Islamic State terrorists are gathering their remaining forces in Deir ez-Zor to prepare for a decisive battle as the Syrian Army, supported by the Russian Air Force, pushes to retake the besieged city, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“Syrian government forces supported by Russian Aerospace forces are swiftly pushing from three directions towards Deir ez-Zor at the moment. The foothold around the city is the last stronghold of terrorists on Syrian soil,” General Sergey Rudskoy, spokesman for the Russian General Staff, said on Monday during a press briefing in Moscow.

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists are trying to gather more forces in the Deir ez-Zor province ahead of the final push of the Syrian Army and its allies, Rudskoy added.

“The remaining [terrorist] forces are heading there. According to our data, militants from Mosul [in Iraq] moved there and the most battle-ready units from Raqqa,” Rudskoy stated.

He added that despite the withdrawal of the majority of IS terrorists from Raqqa, the “so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by the US and allies” were still unable to capture it after a three-month siege.

The swift actions of the army and its allies in central Syria allowed IS forces to be surrounded in the vicinity of the town of Akerbat, the spokesman said, adding that the town was expected to be liberated in the nearest future. The breakthrough in central Syria was ensured by the actions of the units commanded by Syrian General Suheil al-Hassan, nicknamed “the Tiger,” as well as Russian aerial support.

New tactics used by the Syrian government forces allowed large chunks of territory to be liberated with a low casualty count. A tactical landing behind the frontline performed on August 11-12 near the village of El-Kder with the support of Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters played a major role in the collapse of IS defenses in central Syria, Rudskoy said.

A number of suspected IS terrorists have also been surrounded in the southeast of the city of Ithriyah, after Syrian forces took control of the strategic section of the Ithriyah to as-Sukhnah road, at the village of Bir Kdem, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

“ISIS units are completely shattered in the area. The Syrian Army is advancing at a speed of 30-40km a day there,” Rudskoy said.

“The defeat of the main forces of the most odious terrorist group, ISIS, which intended to create a so-called ‘caliphate,’ will be completed with lifting the siege of Deir ez-Zor.”

The Russian Air Force has significantly intensified its operations against IS in August, upping the number of sorties to 60-70 per day as the push for Deir ez-Zor gains momentum.

“During the past five days, Russian planes made 316 sorties and carried out 819 strikes,” Rudskoy said. “All in all, in August, Russian Aerospace forces aviation made 990 sorties, [and] 2,518 airstrikes have been carried out on command posts, positions, stockpiles, transshipment bases and camps. Forty armored vehicles, 106 gun trucks and up to 800 terrorists have been destroyed,” Rudskoy said.

The key Euphrates city of Deir ez-Zor has been under terrorist siege for two and a half years, after being cut off from government-held areas in the May 2015 jihadist offensive on Palmyra. The surrounded city, alongside a neighboring military base and airfield, have been supplied with food and ammunition by Russian and Syrian transport planes and helicopters.

Russian planes have delivered 293 tons of food and medical supplies to Deir ez-Zor so far in August, according to Rudskoy.

READ MORE: ‘We used to ride swings here’: ISIS siege turns Deir ez-Zor’s parks into cemeteries (VIDEO)

While the Syrian Army and allied forces are pushing toward the besieged city, the situation in the enclave remains tense. Syrian forces in the area received a significant blow in September 2016, when the US-led coalition mistakenly bombed army positions, killing and injuring roughly 200 servicemen. The airstrike coincided with an IS terrorist offensive which captured several key positions in the area. The loss of these ultimately led to the enclave being sliced in two this January, when terrorists managed to disrupt the supply line between the airfield and the rest of the stronghold.

The arrest of a Turkish dissident has again highlighted the way rogue regimes use Interpol to hunt their enemies inside the EU.

Armed police arrested Dogan Akhanli on Saturday (19 August) morning at his hotel in Granada, Spain, handcuffed him and drove him for questioning at a regional HQ.

