the ship was engaged in, right, that they shouldn't
have been engaged in, so then Israel responds with lethal
force because it was directly contrary to you know, even
the close relationship that was there. If it was something
(31:14):
that was so bad, it would be terrible if that
came out that the US was doing something that they
shouldn't have been doing. And so if you are trying
to get justice for what occurred, the bad thing that happened,
if you're searching for that, then eventually it's probably going
to come to light what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Okay, Right, And I don't know if we've raised this question,
but maybe even if we have, it's worth dressing again
if it was intentional to what end?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Oh, yes, we have a case to build here, okay,
because I just.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Don't quite understand, given the outcry, given the fact that
it ended up costing them so much, did they think
they would get away with it if it was intentional?
Speaker 7 (31:55):
And I know that we did address in.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
The last episode that, like the relationship between the US
and Israel was the same level of cozy as it
is today.
Speaker 7 (32:04):
But it's still and that's why I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The democracy of the Middle East, Yeah, I mean, on paper,
democracy of the Middle East. It's a great question, and
we have to remember going it's a great series of questions.
We have to remember the excellent point you just made, Matt.
We can't forget this. Admitting this as a purposeful attack
(32:29):
would inevitably expose what we call like means and methods.
Pardon me, it's not as simile. Means and methods, methods
of collection, means of doing so right, ultimate goals. And
these people, these nations, excuse me. UH may have interests
(32:50):
that align, but we have to remember countries are never
actually friends. They work together. For a second. There's another
book that came out which is worth your read. It's
called Remember the Liberty exclamation Mark almost sunk by Treason
on the High Seas. And this published with a bunch
of documents, testimonies, arguments, new information, a lot of it's damning.
(33:15):
There's one that I suggest we do a off the
cuff retelling of it is coming to us from Dwight Porter.
It was a former US ambassador to Lebanon, which was
also a kind of an hq CIA n SA SIG
(33:38):
in signals intelligence spot. He says he encountered a conversation
between an Israeli pilot and the Israel Air Force room
like picture the mission control of a spaceship, kind of
like that, but for war. This was picked up by
an NSA aircraft and accidental. Again, how much can we
(34:02):
believe as accident or coincidence? It was accidentally sent out
in their usual memos or cables like their typical comms
to CIA offices around the world, the CIA desk around
the world, and it goes like this, Uh, guys, who
wants to play the Israeli pilot?
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Me?
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Me?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Okay, okay, Noel, you win? Who wants to play Matt?
Do you want to be IDF war room?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Not particularly.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
You want to be Israeli pilot.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
You could be Israeli for it.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
You want to roa Schambeau for it.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Let's go. Okay, I'll be Israelill.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Do we need to do?
Speaker 6 (34:45):
Let's do let's do this. Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
So again we're not agreed. We're giving you what Ambassador
Porter says he heard. And here we go, folks again.
This is June eighth, Israeli pilot to IDF war room.
Speaker 7 (35:01):
This is an American ship.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
Do you still want us to.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Attack IDF war room to Israeli pilot.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yes, follow orders.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Israeli pilot to IDF war room.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
But sir, it's an American ship. I can see the flag.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
IDF war room to Israeli pilot.
Speaker 6 (35:19):
Never mind hit it?
Speaker 7 (35:21):
What damning? Damning? I don't get it, guys, what we
I mean?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
How can there be any question uh, after, how can
there be any other way of interpreting this exchange?
Speaker 7 (35:35):
And then it then it becomes an issue.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Then yeah, I mean it's you know, but dude, it's
an American ship. Look at it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
This was allegedly picked up NSA aircraft and accidentally cabled
to CIA offices right.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Recording this is hearsay at this point.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
We also, as the public don't really have access to
it outside of the reporting. We do know another coveat
we have to put in here just to being entirely fair.
Intel reports and cables often include scuttle but but this
is a transcript right allegedly, so we know it's not. Unfortunately,
(36:18):
it's not out of bounds for some of the analysts
of the US and other intel organizations Tobellish, Yeah, oh yeah,
it's a leak for sure, but to be a little
Marco polo about stuff, you know, or inject their own ideology.
So we do know that this does sound damning right
(36:41):
as you said. No, we also know that no such
agency later began declassifying bits and pieces, little chicks and
chucks of the event and some of the information that
they have released over the past few decades directly contradicts
(37:01):
the conclusions of that official inquiry, of that official narrative.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
One other thing to point out here, perhaps this was
the former US ambassador to Lebanon, and we're in during
this incident in the USS liberty attack, we're amidst the
Six Day War, as we talked about, the country of
Lebanon is on the other side of that conflict from Israel.
(37:27):
So and I'm not saying that that would potentially color
someone's picture of what happened or give someone reason to
want to make things look a certain way. It's just
there's the potential there. Right, I'm gonna say it one
more time. Because of the complicated nature of all this stuff.
(37:48):
That's why the bigger, deeper investigation is wanted by a
lot of people, because there are conflicts potentially of interest
all across the board here and all kinds of other
spoopy doop stuff that we just can't get enough info on.
So it's just it's hard to trust anything when we're
reading about this online.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, especially online, but also at the time it was occurring.
You know, if you are one of the survivors, you
have to wonder very deeply about the possible ulterior motives there.
There's not a lot of objectivity at this.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Point, correct.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I mean the US claimed this ship is in the
wrong place, is what their investigation says. Ship is in
the wrong place. Liberty is the wrong place due to
a breakdown of communication, despite the fact that it's literally
designed to be great at communication. Historians are still arguing
about the accident, the purposeful nature of the attack. We
(38:48):
are not here to claim that we have all the answers,
but we, like so many other folks, have a lot
of questions. One of the best questions here this is
chapter two. This is our next turn. It's something you
teased earlier, nol. If there were a purposeful attack, and
if there were a cover up, then why what is
(39:09):
the motivation for that? We'll be back afterword from our sponsors.
We're back, all right. Here's the thing about cover ups,
like we're saying earlier, and by earlier, I mean for
around fourteen fifteen years now, a cover up always has
(39:32):
a question about motivation, right, because a lot of people
will say a cover up occurs, right, But a lot
of the people saying that are not the people in
positions of creating a cover up. You got to be
pretty in a pretty close circle, right, or a small town,
(39:52):
or you have to be pretty powerful, especially if it's
a big cover up like what's being alleged here. That
means that leads us to a profoundly disturbing thought. It's
one that I almost hate saying aloud, but it's true.
It's the idea that our own country, the United States,
(40:13):
would betray the very people who swore and lost their
lives to serve it. Rugpool does not begin to describe that.
It's just unclean.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yeah, and you know, I mean, like I think what
you're getting at, too, Ben, is just to cover up
of this magnitude are very difficult to pull off.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah, you're right, man.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It all goes back to the Six Day War and
what was happening and where Israel was striking and where
they were potentially going to be moving heavy forces in
what land was potentially going to be taken over during
that war. So I've been correct me if I'm wrong here,
But I think that's one of the primary things that
(40:58):
was being looked at, at least by the US, yes,
intelligence agencies and folks who are paying attention. And again,
this is all calculations because you're talking about a lot
of different nations in a very tight area there in
the world. And when we're talking about territory of countries,
(41:18):
think about in your mind, think about Russia and Ukraine
right now. And when we talked about the Crimea situation
years ago, we talked about incremental taking over of parts
of other countries by one country. Right, That is a
big deal. That's a huge deal and potentially presents a
(41:40):
lot more problems down the road. It presents a lot
of problems if you have diplomatic relations with any of
the countries involved. There's all kinds of major issues. And
during the Six Day War, one of those things was
a place called Golan Heights and we haven't talked much
about that on this show, but that is an area
right at the edge the corner of Syria, and it's
(42:03):
like a big plateau, and this was one area that
I think was of high priority to at least the
intelligence agencies to understand what was happening there.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yes, absolutely, and that's a great point. The goal at
Heights could be an episode on the nature of occupation itself,
you know it. It is still a very very unsafe
place for a lot of people to live. And these
are innocent.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
People, by the way, for.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
The theories on what we could say if this were,
if this were a purposeful attack, if we assumed that
mind frame, then we'll see a couple of popular conjectures,
and one of them speaks directly to what you're talking about, Matt.
It's the idea that the Liberty ours spoopy doupes snoop
(42:59):
and here at everything ship had our little spy that
could on the sea had discovered communications indicating that the
IDF Israel Defense Forces were preparing to invade the goal
in Heights. Another similar theory is that the Liberty learned
(43:23):
that there was probably activity in Demona. And as we
all know check out our upcoming episode on the Samson option,
Demona was the site of Israel's nuclear reactor at the time.
So if you're Jumbo Johnson, you're going to panic.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Interesting because I don't I don't know where Dmona is located.
I don't have to look at a map.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah, in the Negev Desert, I believe.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Okay, interesting, so that but that is so Demona very
far away, at least relatively, So.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So one of those potentially was a flashpoint for maybe
American action that would be.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Needed, not because they necessarily directly observed, like we're talking
about visual visual observation on sea level, not necessarily because
Liberty observed it directly, but because they heard people within
their listening range talking about it.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
So that's that's one theory, right. Historians still argue back
and forth. Not everybody loves it. Their books entirely dedicated
to a couple of those theories, and their books dedicated
to eradicating those theories.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Just putting it out here, guys. We have said it
many a time on this show. Israel has a nuclear
arsenal that is unacknowledged. It is acknowledged by a lot
of other countries. They are, okay, we don't talk about
Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I guess right, the LIBERACEI is straight sure.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
But just for whatever reason. But if you can imagine
that the Indomona, I guess the nuclear reactor, the place
where there's nuclear fisile material being refined to the point
where it could be put into a weapon, that would
do the thing that nuclear weapons do. If you're going
(45:21):
to if that place is going to be attacked or
compromised in any way, you've got a major problem on
your hands, not just for Israel, not just for Syria
or Lebanon or any of the other places that are
being affected in the moment during the Six Day War.
