I think the Net will have a much more through and comprehensive a transparant investigation.

"He would open his mouth and you would have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth."

Well, he's probably gotten better or we wouldn't be trusting him now.

I don't think Lockhart is going to be quoted many other places, since he says that Netanyahu was a liar and a cheat COMPARED TO ARAFAT! I am actually surprised he said that, though not because it isn't true.

Talk about history repeating as farce, anyone seen this?

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vtMpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8P8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6419,658521&dq=british+exodus+ship+jewish&hl=en

Well, yes, with the minor difference that the Brits were expelling people whose purpose was to illegally settle in an area under British mandate (one can, of course, argue the legitimacy of that, but it was, at least, internationally recognised as legitimate, having been approved by the League of Nations, as opposed to the Gaza occupation and blockade, which violates international law six ways from Sunday), and whose avowed purpose was to displace the people already living there.

Meh. More like this.

"We'd like to express our thanks to the United States that worked behind the scenes to water down the [statement] at the United Nations," said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.

Please check out my latest video: We are SHOCKED by Israel's Violence Against Humanitarian Aid Flotilla for Gaza

En Ming He

I actually don't get what is more farcical about this latest incident. It seems more tragic to me. I really would prefer to believe that people, individually and collectively, learn some empathy from suffering, but it seems like Auden was right about what schoolboys know in that poem that some people are really sick of.

Nomad UK

First, relating to your comment on another thread, don't think you can leave the planet without buying me the beer you once promised me in a moment of weakness.

If you can figure out what was up with the USS Liberty, you're ahead of me. James Bamford in Body of Secrets suggested that the Liberty might have picked up communications relating to Israeli atrocities and the Israelis wanted to cover that up, but I find that unpersuasive because the Israelis wouldn't need to attack a US ship to cover anything up. Upon reflection, that's sort of a ridiculous explanation, because the US hasn't ever been very interested in exposing Israeli atrocities.

Others, notably Peter Dale Scott in The War Conspiracy, have suggested that some in the military and intel world were looking to find a way to precipitate a war with the "communist bloc", as happened during the Korean war, the two Quemoy crises, with the Pueblo, and a few other times, the latest possibly being the shoot-down of that KAL flight. We do know that the Liberty definitely shouldn't have been in those waters at that time--it ignored specific orders to remain there--and we know that Admiral Geis tried to send in a carrier possibly armed with nukes to assist it, but neither McNamara nor LBJ would let the carrier go the Liberty's assistance despite Geis's request, which reveals mistrust between the civilians and military and raises questions. And we know McNamara was worried during that crisis that the US would end up in a hot war with the Soviets, and that is revealing.

My hunch is that the Liberty was supposed to do something to justify some US action against Nasser and his Soviet backers, because our crazy military always was hell bent on that for so long, but it's just a hunch, and I have no idea what squelched the plan or how that related to the Liberty being attacked. Maybe someday our descendants will know. Fifty years seems to be considered a little too soon to let the cat out of the bag. After all, not everyone who was around in 1967 is dead yet.

First, relating to your comment on another thread, don't think you can leave the planet without buying me the beer you once promised me in a moment of weakness.

Fair point. I guess I'll just have to wait around.