The 60-year old writer was later freed, but is not allowed to leave Spain until judges have decided whether to extradite him to Turkey.

“They [the police] were also surprised because they were looking for a terrorist and then a delicate old man stood before them. The picture did not fit,” Akhanli told Tagesschau, a German news service, on Sunday.

“I had opened the door in my underpants and my wife was still lying in bed,” he said.

The Spanish police came after him because Turkey had filed a so called “red notice” for his arrest as a terrorist with Interpol, an international police agency based in France.

The writer, who is a critic of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and of Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide, fled to Germany in the 1990s and later obtained German citizenship after being persecuted in his home country.

“I thought I was safe in Europe. I thought Turkey cannot reach Europe, but probably this is not quite true,” he said.

The Spanish police let Akhnali out of custody after German leader Angela Merkel and foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel spoke out on his behalf.

Merkel told the RTL broadcaster on Sunday that Turkey “must not misuse international organisations such as Interpol”.

From World’s First ICBM to ‘Dead Hand’ System

Monday, August 21, 2017

The Russian “doomsday machine” continues to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and national interests, RIA Novosti contributor Alexander Khrolenko writes, shedding light on how Perimeter, an automatic nuclear-control system dubbed ‘Dead Hand,’ actually works.

Exactly 60 years ago the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) took to the skies from the Soviet cosmodrome Baikonur. According to Alexander Khrolenko, it was the first step on the way to creating Russia’s nuclear shield.

“The R-7 [the NATO reporting name SS-6 Sapwood] designers managed to launch the missile on the third attempt on August 21, 1957; the rocket traveled a distance of 5,600 kilometers [3,480 mi] and delivered a warhead to the Kura proving ground,” the commentator wrote.

“Six days later the USSR officially announced that it had an operational ICBM — a year earlier than the United States did,” Khrolenko pointed out, “Thus, the Soviet Union dramatically expanded its security perimeter.”

‘Dead Hand’, Bunkers and Missile Shield: This is How Russia Can Survive Potential Nuclear Attack

However, the USSR and its legal successor, the Russian Federation, continued to move forward and improve its nuclear shield.

Today, Russia’s most powerful ICBM R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Mod 5) is capable of carrying 10 combat units with a capacity of 170 kilotons to a distance of up to 15,000 kilometers (9,320 mi), Khrolenko highlighted.

But that is not all: the ICBM’s algorithms for combat use have been improved. In addition, the domestic nuclear deterrent system which is comprised of land, sea and aerial means of delivery of nuclear charges has become even more complicated.

Today, Russia’s nuclear triad guarantees the annihilation of a potential aggressor under any circumstances, the journalist stressed.

“Russia is capable of launching a retaliatory atomic strike even in the event of the death of the country’s top leadership,” he elaborated, referring to the famous Perimeter System, also known as the Dead Hand, which was developed in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s.

The concept came as a response to the US strategic doctrine of a “decapitation strike” aimed at destroying a hostile country’s leadership in order to degrade its capacity for nuclear retaliation.

“This system duplicated the functions of a command post automatically triggering the launch of the Russian nuclear missiles if the country’s leadership was destroyed by a nuclear strike,” Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, explained in his interview with the Russian newspaper Vzglyad.

© PHOTO: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
‘Wonder-Weapon’: High-Precision Kalibr Has Yet Again Proven Its Efficiency (VIDEO)

© SPUTNIK/ VLADIMIR FEDORENKO
Launching an RS-20 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) intercontinental ballistic missile (File)“Having detected the signs of a nuclear strike, Perimeter sends a request to the General Staff,” the journalist explained, “Having received a ‘calming’ response, it returns to the mode of analysis of the situation.”

However, if the General Staff’s line is dead Perimeter will immediately request the strategic “Kazbek” missile control system. If “Kazbek” doesn’t respond either, Perimeter’s autonomous control and command system — which is based on artificial intelligence software — will make a decision to retaliate.