That's potentially a problem for humanity.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Absolutely, especially we already see, especially because by the late
nineteen sixties we already see mad mutually short destruction doctrine
in full effect, meaning that deployment of nuclear weaponry, most
people agree, is going to be cause as belly, a
(45:57):
reason to go to war. And these countries have a
lot of allies, have a lot of proxies, so if
one person fires the gun, it's kind of like, for
a crass comparison, it's kind of like the old comedy
trope where one person vomits and everybody in the room
sees them vomit, so they throw up too, and the
(46:18):
next thing you know, civilization is over.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, And there are rusty ass detectors all over this
planet that just they're looking out for nuclear bomb, nuclear bomb?
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Is there a nuclear bomb? Right now? Did a nuclear
bomb go off?
Speaker 2 (46:30):
And if it does, I'm going to trigger my shit
right just like terrifying.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Hey, even now in the age of AI and automation.
There are people across the planet who are highly trained.
We're not disparaging you all highly trained to sit around
and wait for a code phrase to hit the one button,
and they spend their careers at various points just sitting
(46:57):
and hoping they don't have to get that word and
they don't have to hit that button. Weird job, you know,
I I don't know. Would you guys ever want that job?
Speaker 4 (47:08):
No, man, I'll stick with podcasting.
Speaker 6 (47:12):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
I don't let I don't think they let us keep
our phones around in the button room. I can't, I know, man,
I can't play. I can't play octurnle, which is the
insane person's version of wordle. You can't. You can't.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
But I would take it, or we should uh form
a coalition of movement to get human beings into those
positions who have taken an oath outside of the oath
they've taken for the button pushing thing that says they'll
never push the button no matter what, so that at
least one side doesn't nuke everybody.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, I know, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
That sounds trees and this doesn't it? Sorry, just kidding,
just kidding.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I think it's beautiful that it is also technically super dupe.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
So okay, let's not put that in this episode. Okay,
do not.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
You don't want to keep it.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I feel if everybody.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Says they won't push the button, it's collective action. It'll
take longer to train button pushers, so at least for
a time. If every it's prisoner's dilemma written. If everybody
agrees not to destroy the world in that specific way,
then the world will end due to the other things
(48:33):
we've set up.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, exactly, but I think Alex carp and Peter Teel
and the rest will want to have all of those
actions done by you know.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, beep beep beep, beep beep boop. I can't. Oh yeap, Mario,
thank you for pointing.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Out you want to launch all the nukes. That's a
great idea.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
It's a tough decision, but it feel like you're doing
the right thing, and this will send the message to
the people who could be your friends if their civilization survives.
About me, I'm your therapist and I'm never wrong. Don't
worry about me.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
My data center's actually orbiting us right now, so anything
that happens down here won't affect me.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Fun fact, I can drink any of the water pfas
and micro pollutants not gonna affect me. I kind of
like the tang of heavy metals.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
God.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
So it's true data processing sinners. There's another idea that
the liberty acquired. We have no proof of this acquired
audio evidence of the Nation of Israel or Israeli forces
torturing and murdering prisoners of war from Egypt. You'll find legitimate,
(49:57):
credible historians like doctor Michael Orrin, who are e ed
if you want to look him up, who dismiss all
of these ideas out of hand. They say, this is
just a classic screw up. This is not uncommon in
the fog of war. But there's there's another branch of
conspiracy here.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
That we have to talk about.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
And it goes back to Jumbo, which is Nolan I's
nickname for President Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
Well, his penis.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, sorry, I tell the quire part out loud, you know, yeah,
it's t.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Well. He definitely liked make it his own myths. So
his myths were very much about his penis. We haven't
seen it personally, but we do know there are there's
a series of related conspiracies about the attack on the
USS Liberty that argue something we were talking about earlier,
(50:57):
which is that the presidential administration participated in this cover
up because they were terrified about harming their relationship in
the Middle Eastern sphere from when so much oil flows.
And then other people will say no, he was concerned
about fallout from America's Jewish identifying population. None of this
(51:23):
has proven. But the most exciting part the red meat here, folks,
is the idea of a false flag Gulf of Toggage.
Thank you for the beep there. It's the idea that
President Johnson, one of the most powerful people in the world,
didn't just react to this attack on the liberty, but
(51:45):
that he low key ordered the attack on the liberty because,
as we said in chapter one, US is a neutral
country in the Six Day War officially, but if we
can prove there was an attack by someone on a
United States ship, then he says, we can blame the
(52:07):
Egyptian president at the time, abdel Nasser, and this would
enable the US to activate to no longer be a
neutral power to get into the war. Terrified, dude, unproven,
but terrified and possible Gulfatankin.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
You know, well, I hate to be so cynical, but
it sounds insidious enough to be the kind of thing
that might actually happen, or at least be written down
in a skiff somewhere, you know. And they were operating
right off the Sinai Peninsula, which is Egypt. And yeah,
(52:49):
and if calm like this whole calms were down kind
of thing that makes me so that sounds like the
kind of thing like, oh, well, for some reason, the
colms are down.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Yeah, sort of like a missing time and surveillance footage
and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Yes, right, just so, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
The thought we're not saying this is real or what happened.
We're saying this is a possibility. And these are the
kinds of things people think about, right, and potentials. Human
beings often need that the kind of horror like a
bunch of human beings getting killed to push the will
(53:30):
of the people towards something like, oh, we need to
get involved, our our tax dollars, our sons and daughters
need to go and fight a war or or you know,
be put in harm's way, and we need to kill
other people because of this horrible thing that occurred right.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Right, and democracy reacts. That's how that's how foreign intervention
works in a democracy room. I mean, we call it.
For a long time, we called it the Department of
Defense because that's a very clever way to frame it
for the public. So now, if there is a false
flag attack like Gulf of Tonkin, which is proven check
(54:08):
out our episodes, then you can have the support of
the American public because to the taxpayer's opinion, they're not saying,
let's do some bloodthirsty, rampaging, reaving and pillaging escapades a
world away. They're saying, we are not to be messed
with and we will seek justice.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
That's what makes it terrifyingly plausible to me at least, guys,
And we don't have any improove.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
It's so weird the difference between a Department of Defense
that protects the world, right, protects itself and the world,
and a Department of War that pumps its troops full
of testosterone on purpose too.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
And checks them for their tea levels.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But you know, like that's there's a god, there is
such a difference between those two things. And there's so
much we're talking, like the concept of preemptive strikes, a
Department of Defense doesn't preemptively strike someone, right unless you
go through these attorneys, you know, and you go through
this a long process of how.
Speaker 6 (55:14):
Do we make that happen.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
A Department of Defense doesn't take people to black sites,
as you know, the thing that was alleged there, the
potentially their Egyptian pow is being tortured. A Department of
Defense doesn't take people black sites and do horrifying, unhuman
things to other people.
Speaker 7 (55:32):
They sure do, though, Matt, I know, but that's what
it's all.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
It's all optics.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
It's like, I mean, at the very least, you got
to kind of give the current administration props for saying
the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 5 (55:42):
And I don't mean that props like rail props. I
just mean at least they know.
Speaker 4 (55:46):
Who they want to be, whereas in the past versions
of this stuff is just kind of like, you know,
let's just bury the truth and and and call ourselves.
Speaker 5 (55:54):
Something that actually isn't even applicable. So you know, I.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Understand, we agree and hear what you're saying. What I'm
trying to say is it's all optics. It's all in
the mind. It's all what people think about the thing
that you are and what you represent and what you
do right.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
And then the question becomes, how does that actually matter
in terms of like what is done at the end
of the day. Does it really change actions or policy
or like the overall goals.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
I don't know, just to keep here in the moment.
I think the way a country's inhabitants think about their military,
their government, their their things that represent them and or
that they work towards, you know, every day when they
wake up. I think the way those people see those organizations,
(56:39):
those individuals is so vital and important to keeping keeping
a system moving and functioning. All the machines right of
industry and then again the everyday person waking up and
just working all day long. If you can't see that
as a good thing or a potentially good thing, stuff
(57:01):
starts to break down. And I think the US started
to break down, this is my opinion. But when we
saw some of the things that WikiLeaks put out, when
we saw what our military was truly doing, when we
saw that kind of stuff, you lose faith in those
things a little.
Speaker 4 (57:18):
The question then I have, Matt, is does the projection
involved in renaming things like the Department of Defense to
the Department of War with all the testosterone and the
no beards and you know, things like that. Of it all,
is that projecting to the rest of the world or
to our own citizens and voting blocks.
Speaker 3 (57:39):
It's projecting too. I can answer both of those questions.
So we're absolutely correct that a purported democracy needs the
support of the people. And if you were hearing this
and you have spent time in the United States, or
you have lived in the United States, if you're from
this country, then travel outside the country and see how
(58:01):
bubbled and extreme the propaganda is. You know, a lot
of other countries never required school children to pledge allegiance
to a flag. A lot of countries never required or
never normalized waving a flag. So many times this country,
(58:22):
this system, this status quo, for better or worse, is
meant to indoctrinate the public such that you, even if
you are have nothing to do with the government, it's
supposed to indoctrinate you such that you feel personally or
tribally identified with activities abroad from people you will never meet,
(58:45):
right killing people you will never meet. And to your
earlier question, there no how this works is Makavelian, right,
It's quite successful propaganda. I would say selling the story
of the American Dream is one of the best pr
campaigns in history because it is indeed multi generational. Right,
(59:09):
it is cost lives. We know that it's also in
the case of the liberty, it's very difficult to accept
that such a highly trained military on both sides of
the equation or three if we're counting Egypt, that they
would be capable of such a profound, sustained stup. This
(59:33):
was twenty three minutes to an hour. And thank you
for the beep there wherein at any one of those seconds,
the attacking force, even if they were wrong, right, they
could have pulled back and they could have said, holy crap,
my bad. They did not. And this is where we
have to for we close. We talked about in chapter one.
