What helmet is that?

I did. After a bunch of us had our last evening meal before going home,
and we left all our change as a tip for the waitress. She came running
after us up the road to say thankyou.

 

....and then discovered that you'd unloaded all your old pengos and
kopecks.

 

Was it an accident? That's not what everyone believes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/06_june/08/uss_liberty.shtml

If the latest 'revelations' are true then Israel attempting to drag
America into a war was certainly more heinous than sinking the
Belgrano.

 

<snip>

He's trolling desperately now.

 

Why would I be kidding?

The fact that Israel attacked the Liberty is accepted and if they
didn't know it was American when they first launched the attack they
sure as shit knew before they finished it.

 

Keep your head in the sand. Those people have lived on that land for
millennia, certainly since before the Jewish diaspora. They are not
Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, or Lebanese. They call themselves
Palestinians. But hey, if you say they don't exist...

 

Or you could suggest that they were only there by the grace of the British
Empire

 

Patrolling the Tonkin Gulf, among other places.
You DO know that Israel was the US's biggest aid recipient, don't you?
(Egypt was the 2nd at the time. Talk about playing both ends against
the middle.) The US supplied (and still does for all I know,) a huge
percentage of Israel's military hardware.

 

You forget to mention the aid the US has supplied to the Arabs in the region
of Israeli control. To paint the US as Black & White, pro Israeli and anti
Arab is completely feeble minded. Of course lots of feeble minded people do
just that. The US has extremely close (and friendly) ties with Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and various smaller states.

The major Arab states, awash with oil money for 60 years, could *easily*
have soaked up all those folks and paid them off handsomely decades ago and
prevented all the trouble. The question "why have they not" is much more
interesting. Had they done so I'm sure Jewry the world over would have
contributed.

 

The Liberty was an communications monitoring ship (like the Pueblo
that got captured off Korea.) I did land-based communications intel
when I was in the Army. The attack on the Liberty was discussed during
my training. The Israelis denied knowing it was an American ship, but
they knew. I don't know the reason, but it sure was a colossal
screwup. If it was a conscious act to draw the US into the war, that
decision would have been made at the highest level. I prefer to think
it was gross incompetence at several levels.

 

As we're being patronising; you DO KNOW that the F14 was only operated
by the USN and the Iranian Air Force, don't you?

 

"Loans"? That's a laugh. Of the $23.8 Billion in loans, not one penny
has ever been repaid, nor is there any timetable for any of it to be
repaid. And funny you say "most." Conservative estimates for US aid to
Israel total more than $114 Billion.

Simply not true.
http://tinyurl.com/yelpeps

Ah yes. The head in the sand policy. Keep repeating it enough times
and hope it comes true.

 

'course, even if it was true - it's the same difference in the end.

 

So you DO admit there is a Palestine and the people who have inhabited
the area for the last couple of thousand years are, in fact,
Palestinians.
(It says so right there in your Jewish website.)

 

The ship was monitoring Israeli military communications.

 

Ah, I was afraid that was it. I should have written "F-some number or
other," but I took a flying WAG. Next you'll tell me it must have been
the A-4 Skyhawk.

 

Maybe because he's been in the American military and sat through
lectures regarding the incident?

If you still want to believe that he's either lying or was lied to by
the American military perhaps you might like to tell us how the
Israelis managed to attack the Liberty by sea and not realise what
they were attacking?

 

It would if it were true, but it isn't. Those loans weren't repaid,
they were converted to grants or forgiven. It's true that Israel has
never defaulted on a loan, but that doesn't mean they ever repaid
them.

BTW, I'm not arabist, I'm actually pro-Israeli. I just hate to see
lies propagated. And I hate to see some of the terribly wrong behavior
that Israel has conducted over the years. And you must know there are
many Israelis who feel the same.

 

Of course I can't know so I have to rely on the internet and hope that
at least 51% of it is true.

Even you've got to admit that the bulk of the evidence points towards
a major **** up by Israel and either large scale incompetence or a
massive error of judgement by their military.

 

I suppose impartiality from the American-Israeli Co-operative
Enterprise would be too much to expect.