“It can accurately ‘understand’ that its time has come,” Khrolenko noted, stressing that there is no way to neutralize, shut down or destroy the Perimeter system.

“It is no coincidence that Western military analysts dubbed the system ‘Dead Hand’,” the journalist remarked.

© AFP 2017/ ALEXANDER NEMENOV
Think Twice: Topol-M Nuclear ICBMs Safeguarding Russia

The Russian Air Force in Syria has flown 316 sorties over the past five days to deal 819 strikes on terrorists of the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia), the chief of the main operations department of Russia’s General Staff, Sergey Rudskoy, told the media.

“To eliminate the encircled terrorists trying to retreat towards Deir ez-Zor the intensity of strikes by Russian aircraft was increased to 60-70 sorties a day. Russia’s Aerospace Force carries out air reconnaissance and eliminates IS armored vehicles, pickup trucks armed with heavy weapons and truck convoys carrying ammunition round the clock. Over the past five days Russian planes flew 316 sorties to deal 819 strikes,” Colonel-General Rudskoy said.

In all, Rudskoy said, Russia’s planes in August carried out 990 sorties.

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“A total of 2,518 air strikes were dealt against command centers, positions, warehouses and transit camps of terrorists. Forty armored vehicles, 106 trucks carrying heavy machineguns and up to 800 terrorists were destroyed,” he said.

“The operation to recapture central Syria from terrorists is nearing completion,” Rudskoy stated.

Aleppo Governorate fully liberated from terrorists

Syria’s Aleppo Governorate has been fully liberated from terrorists, Rudskoi told reporters.

“The Aleppo Governorate has been fully liberated from terrorists,” he said.

According to Rudskoi, in the past month, the Syrian government troops, supported by the Russian Aerospace force, have achieved significant success, inflicting much damage on a large armed unit of the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) in central Syria.

“A total of 50 settlements and an area of more than 2,700 square kilometers have been cleared of militants,” the Russian general said speaking about the liberation of the Aleppo Governorate.

Syrian government troops will liberate the city of Akerbat in the near future, they encircled gunmen east of Itriya, Rudskoi said.
“Following government forces’ strike, a large group of ISIL (former name of the Islamic State terror group) terrorists has been encircled near the city of Akerbat. Offensive operations continue to tighten the encirclement. The city of Akerbat will be liberated shortly. Militants have also been encircled east of Itriya,” Rudskoi said.

According to Rudskoi, that was possible thanks to swift offensive operations by General Hasan Sukhel’s units supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces. “The Syrian army is advancing at a rate of 30-40 kilometers per day or more. Following the Syrian army’s operations, the cities of El-Kom, Bir Kdem, the Manbija oilfield have been liberated, the offensive against Et-Teibe continues thus creating another encirclement ring,” he noted.

Rudskoi added that the Syrian government forces grouping operating east of Palmyra has seized the strategically important inhabited community of al-Sukhnah and is developing an offensive against Deir ez-Zor. “The key objective is to destroy the last terrorist stronghold in the Deir ez-Zor area,” he stressed.

Syrian army’s rapid advance in Raqqa province

The Syrian army is advancing on positions of Islamic State in Syrian Raqqa province at a speed of more than 30 kilometers a day, according to Rudskoy.

“Units of ISIS (former name of Islamic State) in this area are fully defeated. The Syrian army is advancing at a speed of 30-40 or more kilometers a day,” Rudskoy said.

Sergey Rudskoy reiterated that overnight to August 12, a unique landing operation was carried behind the lines of IS units in the area of Al-Kadir in Raqqa province with the support of Russian aircraft. ‘”The suddenness and swiftness of the landing operation, as well as efficiency of fire damage from the Syrian artillery and Russian Ka-52 strike helicopters, provided a possibility to quickly move towards Al-Kadir the bulk strength of government troops and capture it without losses,” the general said.