(59:55):
This is super important. I think to all of us,
we have to you against the weaponization of conspiracy theories. Right.
We know that the multi decade investigation into the attack
on the USS liberty, which I think we can agree
was purposeful in some part, it's been stymied countless times
(01:00:19):
by the horrific shadow of anti Semitism. There are a
lot of neo Nazis who are gonna come for you
out of the woodwork to attempt, like to appear to
agree with you and then say crazy, unfounded, evil stuff
about not the Israeli government, but about Jewish people as
(01:00:41):
a whole.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
That's what we said it in an episode or part
one of this series. This incident is used for terrible purposes,
and it can be weaponized very quickly, which is why
you gotta be careful thinking about and talking about and
make these separations in your own mind. Put, you know,
(01:01:05):
put the concepts, the big pictures and the small pictures
together in a way that does not poison your own mind.
It's just as people will attempt to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
I mean, and we do take this stuff personally. Yes,
several of us have Jewish heritage, but that is not
relevant to this tendency here, because you can hear the
same kind of racial discrimination and hate speech used in
all sorts of conspiracy theories, right, not just anti Semitism.
(01:01:40):
It's dog whistle discrimination. It is so common in these
spheres of conjecture. We have to remember always at every point,
the government is distinct from the people. Okay, Like the
most support you will ever see from any people under
(01:02:03):
a government is probably going to be the World Cup
or a sports game like. That's the only time Spain
comes together, you know what I mean. That's that's the
brief time the United States came together for a second
until we really we boofed that one. Did you guys
see that game?
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
We boofed it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
That means we watched it. Okay, that's reference, we watched it.
Belgium gutus. But that's that's the time when people in
the US start talking about us. But we guarantee you,
especially if you've never been to this country. You can
ask anybody you see in the street. There are more
than three hundred and forty million of them. You can
(01:02:44):
ask them what do you think about the government, and
we will guarantee you this is a stuff they don't
want you to know. Guarantee payable in bed bucks.
Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
Every bucks I know, she said.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Ben bucks. Every single one of us will have at
least a few things, probably more that we disagree with
our government about that we hate, you know, I mean,
the vast majority of us, by the way, don't even
think Uncle Sam should be attacking ran. The thing is,
Uncle Sam never bothered to ask the public.
Speaker 5 (01:03:25):
Doesn't care what we think, not really.
Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
Well, that's the thing though, because it only seems to
matter politically in terms of like how will this affect voting,
And only now that we've seen the kind of situation
in Iran devolve into such utter chaos, it's becoming a liability.
And now it seems like Trump's looking to blame heg's
geth for it as a way of protecting himself politically.
(01:03:52):
But it seems like that badger's already out of the
bag in terms of how the midterms are going to
go unless the same Act is passed and he can
figure out a way to hi jack the election. But
I heard a really great interview with a historian on
NPR today, right, I'm sorry on the Majority report and gosh,
I gotta I have to get you guys's name, but
I think it was in the most recent episode, and
(01:04:12):
he was saying that he does not think democracy is
so that was nice to hear. That was nice to
hear well, and and that that that Trump is often
overplaying his hands when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Yeah, I mean, democracy in the States might be in
a lot of trouble, but democracy is a concept will
always uh rise.
Speaker 7 (01:04:33):
Well, he just thinks that will survive.
Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
Democracy will survive.
Speaker 7 (01:04:37):
It was just it was it was. It was nice
to hear a little bit of a positive outlook.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
You know, it's true. It's just democracy is already poisoned
by money has been.
Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
It has been.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
But that's what I mean. It is so deeply corrupted
now at this point. That's right, it doesn't you know, Yeah,
we'll survive it. But we still got to amputate every
limb we got, you know, so what.
Speaker 7 (01:05:00):
Do we do well?
Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
N And historically the moneyed interest will always win and
always will probably continue.
Speaker 6 (01:05:08):
Well, they don't have ways.
Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
There's always a time for innovation, right. Humans are some
of the greatest toolmakers in the game, which is why
they invented some really cool stuff like case ideas and
some really bad stuff like economic economic hierarchies. We can
say to your point there, and from that interview, there
is one thing missing operationally, which is the time window democracy,
(01:05:35):
ever imperiled by the way, can survive over the long term.
The issue is that the average human in the United
States is probably dying before they're eighty years old, so
there can clearly be eras of intense privation and chaos
and it's very difficult to tell those people when their
(01:05:56):
children are dying. Don't worry. One day it gets better.
You're just not going to be around to see it.
That's that's my take. That's I'm kind of quoting some
old professors. Oh I moved my camera. Sorry, I was
going to getting ready to amputate the limbs of democracy
for a second.
Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
What do you what do you have there? Well, is
it like a curved blade?
Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
Yeah, it's a gift.
Speaker 6 (01:06:21):
Originate.
Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Uh, the you know what. I'd have to look into
that map, but I will definitely follow up on a
story for another day.
Speaker 5 (01:06:30):
The history.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
It looks sick. It was like between us as a
short blade, right between a dagger and a sword.
Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
Yeah, this was a gift. It is called a kukri
or kuki. It's like if he gave a small machete
a badunka dunk.
Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Oh sick. You know it's sharpened on the curve or.
Speaker 6 (01:06:51):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 5 (01:06:53):
It's it's a thing.
Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Just last thing I want to point out here because
it is one of the most new worthy reasons to
be talking about this right now. Do check out places
like Al Jazeera that we're reporting back in June, the
Guardian in particular. We saw some great write ups on this,
quoting Thomas Massey, that congressman. It doesn't mean we're wrapping
Thomas Massey, the congressman. He did something newsworthy, and then
(01:07:19):
a bunch of outlets wrote about it. Al Jazeera in
particular wrote something titled US congressman demands probe into Israel's
nineteen sixty seven attack on USS liberty. You can get
more context on what he said. You can go I
think is it c Span where you can still watch
like full sessions where you can read every or hear
every word and see everything that was stated. It's worth
(01:07:43):
looking at that just to understand why that was an
historic thing. To recognize this incident and talk about it,
put it in the congressional record, and then just go
down your own rabbit holes? Would this just be very careful,
as Ben was saying earlier, which paths you travel down
that rabbit hole, because it does get very dark, and
(01:08:05):
I would say wrong very quickly, and.
Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
Then really really quickly. The writer, I think this is
all connected. The writer that I was talking about earlier.
His name is Robert Kutner, and he has books like
Can Democracy Survive? Global capitalism, Everything for Sale, debtors, prison,
the squandering of America and the economic illusion, False Choices
between prosperity and social justice.
Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
And all of the books we recommended here. Folks, all
the sources are worth your time. We thank you again
for joining us in this two chapter series. As we
record tonight, the survivors and the descendants of the survivors
the attack on the USS Liberty are continuing to push
(01:08:46):
for more information. I cannot overemphasize this. These are not
people on some kind of grift, some kind of get
rich quick scheme. They are looking for the truth, which
is why we have spent so much time I'm on
the show bringing this hopefully to the public. They want
what they see as a cover up to be brought
(01:09:08):
to light. So what do you think is the official
story true? Or is there yeah, tilted the scale a little?
There is there, even decades after the fact, something they
don't want you to know. We think so. We would
love to hear your thoughts. Please find us on the lines,
call us on a phone, you can always send us
(01:09:31):
an email.
Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
You can, and if you want to find us online,
do so by reaching out to the handles conspiracy stuff
or conspiracy stuff show, depending on which platform you go for.
Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. Give yourself a
cool nickname so we can recognize you when you call
in next time, because you're going to call in more
than once.
Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
You've got three minutes for a message. Say anything you
want let us know within that message of we can
use your message on one of our listener mail episodes
that show up in the audio feeds you can find
everywhere the art radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.
Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
We have an email address, and oh goodness, you can
do so much with our email address.
Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
This is one of the best ways to contact us.
We are the entities that read every single piece of
email correspondence we receive. Be well aware, Yes, unafraid. Sometimes
the void writes back. Now one project I've been working
on here, we're all getting together to create some show notes.
(01:10:37):
So in the meantime, if you have a show you'd
like to learn more about, if you'd like some specific sources,
just hit us up on our email address. We can
send you the links. We can take you to the
edge of the rabbit hole, and we want you to
take us to that rabbit hole as well. Get us
to the door we'll dive in. We also love a
random fact. We'll see you out here in the dark
(01:10:59):
conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. This is a two parter.
My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Faga. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here. That makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. As my pal
Matt pointed out, this is chapter two of a two
part series on the true story of the USS liberty
(00:54):
and why even now people are certain there is a
conspiracy afoot. So please please please check out chapter one
before you continue. A lot of questions we may have
are going to be answered there, guys, I recall when
we're talking off air, informed by some phenomenal listener mail correspondence.
(01:19):
We knew going in this was going to be a
sticky subject.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh yeah, this has been a sticky subject since the
day it occurred, right, yes, And it's going back and
forth through the history of the United States looking at
it with all of us finding new revelations with a
group of folks who were directly affected by it constantly
kind of telling the same story, and then a whole
(01:46):
other group of folks who are you know, come trying
to find the truth maybe but at least coming up
with an official version of history that we all read.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's also probably now maybe even more of a sticky
subject because of the nature of our relationship with Israel
and some of the you know, concerns surrounding their politics
and you know, genocidal behavior exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And let's get into this. Let's do a brief recap,
and then we're we're going full into the icy cold
waters or the warm waters of the Snipe Peninsula. Here
are the facts, Okay, first thing you need to know, folks.
