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<td valign="top">-------- Original Message --------<br>
<img alt="" src="cid:part1.06030402.05030208@mynas.com"
style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 136);" align="left"
border="1" height="129" hspace="10" width="125">Phil
Tourney, past President of the USS Liberty Veterans
Association is the author of the recently published <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1450715540?ie=UTF8&tag=veteranstoday-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1450715540">"What
I Saw That Day…Israel’s June 8 1967 Holocaust of US
Servicemen Aboard the USS LIBERTY and its Aftermath“</a>
<p>Those wanting to know why their world is going down in
flames these days vis-a-vis the interminable, bankrupting
wars in the Middle East need to know history before they
can understand the present, and the first lesson that
needs explaining in this regard is Israel’s deliberate 2
hour attack upon the American-flag ship USS LIBERTY in
June of 1967.</p>
<p>The key to bringing liberty back to the people of America
and to the world at large is the USS LIBERTY story.</p>
<br>
Phil Tourney's 2 hour radio show tonight is at <b>7 PM
Eastern time</b> (a day after the anniversary of the USS
Liberty attack); he recounts the assassination of 34 unarmed
American soldiers.<br>
<a
href="http://republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=listenlive">http://republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=listenlive</a><br>
<br>
Perfect for our friends who know little about this brutal
bloody little known part of US history.<br>
<br>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><br>
<h1>Remembering USS Liberty at 'Sad Little Gathering'</h1>
<p class="timestamp">Jun 08, 2012</p>
<p class="byline"> Military.com<span class="divider">|</span>
by Bryant Jordan</p>
<img src="cid:part4.01030001.08000500@mynas.com" alt="USS
Liberty" title="USS Liberty" align="right" height="133"
hspace="10" width="200">
<div class="body1">
<p>On Friday, Patricia Blue-Rousakis plans to be at
Arlington National Cemetery where she has spent many
June 8ths for the past 15 years.</p>
<p>There, she’ll join with a handful of survivors of the
1967 attack on the surveillance ship USS Liberty, which
was struck by Israeli air and naval forces. The group
will hear a retired chaplain say a prayer, visit with
those in attendance -- some, like herself, who lost
family members on the Liberty -- and then go off to
lunch in Alexandria, Va.</p>
<p>But even after so many years, and knowing full well
that the topic of the Liberty is widely viewed as
poisonous, the visitors still note the absence of
political and military officials at the observance.</p>
<p>“We talk about it among ourselves,” said Blue-Rousakis,
whose first husband, Alan Blue, was a National Security
Agency linguist on the ship. He was among the 34 men
killed and 174 wounded in the attack.</p>
<p>“Of the family members and the survivors, <big><b>every
single one of us at one time or another has invited
our representative from [the House] and the Senate.
And no one has ever shown up. No one. </b></big>It’s
a very sad little gathering.”</p>
<p>It’s just not the politicians, she said.</p>
<p>Forty-five years after the attack, no uniformed
officers are expected to attend the ceremony.</p>
<p>“They won’t do it. They absolutely will not do it,” she
said.</p>
<p>The lightly armed American spy ship was strafed,
napalmed and torpedoed by Israeli air and naval forces
for more than an hour in broad daylight during the
Six-Day War. But for <a
href="http://www.military.com/news/article/sailor-awarded-silver-star-for-67-actions.html">a
crewman gerry-rigging a radio to get a message out to
the fleet</a>, many Liberty survivors believe they
would have been sunk with all hands.</p>
<p>President Lyndon Johnson accepted Israel’s apology for
the attack, but it has remained hotly controversial ever
since, a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists.
Alternative theories about Israel’s attack -- about it
being deliberate; about cover-ups -- have made the topic
of the Liberty too radioactive for members of Congress
or Pentagon leaders.</p>
<p>Journalist and author James Scott, whose father
survived the attack, wrote in <a
href="http://www.military.com/entertainment/books/book-reviews/book-review-attack-on-liberty">“Attack
on the Liberty” that Johnson believed the attack was
deliberate</a>. But he let Israel off the hook because
he feared “alienating” American Jewish leaders, from
whom he was getting “pressure” for escalating the war in
Vietnam.</p>
<p>Joseph Meadors, a Liberty survivor and the current
president of the Liberty Veterans Association, said he
and his predecessors have been inviting members of
Congress to Arlington since they began holding the
observances in the 1980s, he said.</p>
<p>“This year I’ve invited every member of Congress who
represents a congressional district where a USS Liberty
KIA lived,” Meadors said. This meant invitations to
lawmakers from 21 states. So far three lawmakers have
said they would send staffers, but as of Wednesday one
staffer had bailed out, saying there was a scheduling
conflict.</p>
<p>This is usually how it works, Meadors said. He said
he’d be surprised if the other staffers show.</p>
<p>One lawmaker, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn,
responded to the invitation with a brief note to be read
at the ceremony. Cornyn offered his “deep sympathy to
the friends and loved ones of the 34 brave Americans who
were lost that day.</p>
<p>“Although words are hardly adequate, please know that
you and your families are in my thoughts and prayers.”
The note spoke of honoring the dead who protect the
United States, and of remaining dedicated, “just as they
were dedicated, to the principles foundational to our
Constitution, we must willingly defend them whenever
necessary.”</p>
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