Syrian forces advance to Deir ez-Zor from three directions

Syria’s army is advancing towards Deir ez-Zor from three directions, Rudskoy said.

“At present, the Syrian government forces, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, are rapidly advancing towards Deir ez-Zor from three directions. The lodgement around this city is the last terrorist stronghold on Syrian soil,” the general said.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/961212

A month and a half ago, the New York Times obtained emails in which Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting in Trump Tower with Russian officials who were promising him sensitive information, on his father’s opponent, that would help the Trump campaign. A few days later, it emerged that the meeting also included Rinat Akhmetshin, a figure whose name was not included in the first stories about the meeting, but who is a key figure in the meeting because he is almost certainly a Russian spy.

Today’s Times has a follow-up story on Akhmetshin, with three reporters sharing a byline. The story does not call Akhmetshin a Russian spy, because that is not a charge that a newspaper can prove, short of extraordinary evidence like an email from Akhmetshin saying, “By the way, I’m a Russian spy.” (And that email does not exist because — unlike, say, Donald Trump Jr. — Akhmetshin is not a complete idiot.) Instead, the headline cautiously calls Akhmetshin a “Lobbyist” who has a “Web of Russian Connections.”

But this massively understates the story’s conclusions. Donald Trump has a web of Russian connections. Akhmetshin is (again, almost certainly) a Russian spy. The shadiness of Akhmetshin’s cover story comes through over and over in the report. Akhmetshin “told some journalists that he worked with a military counterintelligence unit, but said he never joined Russian intelligence services — unlike his father, sister and godfather,” the Timesreports, skeptically. He founded a “think tank” with the ostensible purpose of promoting democratization, but which was, in reality, “essentially a vehicle to burnish the reputation of one client, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, an ex-K.G.B. officer and the former prime minister of Kazakhstan.”

Meanwhile, Akhmetshin’s résumé contains gaping voids:

A trained biochemist who speaks four languages, he described himself on one official document as a “househusband. ” He identified himself as the head of a Washington think tank for years after it was officially dissolved.

And his explanation for how he ended up in the meeting is just a tad bit suspicious:

Mr. Akhmetshin, a Washington resident, has told reporters that he just happened to be lunching with Ms. Veselnitskaya in Manhattan that day when she spontaneously invited him to the meeting with the president’s son, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Manafort. He did not explain why she wanted him there.

So, there was a lot of traffic in Dupont Circle that day, and long story short, he wound up in Manhattan, got hungry for lunch, coincidentally ran into another Kremlin agent, and decided to tag along to a meeting in Trump Tower.

It has previously been reported that Akhmetshin hacked into the emails of a firm his clients were fighting in court. Today’s story documents a second attempted hacking:

The first hacking case, which has not previously been reported, began when Mr. Akhmetshin served an alliance of businessmen led by Suleiman Kerimov — a financier close to Mr. Putin in a commercial and political dispute with a Russian competitor, Ashot Egiazaryan.

In early 2011, two London lawyers on Mr. Egiazaryan’s team separately received suspicious emails and hired forensic experts to scrutinize them, according to people involved in a Scotland Yard investigation. The experts found that the messages concealed spyware meant to infiltrate their computers, and they fed traceable documents into the spyware that were then opened by computers registered at the Moscow office park of one of Mr. Kerimov’s companies.

Of all the facts in the Russia scandal, this one seems the most underplayed. Email hacking is one of Akhmetshin’s basic methods of operation. The Trump campaign met with a Russian spy who is known for pulling the exact kind of crime that was committed in this case.

Thirty states elected Donald Trump President, voters from a district in Maine to Arizona, from Florida to Idaho, representing a broad swath of America.

Yet, when it came to populating his administration, the President “rounded up the usual suspects,” choosing people mainly from New York City or those who live within twenty miles of the Beltway, areas that voted for Hillary Clinton – not to mention the scores of Obama appointees who remain embedded in high level positions.