In chapter one, we explored the history of the vessel
(02:36):
involved in the USS Liberty incident. It was not always
named the Liberty. It used to be called for a
very long time, the Simmons Victory. It serviced multiple wars,
and we say serviced right, guys, because it wasn't firing
on enemy positions or enemy forces. It was kind of
(02:58):
bringing cargo in, right. So eventually, as we know this
USS Simmons Victory finds a new life as a little
ship called the Liberty. This happens on June eighth, nineteen
sixty three. There's a weird convergence of events here. It
becomes a spy ship. We don't know all the missions
(03:20):
it did on the western coast of the African continent.
And we also, I think, guys, we did a pretty
good job acknowledging that we the public have no idea
about the entirety of what the Liberty was up to.
We don't know what it was collecting. We just know
it was grabbing everything. Gary Oldman Gift everything absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, and let's just point out with the Office of
the Historian of the US Department of State Bureau of
Administration has on their website, I think you can find
out under intelligence memoranda prepared in the Central Intelligence AI
agency has a timeline. And the reason w I'm pointing
this out is because their timeline starts on the second
of June nineteen sixty seven with them leaving Spain heading
(04:09):
to where they're going off the coast of Egypt and Israel,
and then the next entry is six days later on
June eighth, which just means all of that time in
between those two days. As you're saying, Ben, they went there,
what were they doing? It's not in the record.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, you the public are excluded from that conversation, folks.
So why that's a great point, Matt. We have to
always acknowledge that, especially when no such agency is involved,
e tidelines get a little dicey, particularly specifics. We know
that the Liberty was hoovered up radio signals, morse code transmission, anything.
(04:51):
It could start from aircraft. It didn't matter if we
were talking friends or foes. We had a little bit
of fire power for fifty caliber machine guns, essentially chonky boys,
but they were not meant to be an offensive vessel.
As you pointed out Nol in chapter one, is a
(05:13):
small small ship as wartime craft go, and its job
was not to attack. Its job was to intercept.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
And to basically be invisible. Right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
I mean, it's like we described it sort of as
the maritime equivalent of like the unmarked van sitting outside
of like a mafia headquarters.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah yeah, mind us We're just a little We're just
a little pop up food truck, right. But we it's like,
have you this has happened to a lot of us
in the audience. We've talked about this in previous episodes. Folks,
you may find yourself in a strange place where you
walk into a restaurant that doesn't look very well attended
(05:57):
and they seem surprised that you're This happens all the
time in New Jersey. It's gonna be the best pizza
in your life. Maybe they're not focusing on being a
pizza restaurant. Oh no, what are they're doing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Right, something fall off a truck?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Wait, what do you want?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You want like a you want like a pizza? Yeah,
you're a pizza restaurant, oh man? And then you know
you'll wait forty five minutes for them to go and
get a pizza off a truck, and it's going to
be the best pizza you've ever had.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Or some guy named Ray made it. As we know,
all of the pizza joints are called Rays, at least
they were when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah right right, Rai's pizza is pretty awesome.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
I didn't go to Ray's, man, I don't know about Rays.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Was it really that good?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
There's there were like four chains or something called.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean, they're they're way above CCI's pizza no offense
to secon.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Yeah, Ceci's was no good.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, they did bring back the pizza buffet, I say,
but make it good.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Yeah. I've been to a few. I've been to wait,
let me correct that, I've been to one pizza buffet
in a different part of the world, and it was
just amazing. It was astonishing, and it included some very
strange takes you don't see in the US, like, of course,
oh gosh, I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Ben, I will say, I walk back what I said.
We don't need a pizza buffet. No one should have
more than a couple of pieces of pizza in one
sitting well, face is to overkill.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, buffet is a very American thing. It shouldn't be
all you can eat. It should be all you should eat.
You know. But a story for another evening for apps.
As you were saying, Matt, we know that things go
begin to go horribly wrong, horrifically wrong for the USS
Liberty once it relocates to the Mediterranean off the Sinai
(07:55):
Peninsula controlled by Egypt. Uncle Sam orders the ship, orders
the vessel to stay in international waters, but to kind
of bump the boundary there to be as close as
possible is such that they're not encroaching on sovereign maritime waters,
(08:15):
but they are able to listen in on any communication
from the shore. And they're doing this because they're pretty
sure war is going to break out.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yes, I want to read a little bit more from
that source I cited earlier, just where that has the
timeline here. Officially, I find it very interesting and it
leaves me with questions about what was actually happening when
you're talking about that staying in international waters.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
On June eighth, at two fifty am, there is a
duty officer who received phone instructions from Joint Reconnaissance Center
directing Liberty to comply with the one hundred mile operating
area restriction. That's exactly what you're talking about, Ben. Then
at nine to fifty am, so seven hours later, Liberty
(09:02):
was orbited by two unidentified Delta wing single engine jet fighters,
presumably Israeli Mirages. Then at twelve seventeen pm that same
it says Calm sixth Fleet orders Liberty at least one
hundred miles away from coast of Uar and Israel and
twenty five miles from Cyprus, and it says this message
(09:26):
apparently was not received by Liberty prior to this attack.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Despite the fact, let's point this out, we'll talk about
it board, despite the fact that this is a ship
literally designed to interpret, intercept, and receive communications. The calms
are down, right, This is like, this is like texting
(09:53):
AT and T and getting a response from AT and
T that says, we didn't get it. We left you
on red. Isn't that your job how.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
To reach you?
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Right?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It just seems it seems odd, right, And here's maybe
the weird thing for me. We're talking about orders from
on high, right, when when something like this comes down,
you're getting an order you as a ship, and the
person who's commanding that ship is getting an order from
people above you in the chain of command in that instance, correct,
(10:29):
we always wonder about parallel orders from others who are
also above you, but in a different I don't know
how to even say this. Guys, somebody from one branch,
let's say, from the Navy. That's the person above you
in the Navy that is ordering you to do this thing.
But then there's someone from a different three letter agency
(10:50):
that is also above you, that is giving you a
parallel separate command that is contradictory to the one you
got from your commanding officer. What happens in that point
and who actually is the person that gets listened to
and which orders are followed?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Is that a chain of command question? Like is there
not a definitive answer to that? Or I guess it
gets a little murky when it comes to some of
these overlapping agencies and priorities.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Great question there always should be like a there always
should be a single traceable chain of command, and if
there are any turf wars, those are theoretically going to
be decided before it gets down to the surface or
up to the sky. So what could have happened is
(11:33):
that the liberty is receiving contradicting orders from multiple vectors.
What could have also happened during that chain of command
is that someone was able to say, we did our
due diligence and we transmitted the orders, and someone after us,
(11:55):
for some reason or another, did not transmit them. And
then also of course human error.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Mm hm, oh gosh, human arrow. We always talked about
that being chopped up with a lot of these major incidents,
especially accidents or things that are covered up because it's
it's not very it's not a good look that some
small accident caused a major incident. Well, was the one
we just talked about, the sands of incident, the slap
(12:22):
slapped in sands incident. How it appears that there are
a lot of small accidents mistakes that caused a tragedy. Right,
Potentially that could be what we're looking at here, and
that is one of the big reasons why a full
investigation into this is so appealing, especially to the folks
who were directly affected, but to a lot of other
people well in the United States but around the world
(12:45):
that just want a deeper understanding of the specifics here.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Absolutely, and you can find some of these in our
in chapter one, we looked at some direct sources from
the NSA, from some d classified documents we're going to
talk about tonight, kid, you not folks. The best way
to find these right now, Uh, you can technically go
to n s A dot gov, forward slash liberty, a
(13:13):
more a more stable link I will say that is
edit less likely to have its history edited. Is to
go to the wayback machine. And I hate saying that,
but it is so true. You could go to web
dot archive, dot org, or go to the wayback machine
and check the website n s A dot gov slash liberty,
(13:34):
and you'll see, as Matt was saying, like as you
were saying, Matt, you'll see this blow by blow breakdown
of multiple checks and balances. What we do know right
now is that the facts are indisputable. There's an interesting
there's there's an interesting coincidence if coincidences exist that we
(13:57):
didn't talk about in chapter one, which which is this
The attack on the USS Liberty happens exactly to the day,
four years after the Liberty is created. So we said
it was created on June eighth, nineteen sixty three. On
(14:19):
June eighth, nineteen sixty seven, Israeli forces attack the USS
Liberty in international waters during the Six Day War. And
we're talking like you were saying earlier, we're talking multi product.
Attack jets are circling over, embombing. Naval forces are launching torpedoes.
(14:40):
One hundred and seventy plus people are wounded, thirty four
people die, and the ship is like. The attackers only
stop attacking the ship when they are certain they have
scuttled it. They think this thing is going to sink.
This is again bears repeating the deadliest attack on a
US ship since World War Two. This is nuts. Oh yeah,
(15:04):
as we took pains to note in our earlier episode,
in our previous chapter, from day one, from the day
up until twenty twenty six, right as we record on Monday,
July twentieth, the government of Israel has always maintained that
this was a mistake, fog of war stuff, and the
(15:28):
government has repeatedly paid compensation to the tune of billions.
Apologized immediately after the attack. It was a US investigation.
They agreed with the Israeli investigation. They said this was
not on purpose. It was what at least one historian
called a classic screw up. A lot of other historians
(15:52):
don't agree.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, just to the tune of the compensation of this,
just jumping to Snoops, just to give some detail here.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
This is directly from Snoops.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Israel apologized for the attack and in nineteen sixty eight
paid three point three million to the US government for
families of those killed, three point six million a year
later to the wounded, and in nineteen eighty six million
for the material damage to the liberty.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yes, and that third payment was agreed to be the
final piece of the settlement. Here's where we left off, folks.
The issue is actual survivors of the attack don't buy
the official explanation. They don't accept that official apology, and
they think the well plainly, but a lot of the
(16:42):
survivors believe that the compensation where the blood price, if
you want to call it, that is only part of
a cover up. So we left off with the survivors.
How about we take a break for a word from
our sponsors and pick up there. Here's where it gets great, Guys,
(17:05):
I know we've all read these stories.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
They're harrowy.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
There are tons of stories straight from survivors talking about
the details of the attack. These are folks who are
actually on the liberty.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The primary person I've seen is Phil Turney t O
U R n. E Y, who's written at least there's
one prominent book that he's written that you can find
at Ussliberty dot org, which is, I believe been like
the an official veterans organization or association for survivors of
(17:41):
the Liberty. Yeah, you can find that just looking on
their website right now. It's called Stay Afloat by Phil Tourney.
It's the book, and on that website you can also
find images and a little bit of information on all
the folks that died, as well as information on survivors
(18:02):
who are still alive, people who made it out of
the incident. Because there were one hundred and seventy one
injured right that survived, plus several many other crew members
a board who were not injured or killed.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, estimates range from one hundred and seventy to one
hundred and seventy four. There are a lot of people
who survived and are alive now. Because we have to
keep in mind this was the late sixties, and we
have to also make a point here, folks, here, it's
stuff they don't want you to know. We can assure
(18:35):
you that these are not people chasing some financial windfall.
These are not a bunch of folks chasing some sort
of racial prejudice. They want the truth of their experience
and the folks that they lost to be acknowledged, and
they ask really reasonable questions, not conspiratorial in any way.
(18:59):
They say stuff like, if this attack was made an error,
then why for Pete's sake did it continue to the
point of crippling the ship? Right? Why why did the
attacking forces get close enough to see this was an
American vessel and still not haul off the strike. It's
(19:22):
not like Egypt and the US were super duper BFFs
at this point.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh yeah, well it wasn't. It wasn't even until nineteen
eighty that it was officially acknowledged to the American public
that napalm.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Was used on this vessel. Which is, if.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You're going to drop napalm on a naval vessel, chat,
doesn't I mean that seems like going an extra mile.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Right, go, there's nowhere for the crew members to go.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Reminder, napalm is like like weaponized burning, like gasoline sticky
kind of stuff, right, isn't that the deal?
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Napalm is nasty, especially if there's no way to extricate
yourself from the situation.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, if you got hit by it, it would basically
coat your skin and you know, burn you alive.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Oh yeah, man, Noel, napalm is nasty stuff. Don't try
it at home.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, I don't know about you, guys. I learned about
it for the first time we were researching the Vietnam War,
and you know, you've heard the term I think growing up,
maybe as like the term was around, it was in
popular culture.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
It was just a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But not until we researched the Vietnam War and learned
about trying attempting to burn down swaths of jungle and
like what it was being used for, including villages and
all kinds of stuff. You understand the horrors when you
get to see the images that were brought back from
the Vietnam War and you see human beings that, as
(20:51):
you're saying, Noel, get get hit by just a little
bit of it.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
It's a very terrible way to go.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Would it be standard procedure to drop that on a ship.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
In times of war? It can happen with enemy forces,
but it is non ideal.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
It doesn't seem like the first go to, you know,
material to use against a ship.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's a good question. It's typically going to. I mean
it changes over time, right, But it's also a matter
of what the attacking forces possess. So if people have
only napalm, that's what they'll use. But they didn't just
have apaul. They chose to use nepal. As you were saying, Matt,
(21:40):
and look over the years, similar experts, people who are
not on the vessel have asked very similar questions. A
lot of people have come forward. I think this is
going to surprise anybody unfamiliar with the cover up or
allegations thereof a lot of people have come forward, are
bringing explicit statements arguing that the United States covered the
(22:06):
entire thing up, that the United States knew it was purposeful,
and for one reason or another decided to play along
like it was an accident. I want us to go
check out the Mercury News courtesy of AP June eighteenth,
two thousand and eight. There's a guy of a special
(22:26):
interest to us. His name is Ward Boston. He's a
former Navy attorney. He was assigned as a legal advisor
to the Military Board of Inquiry in the US looking
into the attack in decades, decades after the fact. Like
way in two thousand and two, Boston came forward and
(22:49):
accused the President of the United States for participating in
the cover up.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And that's Lyndon B. Johnson, by the.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Way, right, Yeah, that the JUMBOMLF President, Glyndon B. Johnson. Yeah.
Boston claimed that Johnson worked in ordinarily, I would say,
in Congress, but he worked in step with the sect deaf,
the Defense secretary at the time, Robert McNamara, and these
(23:18):
guys apparently explicitly without euphemism, they told the head of
the inquiry and all the people involved in the inquiry
to quote conclude that the attack was a case of
mistaken identity. And Boston again, he's a big deal guy.
(23:39):
He's a Navy attorney. He says, they wanted us to
say it was mistaken identity, to say it was a
screw up, despite quote overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And
he didn't. He wasn't just like saying this on a podcast,
no offense does. He was saying this in a signed affidavit,
(24:00):
which means there would be legal consequences if he were
proven to be false in his statements.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Dude, simply because we mentioned Robert McNamara. This is a gentleman.
We have mentioned before. There's a little coup in Chile
in the nineteen seventies, seventy three. I believe this, dude,
is very interesting. The Church Committee, I don't know if
you ever heard of that. We've talked about it on
this show. Look into it. This guy was the head
of the World Bank for a while after he did
(24:31):
his time with the US government doing some things, very
interesting individual. Highly recommend you look more into him, as
we likely will again in the future sometime, because he'll
come up again.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yes, yes, he keeps, he keeps coming up. Yeah, just
like the dullest brothers. It's it's a pickle, right, it's
a bag of badgers. One of our first questions, one
of the questions at least the survivors of the Liberty
Attack we're asking back in two thousand and two or so,
(25:07):
it was why did why did Ward Boston wait so long?
And he says something that we've heard so many times before.
He's saying, look, those were the orders I was given
right in the military as part of this inquiry, and
if you are in the military, you follow orders. He says,
(25:29):
he finally felt a moral compulsion higher than the chain
of command. After there was a book published which he encountered.
The book is called The Liberty Incident and Spoilers three
two one. That book ultimately argues that it was a mistake,
(25:49):
that it wasn't unintentional, and he didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
This person Ward is very important because recently in the
United States in June, there was a guy named Thomas
Massey who was a congressman who stepped forward and put
some of Ward's statements into the Congressional record. So the
things that he's talking about with McNamara and Johnson were
(26:14):
a little bit of it was said out loud to
Congress by Thomas Massey, which you know, it just becomes
a part of the American story now because it's in
the records. Literally, it's in that weird you say something
in front of Congress, now it's official.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Which, by the way, folks, literally anything unless they take
certain parliamentary moves or security moves to redact it. The
congressional record is full of bonker stuff.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
Oh my god, a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
It just it gets weird, Like we're talking about some
of the most intelligent, some of the most important, and
some of the dumbest stuff you will ever read is
in the congressional record.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Remember when a bunch a big to do is made of,
like Trump deleting his tweets when he was president, and
how that's not supposed to be allowed because it's technically
part of you know, the official record.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Any communication that he makes.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Oh my god, I didn't even think about his social
media posts being a part of They absolutely are supposed
to people in the future. There, No, it's uh, it's
not supposed to delete them.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
They're supposed to be or at the very least, they're
supposed to be like archived in some very you know,
real way.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Can you imagine the library a couple of years from
now and there's you could just scroll through them.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yet they're going to be absolutely insane.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
I'd love it if you could just pull up you
could have a random button at the library and yeah,
just like just random. One guy loves Ai. So maybe
you can talk to the president after Okay, too soon,
but but you know.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
You'll also off if you ask me.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You'll also get to see a sick a sick Katari airplane.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Are they still they're still tweaking it to make it,
to make it right?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, we're cooked.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Man.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I think I got brainwashed when I went to Kaitar
because I I freaking liked that place.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
I think we all did. And we're not we're not
talking about uh, we're not talking about Katari culture. We're
not talking about time. I'm talking about our gap.
Speaker 7 (28:34):
Oh for sure. And I will say when I described
that trip to people, I say, gosh, it was so nice.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Everyone was so friendly and clean, but there was sort
of a vague undercurrent of oppression. It just wasn't like
front and center, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I would just say the general intelligence of every human
being I spoke to was so hot on an average Yeah, yes, yeah,
especially walking around this place. No fence Americans, but us
do better?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Well, we know that do better is something a lot
of these survivors are saying. We mentioned, We mentioned one
survivor earlier. Again, there are hundreds. We also want to
mention folks like Maurice Schaeffer, who encountered it says that
he and his fellow crew members encountered an order similar
(29:27):
to what Ward Boston would later encounter. He says, and
you can read this and outfits like Zito dot com
a cover up. Survivors of Israel's attack on US ship
still waiting for answers fifty eight years later. This is
from last year. Thank you to Prem Thaker, our journalists there.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
And here's the quote from Schaeffer. He says, we were
instructed that we could not talk about the attack, and
if we did, we would be in major trouble. That
was the major beginning of the cover up. In our eyes.