With the forced departure of Stephen K. Banning from the Trump Administration, it is clear that a Presidential election can be reversed by the left-wing media collaborating with a hopelessly corrupt political establishment, better known collectively as the Deep State.

The Deep State quickly recognized that the 2016 election was not simply a contest between the Democrat and Republican ideologies, but a battle between the entrenched power of a political ruling class and the desire of the American people for genuine representative government.

When they could not stop the election of Donald Trump, the Deep State planned to thwart the implementation of an America First agenda by dismantling it issue by issue and replacing Trump supporters with Deep State operatives.

The character assassination of opponents conducted by the Deep State through its media mouth-pieces follows a familiar pattern. Denounce that individual either directly or by innuendo of being one or more of the following popular epithets; a Nazi, a racist, an Islamophobe, a Russian stooge, professionally incompetent or being some type of political extremist. After labelling, the media then repeatedly claim that the targeted individual is “isolated” and that his or her position in the administration is “uncertain.”

Sebastian Gorka is next on their list. You only need to read the media headlines, which began immediately after Banning’s departure, for example, “Seb Gorka’s Fate ‘Extremely Uncertain’ as His Boss Bannon Is Ousted,” an articlewhich noted Gorka’s “involvement with a far-right Hungarian group notorious for its collaboration with the Nazi regime during World War II.”

The Deep State knows full well that it is an effective tactic in Washington, D.C., where politicians maintain a continuous search for scapegoats when their policies, as they often do, fail.

Banning is correct in noting:

“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

That “something else” is business as usual, political expediency and crony capitalism.

Sadly, Trump supporters may have to start looking elsewhere than the Trump Administration for people to champion their views because those administration champions are rapidly diminishing in number. I can’t say where that elsewhere is, but I know where it isn’t.

The Democrat Party and its propaganda machine, the mainstream media, have adopted an Islamo-Marxist agenda to undermine the United States as a Judeo-Christian-based democracy, to erase our history, our Constitution, our culture, our traditions, all of what “America” has come to mean.

The Republican Party is dominated by globalists, obsessed with the acquisition of personal power and profit, uninterested and unwilling to defend the rights, liberties and security of American citizens. The GOP leadership has solidified its choice to no longer represent what had been its constituency, but to adopt the identity of junior partners in the ruling class, subservient to lobbyists and their international financial overlords.

The challenge that gave rise to the Trump candidacy remains.

We are no longer citizens of a republic, but subjects of an elected aristocracy, composed of a self-absorbed permanent political class, which serves the interests of international financiers at the expense of the American people. They maintain their authority by an ever-expanding and increasingly intrusive government and use a compliant media to manipulate public opinion in order to maintain the illusion of democracy, while controlling elections or their outcomes.

There is indeed still a winning coalition in America; one which, it was hoped, Trump represented; one inclusive of all Americans; one for all those who believe in a simple proposition – honest, representative and effective government.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-swamp-drains-the-trump-presidency?f=must_reads

Read more great articles here: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution “.

Israel attacked the United States Navy Technical Research ship USS Liberty because they had hoped to blame their own enemies and force the United States into war.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi: Israel is really dangerous.

Philip Giraldi has recently written an interesting article saying some damning things about Israel and the Turkish government. He said that “Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was recently compelled to register as an agent of Turkey after he received $530,000 in payments to support Ankara’s view regarding those it believed to be behind last year’s coup.”[1]

OK. Flynn is a bad guy. But what about Israel, said Giraldi? “Ironically,” he wrote, “the most powerful and effective foreign-government lobby in Washington is so dominant that it has been able to avoid registering for the past 55 years. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was last confronted by FARA when its predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was pressured by John F. Kennedy’s Justice Department in 1962 and 1963.