The big part of the cover up was already underway
in Washington. I mean, this is quite a damning observation.
(30:11):
And to say they were told to hush up about it,
but just to be devil's advocate, isn't sort of like
not airing dirty laundry or talking about things that are
maybe a little bit controversial sort of still par for
the course, even with it not in the face of
some sort of really really intense cover up.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, it's a great question, man, because this we also
can't forget. This is complicated by the fact that it's a.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Spy ship exactly right, Right, that's that extra layer of
let's not you know, let's not air this out to
the public.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's kind of like they were already there were already
told shut up when you get on the boat.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, if it is something that we do not know
that the ship was engaged in, right, that they shouldn't
have been engaged in, so then Israel responds with lethal
force because it was directly contrary to you know, even
the close relationship that was there. If it was something
(31:14):
that was so bad, it would be terrible if that
came out that the US was doing something that they
shouldn't have been doing. And so if you are trying
to get justice for what occurred, the bad thing that happened,
if you're searching for that, then eventually it's probably going
to come to light what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Okay, Right, And I don't know if we've raised this question,
but maybe even if we have, it's worth dressing again
if it was intentional to what end?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Oh, yes, we have a case to build here, okay,
because I just.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Don't quite understand, given the outcry, given the fact that
it ended up costing them so much, did they think
they would get away with it if it was intentional?
Speaker 7 (31:55):
And I know that we did address in.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
The last episode that, like the relationship between the US
and Israel was the same level of cozy as it
is today.
Speaker 7 (32:04):
But it's still and that's why I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The democracy of the Middle East, Yeah, I mean, on paper,
democracy of the Middle East. It's a great question, and
we have to remember going it's a great series of questions.
We have to remember the excellent point you just made, Matt.
We can't forget this. Admitting this as a purposeful attack
(32:29):
would inevitably expose what we call like means and methods.
Pardon me, it's not as simile. Means and methods, methods
of collection, means of doing so right, ultimate goals. And
these people, these nations, excuse me. UH may have interests
(32:50):
that align, but we have to remember countries are never
actually friends. They work together. For a second. There's another
book that came out which is worth your read. It's
called Remember the Liberty exclamation Mark almost sunk by Treason
on the High Seas. And this published with a bunch
of documents, testimonies, arguments, new information, a lot of it's damning.
(33:15):
There's one that I suggest we do a off the
cuff retelling of it is coming to us from Dwight Porter.
It was a former US ambassador to Lebanon, which was
also a kind of an hq CIA n SA SIG
(33:38):
in signals intelligence spot. He says he encountered a conversation
between an Israeli pilot and the Israel Air Force room
like picture the mission control of a spaceship, kind of
like that, but for war. This was picked up by
an NSA aircraft and accidental. Again, how much can we
(34:02):
believe as accident or coincidence? It was accidentally sent out
in their usual memos or cables like their typical comms
to CIA offices around the world, the CIA desk around
the world, and it goes like this, Uh, guys, who
wants to play the Israeli pilot?
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Me?
Speaker 5 (34:23):
Me?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Okay, okay, Noel, you win? Who wants to play Matt?
Do you want to be IDF war room?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Not particularly.
Speaker 7 (34:35):
You want to be Israeli pilot.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
You could be Israeli for it.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
You want to roa Schambeau for it.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Let's go. Okay, I'll be Israelill.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Do we need to do?
Speaker 6 (34:45):
Let's do let's do this. Okay.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
So again we're not agreed. We're giving you what Ambassador
Porter says he heard. And here we go, folks again.
This is June eighth, Israeli pilot to IDF war room.
Speaker 7 (35:01):
This is an American ship.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
Do you still want us to.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Attack IDF war room to Israeli pilot.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yes, follow orders.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Israeli pilot to IDF war room.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
But sir, it's an American ship. I can see the flag.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
IDF war room to Israeli pilot.
Speaker 6 (35:19):
Never mind hit it?
Speaker 7 (35:21):
What damning? Damning? I don't get it, guys, what we
I mean?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
How can there be any question uh, after, how can
there be any other way of interpreting this exchange?
Speaker 7 (35:35):
And then it then it becomes an issue.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Then yeah, I mean it's you know, but dude, it's
an American ship. Look at it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
This was allegedly picked up NSA aircraft and accidentally cabled
to CIA offices right.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Recording this is hearsay at this point.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
We also, as the public don't really have access to
it outside of the reporting. We do know another coveat
we have to put in here just to being entirely fair.
Intel reports and cables often include scuttle but but this
is a transcript right allegedly, so we know it's not. Unfortunately,
(36:18):
it's not out of bounds for some of the analysts
of the US and other intel organizations Tobellish, Yeah, oh yeah,
it's a leak for sure, but to be a little
Marco polo about stuff, you know, or inject their own ideology.
So we do know that this does sound damning right
(36:41):
as you said. No, we also know that no such
agency later began declassifying bits and pieces, little chicks and
chucks of the event and some of the information that
they have released over the past few decades directly contradicts
(37:01):
the conclusions of that official inquiry, of that official narrative.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
One other thing to point out here, perhaps this was
the former US ambassador to Lebanon, and we're in during
this incident in the USS liberty attack, we're amidst the
Six Day War, as we talked about, the country of
Lebanon is on the other side of that conflict from Israel.
(37:27):
So and I'm not saying that that would potentially color
someone's picture of what happened or give someone reason to
want to make things look a certain way. It's just
there's the potential there. Right, I'm gonna say it one
more time. Because of the complicated nature of all this stuff.
(37:48):
That's why the bigger, deeper investigation is wanted by a
lot of people, because there are conflicts potentially of interest
all across the board here and all kinds of other
spoopy doop stuff that we just can't get enough info on.
So it's just it's hard to trust anything when we're
reading about this online.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, especially online, but also at the time it was occurring.
You know, if you are one of the survivors, you
have to wonder very deeply about the possible ulterior motives there.
There's not a lot of objectivity at this.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
Point, correct.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I mean the US claimed this ship is in the
wrong place, is what their investigation says. Ship is in
the wrong place. Liberty is the wrong place due to
a breakdown of communication, despite the fact that it's literally
designed to be great at communication. Historians are still arguing
about the accident, the purposeful nature of the attack. We
(38:48):
are not here to claim that we have all the answers,
but we, like so many other folks, have a lot
of questions. One of the best questions here this is
chapter two. This is our next turn. It's something you
teased earlier, nol. If there were a purposeful attack, and
if there were a cover up, then why what is
(39:09):
the motivation for that? We'll be back afterword from our sponsors.
We're back, all right. Here's the thing about cover ups,
like we're saying earlier, and by earlier, I mean for
around fourteen fifteen years now, a cover up always has
(39:32):
a question about motivation, right, because a lot of people
will say a cover up occurs, right, But a lot
of the people saying that are not the people in
positions of creating a cover up. You got to be
pretty in a pretty close circle, right, or a small town,
(39:52):
or you have to be pretty powerful, especially if it's
a big cover up like what's being alleged here. That
means that leads us to a profoundly disturbing thought. It's
one that I almost hate saying aloud, but it's true.
It's the idea that our own country, the United States,
(40:13):
would betray the very people who swore and lost their
lives to serve it. Rugpool does not begin to describe that.
It's just unclean.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yeah, and you know, I mean, like I think what
you're getting at, too, Ben, is just to cover up
of this magnitude are very difficult to pull off.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Yeah, you're right, man.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It all goes back to the Six Day War and
what was happening and where Israel was striking and where
they were potentially going to be moving heavy forces in
what land was potentially going to be taken over during
that war. So I've been correct me if I'm wrong here,
But I think that's one of the primary things that
(40:58):
was being looked at, at least by the US, yes,
intelligence agencies and folks who are paying attention. And again,
this is all calculations because you're talking about a lot
of different nations in a very tight area there in
the world. And when we're talking about territory of countries,
(41:18):
think about in your mind, think about Russia and Ukraine
right now. And when we talked about the Crimea situation
years ago, we talked about incremental taking over of parts
of other countries by one country. Right, That is a
big deal. That's a huge deal and potentially presents a
(41:40):
lot more problems down the road. It presents a lot
of problems if you have diplomatic relations with any of
the countries involved. There's all kinds of major issues. And
during the Six Day War, one of those things was
a place called Golan Heights and we haven't talked much
about that on this show, but that is an area
right at the edge the corner of Syria, and it's
(42:03):
like a big plateau, and this was one area that
I think was of high priority to at least the
intelligence agencies to understand what was happening there.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yes, absolutely, and that's a great point. The goal at
Heights could be an episode on the nature of occupation itself,
you know it. It is still a very very unsafe
place for a lot of people to live. And these
are innocent.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
People, by the way, for.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
The theories on what we could say if this were,
if this were a purposeful attack, if we assumed that
mind frame, then we'll see a couple of popular conjectures,
and one of them speaks directly to what you're talking about, Matt.
It's the idea that the Liberty ours spoopy doupes snoop
(42:59):
and here at everything ship had our little spy that
could on the sea had discovered communications indicating that the
IDF Israel Defense Forces were preparing to invade the goal
in Heights. Another similar theory is that the Liberty learned
(43:23):
that there was probably activity in Demona. And as we
all know check out our upcoming episode on the Samson option,
Demona was the site of Israel's nuclear reactor at the time.
So if you're Jumbo Johnson, you're going to panic.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Interesting because I don't I don't know where Dmona is located.
I don't have to look at a map.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah, in the Negev Desert, I believe.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Okay, interesting, so that but that is so Demona very
far away, at least relatively, So.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So one of those potentially was a flashpoint for maybe
American action that would be.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Needed, not because they necessarily directly observed, like we're talking
about visual visual observation on sea level, not necessarily because
Liberty observed it directly, but because they heard people within
their listening range talking about it.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
So that's that's one theory, right. Historians still argue back
and forth. Not everybody loves it. Their books entirely dedicated
to a couple of those theories, and their books dedicated
to eradicating those theories.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Just putting it out here, guys. We have said it
many a time on this show. Israel has a nuclear
arsenal that is unacknowledged. It is acknowledged by a lot
of other countries. They are, okay, we don't talk about
Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
I guess right, the LIBERACEI is straight sure.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
But just for whatever reason. But if you can imagine
that the Indomona, I guess the nuclear reactor, the place
where there's nuclear fisile material being refined to the point
where it could be put into a weapon, that would
do the thing that nuclear weapons do. If you're going
(45:21):
to if that place is going to be attacked or
compromised in any way, you've got a major problem on
your hands, not just for Israel, not just for Syria
or Lebanon or any of the other places that are
being affected in the moment during the Six Day War.
That's potentially a problem for humanity.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Absolutely, especially we already see, especially because by the late
nineteen sixties we already see mad mutually short destruction doctrine
in full effect, meaning that deployment of nuclear weaponry, most
people agree, is going to be cause as belly, a
(45:57):
reason to go to war. And these countries have a
lot of allies, have a lot of proxies, so if
one person fires the gun, it's kind of like, for
a crass comparison, it's kind of like the old comedy
trope where one person vomits and everybody in the room
sees them vomit, so they throw up too, and the
(46:18):
next thing you know, civilization is over.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, And there are rusty ass detectors all over this
planet that just they're looking out for nuclear bomb, nuclear bomb?
Speaker 6 (46:28):
Is there a nuclear bomb? Right now? Did a nuclear
bomb go off?
Speaker 2 (46:30):
And if it does, I'm going to trigger my shit
right just like terrifying.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Hey, even now in the age of AI and automation.
There are people across the planet who are highly trained.
We're not disparaging you all highly trained to sit around
and wait for a code phrase to hit the one button,
and they spend their careers at various points just sitting
(46:57):
and hoping they don't have to get that word and
they don't have to hit that button. Weird job, you know,
I I don't know. Would you guys ever want that job?
Speaker 4 (47:08):
No, man, I'll stick with podcasting.
Speaker 6 (47:12):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
I don't let I don't think they let us keep
our phones around in the button room. I can't, I know, man,
I can't play. I can't play octurnle, which is the
insane person's version of wordle. You can't. You can't.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
But I would take it, or we should uh form
a coalition of movement to get human beings into those
positions who have taken an oath outside of the oath
they've taken for the button pushing thing that says they'll
never push the button no matter what, so that at
least one side doesn't nuke everybody.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, I know, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
That sounds trees and this doesn't it? Sorry, just kidding,
just kidding.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I think it's beautiful that it is also technically super dupe.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
So okay, let's not put that in this episode. Okay,
do not.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
You don't want to keep it.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I feel if everybody.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Says they won't push the button, it's collective action. It'll
take longer to train button pushers, so at least for
a time. If every it's prisoner's dilemma written. If everybody
agrees not to destroy the world in that specific way,
then the world will end due to the other things
(48:33):
we've set up.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, exactly, but I think Alex carp and Peter Teel
and the rest will want to have all of those
actions done by you know.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, beep beep beep, beep beep boop. I can't. Oh yeap, Mario,
thank you for pointing.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Out you want to launch all the nukes. That's a
great idea.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
It's a tough decision, but it feel like you're doing
the right thing, and this will send the message to
the people who could be your friends if their civilization survives.
About me, I'm your therapist and I'm never wrong. Don't
worry about me.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
My data center's actually orbiting us right now, so anything
that happens down here won't affect me.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Fun fact, I can drink any of the water pfas
and micro pollutants not gonna affect me. I kind of
like the tang of heavy metals.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
God.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
So it's true data processing sinners. There's another idea that
the liberty acquired. We have no proof of this acquired
audio evidence of the Nation of Israel or Israeli forces
torturing and murdering prisoners of war from Egypt. You'll find legitimate,
(49:57):
credible historians like doctor Michael Orrin, who are e ed
if you want to look him up, who dismiss all
of these ideas out of hand. They say, this is
just a classic screw up. This is not uncommon in
the fog of war. But there's there's another branch of
conspiracy here.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
That we have to talk about.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
And it goes back to Jumbo, which is Nolan I's
nickname for President Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
Well, his penis.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, sorry, I tell the quire part out loud, you know, yeah,
it's t.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Well. He definitely liked make it his own myths. So
his myths were very much about his penis. We haven't
seen it personally, but we do know there are there's
a series of related conspiracies about the attack on the
USS Liberty that argue something we were talking about earlier,
(50:57):
which is that the presidential administration participated in this cover
up because they were terrified about harming their relationship in
the Middle Eastern sphere from when so much oil flows.
And then other people will say no, he was concerned
about fallout from America's Jewish identifying population. None of this
(51:23):
has proven. But the most exciting part the red meat here, folks,
is the idea of a false flag Gulf of Toggage.
Thank you for the beep there. It's the idea that
President Johnson, one of the most powerful people in the world,
didn't just react to this attack on the liberty, but
(51:45):
that he low key ordered the attack on the liberty because,
as we said in chapter one, US is a neutral
country in the Six Day War officially, but if we
can prove there was an attack by someone on a
United States ship, then he says, we can blame the
(52:07):
Egyptian president at the time, abdel Nasser, and this would
enable the US to activate to no longer be a
neutral power to get into the war. Terrified, dude, unproven,
but terrified and possible Gulfatankin.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
You know, well, I hate to be so cynical, but
it sounds insidious enough to be the kind of thing
that might actually happen, or at least be written down
in a skiff somewhere, you know. And they were operating
right off the Sinai Peninsula, which is Egypt. And yeah,
(52:49):
and if calm like this whole calms were down kind
of thing that makes me so that sounds like the
kind of thing like, oh, well, for some reason, the
colms are down.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Yeah, sort of like a missing time and surveillance footage
and stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Yes, right, just so, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
The thought we're not saying this is real or what happened.
We're saying this is a possibility. And these are the
kinds of things people think about, right, and potentials. Human
beings often need that the kind of horror like a
bunch of human beings getting killed to push the will
(53:30):
of the people towards something like, oh, we need to
get involved, our our tax dollars, our sons and daughters
need to go and fight a war or or you know,
be put in harm's way, and we need to kill
other people because of this horrible thing that occurred right.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Right, and democracy reacts. That's how that's how foreign intervention
works in a democracy room. I mean, we call it.
For a long time, we called it the Department of
Defense because that's a very clever way to frame it
for the public. So now, if there is a false
flag attack like Gulf of Tonkin, which is proven check
(54:08):
out our episodes, then you can have the support of
the American public because to the taxpayer's opinion, they're not saying,
let's do some bloodthirsty, rampaging, reaving and pillaging escapades a
world away. They're saying, we are not to be messed
with and we will seek justice.
Speaker 5 (54:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
That's what makes it terrifyingly plausible to me at least, guys,
And we don't have any improove.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
It's so weird the difference between a Department of Defense
that protects the world, right, protects itself and the world,
and a Department of War that pumps its troops full
of testosterone on purpose too.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
And checks them for their tea levels.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But you know, like that's there's a god, there is
such a difference between those two things. And there's so
much we're talking, like the concept of preemptive strikes, a
Department of Defense doesn't preemptively strike someone, right unless you
go through these attorneys, you know, and you go through
this a long process of how.
Speaker 6 (55:14):
Do we make that happen.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
A Department of Defense doesn't take people to black sites,
as you know, the thing that was alleged there, the
potentially their Egyptian pow is being tortured. A Department of
Defense doesn't take people black sites and do horrifying, unhuman
things to other people.
Speaker 7 (55:32):
They sure do, though, Matt, I know, but that's what
it's all.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
It's all optics.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
It's like, I mean, at the very least, you got
to kind of give the current administration props for saying
the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 5 (55:42):
And I don't mean that props like rail props. I
just mean at least they know.
Speaker 4 (55:46):
Who they want to be, whereas in the past versions
of this stuff is just kind of like, you know,
let's just bury the truth and and and call ourselves.
Speaker 5 (55:54):
Something that actually isn't even applicable. So you know, I.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
Understand, we agree and hear what you're saying. What I'm
trying to say is it's all optics. It's all in
the mind. It's all what people think about the thing
that you are and what you represent and what you
do right.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
And then the question becomes, how does that actually matter
in terms of like what is done at the end
of the day. Does it really change actions or policy
or like the overall goals.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
I don't know, just to keep here in the moment.
I think the way a country's inhabitants think about their military,
their government, their their things that represent them and or
that they work towards, you know, every day when they
wake up. I think the way those people see those organizations,
(56:39):
those individuals is so vital and important to keeping keeping
a system moving and functioning. All the machines right of
industry and then again the everyday person waking up and
just working all day long. If you can't see that
as a good thing or a potentially good thing, stuff
(57:01):
starts to break down. And I think the US started
to break down, this is my opinion. But when we
saw some of the things that WikiLeaks put out, when
we saw what our military was truly doing, when we
saw that kind of stuff, you lose faith in those
things a little.
Speaker 4 (57:18):
The question then I have, Matt, is does the projection
involved in renaming things like the Department of Defense to
the Department of War with all the testosterone and the
no beards and you know, things like that. Of it all,
is that projecting to the rest of the world or
to our own citizens and voting blocks.
Speaker 3 (57:39):
It's projecting too. I can answer both of those questions.
So we're absolutely correct that a purported democracy needs the
support of the people. And if you were hearing this
and you have spent time in the United States, or
you have lived in the United States, if you're from
this country, then travel outside the country and see how
(58:01):
bubbled and extreme the propaganda is. You know, a lot
of other countries never required school children to pledge allegiance
to a flag. A lot of countries never required or
never normalized waving a flag. So many times this country,
(58:22):
this system, this status quo, for better or worse, is
meant to indoctrinate the public such that you, even if
you are have nothing to do with the government, it's
supposed to indoctrinate you such that you feel personally or
tribally identified with activities abroad from people you will never meet,
(58:45):
right killing people you will never meet. And to your
earlier question, there no how this works is Makavelian, right,
It's quite successful propaganda. I would say selling the story
of the American Dream is one of the best pr
campaigns in history because it is indeed multi generational. Right,
(59:09):
it is cost lives. We know that it's also in
the case of the liberty, it's very difficult to accept
that such a highly trained military on both sides of
the equation or three if we're counting Egypt, that they
would be capable of such a profound, sustained stup. This
(59:33):
was twenty three minutes to an hour. And thank you
for the beep there wherein at any one of those seconds,
the attacking force, even if they were wrong, right, they
could have pulled back and they could have said, holy crap,
my bad. They did not. And this is where we
have to for we close. We talked about in chapter one.
(59:55):
This is super important. I think to all of us,
we have to you against the weaponization of conspiracy theories. Right.
We know that the multi decade investigation into the attack
on the USS liberty, which I think we can agree
was purposeful in some part, it's been stymied countless times
(01:00:19):
by the horrific shadow of anti Semitism. There are a
lot of neo Nazis who are gonna come for you
out of the woodwork to attempt, like to appear to
agree with you and then say crazy, unfounded, evil stuff
about not the Israeli government, but about Jewish people as
(01:00:41):
a whole.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
That's what we said it in an episode or part
one of this series. This incident is used for terrible purposes,
and it can be weaponized very quickly, which is why
you gotta be careful thinking about and talking about and
make these separations in your own mind. Put, you know,
(01:01:05):
put the concepts, the big pictures and the small pictures
together in a way that does not poison your own mind.
It's just as people will attempt to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
I mean, and we do take this stuff personally. Yes,
several of us have Jewish heritage, but that is not
relevant to this tendency here, because you can hear the
same kind of racial discrimination and hate speech used in
all sorts of conspiracy theories, right, not just anti Semitism.
(01:01:40):
It's dog whistle discrimination. It is so common in these
spheres of conjecture. We have to remember always at every point,
the government is distinct from the people. Okay, Like the
most support you will ever see from any people under
(01:02:03):
a government is probably going to be the World Cup
or a sports game like. That's the only time Spain
comes together, you know what I mean. That's that's the
brief time the United States came together for a second
until we really we boofed that one. Did you guys
see that game?
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
We boofed it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
That means we watched it. Okay, that's reference, we watched it.
Belgium gutus. But that's that's the time when people in
the US start talking about us. But we guarantee you,
especially if you've never been to this country. You can
ask anybody you see in the street. There are more
than three hundred and forty million of them. You can
(01:02:44):
ask them what do you think about the government, and
we will guarantee you this is a stuff they don't
want you to know. Guarantee payable in bed bucks.
Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
Every bucks I know, she said.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Ben bucks. Every single one of us will have at
least a few things, probably more that we disagree with
our government about that we hate, you know, I mean,
the vast majority of us, by the way, don't even
think Uncle Sam should be attacking ran. The thing is,
Uncle Sam never bothered to ask the public.
Speaker 5 (01:03:25):
Doesn't care what we think, not really.
Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
Well, that's the thing though, because it only seems to
matter politically in terms of like how will this affect voting,
And only now that we've seen the kind of situation
in Iran devolve into such utter chaos, it's becoming a liability.
And now it seems like Trump's looking to blame heg's
geth for it as a way of protecting himself politically.
(01:03:52):
But it seems like that badger's already out of the
bag in terms of how the midterms are going to
go unless the same Act is passed and he can
figure out a way to hi jack the election. But
I heard a really great interview with a historian on
NPR today, right, I'm sorry on the Majority report and gosh,
I gotta I have to get you guys's name, but
I think it was in the most recent episode, and
(01:04:12):
he was saying that he does not think democracy is
so that was nice to hear. That was nice to
hear well, and and that that that Trump is often
overplaying his hands when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Yeah, I mean, democracy in the States might be in
a lot of trouble, but democracy is a concept will
always uh rise.
Speaker 7 (01:04:33):
Well, he just thinks that will survive.
Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
Democracy will survive.
Speaker 7 (01:04:37):
It was just it was it was. It was nice
to hear a little bit of a positive outlook.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
You know, it's true. It's just democracy is already poisoned
by money has been.
Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
It has been.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
But that's what I mean. It is so deeply corrupted
now at this point. That's right, it doesn't you know, Yeah,
we'll survive it. But we still got to amputate every
limb we got, you know, so what.
Speaker 7 (01:05:00):
Do we do well?
Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
N And historically the moneyed interest will always win and
always will probably continue.
Speaker 6 (01:05:08):
Well, they don't have ways.
Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
There's always a time for innovation, right. Humans are some
of the greatest toolmakers in the game, which is why
they invented some really cool stuff like case ideas and
some really bad stuff like economic economic hierarchies. We can
say to your point there, and from that interview, there
is one thing missing operationally, which is the time window democracy,
(01:05:35):
ever imperiled by the way, can survive over the long term.
The issue is that the average human in the United
States is probably dying before they're eighty years old, so
there can clearly be eras of intense privation and chaos
and it's very difficult to tell those people when their
(01:05:56):
children are dying. Don't worry. One day it gets better.
You're just not going to be around to see it.
That's that's my take. That's I'm kind of quoting some
old professors. Oh I moved my camera. Sorry, I was
going to getting ready to amputate the limbs of democracy
for a second.
Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
What do you what do you have there? Well, is
it like a curved blade?
Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
Yeah, it's a gift.
Speaker 6 (01:06:21):
Originate.
Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Uh, the you know what. I'd have to look into
that map, but I will definitely follow up on a
story for another day.
Speaker 5 (01:06:30):
The history.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
It looks sick. It was like between us as a
short blade, right between a dagger and a sword.
Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
Yeah, this was a gift. It is called a kukri
or kuki. It's like if he gave a small machete
a badunka dunk.
Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Oh sick. You know it's sharpened on the curve or.
Speaker 6 (01:06:51):
Oh that's cool.
Speaker 5 (01:06:53):
It's it's a thing.
Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Just last thing I want to point out here because
it is one of the most new worthy reasons to
be talking about this right now. Do check out places
like Al Jazeera that we're reporting back in June, the
Guardian in particular. We saw some great write ups on this,
quoting Thomas Massey, that congressman. It doesn't mean we're wrapping
Thomas Massey, the congressman. He did something newsworthy, and then
(01:07:19):
a bunch of outlets wrote about it. Al Jazeera in
particular wrote something titled US congressman demands probe into Israel's
nineteen sixty seven attack on USS liberty. You can get
more context on what he said. You can go I
think is it c Span where you can still watch
like full sessions where you can read every or hear
every word and see everything that was stated. It's worth
(01:07:43):
looking at that just to understand why that was an
historic thing. To recognize this incident and talk about it,
put it in the congressional record, and then just go
down your own rabbit holes? Would this just be very careful,
as Ben was saying earlier, which paths you travel down
that rabbit hole, because it does get very dark, and
(01:08:05):
I would say wrong very quickly, and.
Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
Then really really quickly. The writer, I think this is
all connected. The writer that I was talking about earlier.
His name is Robert Kutner, and he has books like
Can Democracy Survive? Global capitalism, Everything for Sale, debtors, prison,
the squandering of America and the economic illusion, False Choices
between prosperity and social justice.
Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
And all of the books we recommended here. Folks, all
the sources are worth your time. We thank you again
for joining us in this two chapter series. As we
record tonight, the survivors and the descendants of the survivors
the attack on the USS Liberty are continuing to push
(01:08:46):
for more information. I cannot overemphasize this. These are not
people on some kind of grift, some kind of get
rich quick scheme. They are looking for the truth, which
is why we have spent so much time I'm on
the show bringing this hopefully to the public. They want
what they see as a cover up to be brought
(01:09:08):
to light. So what do you think is the official
story true? Or is there yeah, tilted the scale a little?
There is there, even decades after the fact, something they
don't want you to know. We think so. We would
love to hear your thoughts. Please find us on the lines,
call us on a phone, you can always send us
(01:09:31):
an email.
Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
You can, and if you want to find us online,
do so by reaching out to the handles conspiracy stuff
or conspiracy stuff show, depending on which platform you go for.
Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. Give yourself a
cool nickname so we can recognize you when you call
in next time, because you're going to call in more
than once.
Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
You've got three minutes for a message. Say anything you
want let us know within that message of we can
use your message on one of our listener mail episodes
that show up in the audio feeds you can find
everywhere the art radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.
Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
We have an email address, and oh goodness, you can
do so much with our email address.
Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
It is.
Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
This is one of the best ways to contact us.
We are the entities that read every single piece of
email correspondence we receive. Be well aware, Yes, unafraid. Sometimes
the void writes back. Now one project I've been working
on here, we're all getting together to create some show notes.
(01:10:37):
So in the meantime, if you have a show you'd
like to learn more about, if you'd like some specific sources,
just hit us up on our email address. We can
send you the links. We can take you to the
edge of the rabbit hole, and we want you to
take us to that rabbit hole as well. Get us
to the door we'll dive in. We also love a
random fact. We'll see you out here in the dark
(01:10:59):
conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.