“Kennedy’s death stopped that effort—and ended White House attempts to hold Israel accountable for the development of its secret nuclear weapons program (which depended on nuclear material removed illegally from the United States with the connivance of a company located in Pennsylvania called NUMEC).”[2]

It can be argued that Israel has its fingerprint on Kennedy’s death. Israel, Giraldi moved on to say, continues to suck the monetary blood of America:

“The power of the Israel Lobby and of AIPAC is not cost free for the American public. The current $3 billion plus that Israel, with a thriving first world economy, receives in military assistance is on top of the $130 billion that it has received since 1949.

“Protecting Israel in international organizations like the United Nations has sometimes marginalized the U.S. in such bodies and the lobby’s influence over American foreign policy has often been noted. In 2010 General David Petraeus stated that Israeli policies were putting American military personnel in the Middle East in danger. He quickly recanted, however.”[3]

This is no small matter. And what have Israeli officials been doing with all that money? Have they used it in a way that protected America? No. In fact, they have historically and diabolically used America’s own weapons and money to bomb American soldiers and ships. Remember the USS Liberty?

In June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel bombed the USS Liberty, killing thirty-four American soldiers and wounding hundreds of others. Israel attacked the United States Navy Technical Research ship USS Liberty because they had hoped to blame their own enemies and force the United States into war. Once caught, the Israelis declared that the attack was a mistake, arguing that they could not positively identify the vessel. But the evidence stacked up against them.[4]John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard called the event a “tragic attack” in history.

Bryce Lockwood, “a Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister,” was aboard the USS Liberty.

“For Lockwood and many other survivors, the anger is mixed with incredulity: that Israel would attack an important ally, then attribute the attack to a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the U.S. Navy’s most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport that was half its size and had a dissimilar profile.

“And they’re also incredulous that, for years, their own government would reject their calls for a thorough investigation. ‘They tried to lie their way out of it!’ Lockwood shouts. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute! You just don’t shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!’ Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping.”[6]

United States officials largely accepted the claims that the attack was an accident. Yet Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Admiral Thomas Moorer saw no evidence for this whatsoever; documents show that the Israelis knew exactly who they were attacking. James Bamford writes,

“By 10:55 A.M., senior Israeli officials knew for certain that they had an American electronic spy in their midst. Not only was the ship clearly visible to the foes at El Arish, it had been positively identified by Israeli naval headquarters.”

Before the incident, U.S. Commander Pinchas Pinchasy “sent a report to the acting chief of naval operations at Israeli navy headquarters in Haifa. The report said that the ship cruising slowly off El Arish was ‘an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy, named Liberty, whose marking was GTR-5. Not only did the ship have ‘GTR-5 painted broadly on both sides of its bow and stern, it also had its name painted in large, bold, black letters: ‘USS Liberty.’”146 Everyone aboard the ship believed that the Israelis knew what they were doing.

“At 2:09, the American aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, operating near Crete, acknowledged Liberty’s cry for help. ‘I am standing by for further traffic,’ it signaled. After taking out the gun mounts, the Israeli fighter pilots turned their attention to the antennas, to sever the Liberty’s vocal cords and deafen it so it could not call for help or pick up any more revealing intercepts. ‘It was as though they knew their exact locations,’ said Senior Chief Stan White.

“Lieutenant Commander Dave Lewis, in charge of the NSA operation in the ship, agreed. ‘It appears to me that every tuning section of every HF antenna had a hole in it,’ he said. ‘It took a lot of planning to get heat-seeking missiles aboard to take out our entire communications in the first minute of the attack…’

“As the Israelis continued their slaughter, neither they nor the Liberty crew had any idea that witnesses were present high above. Until now. According to information, interviews, and documents obtained for Body of Secrets, for nearly thirty-five years NSA has hidden the fact that one of its planes was overhead at the time of the incident, eavesdropping on what was going on below.”[7]

Haaretz reported that “the Israel Air Force warplanes and Israel Navy warships that attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War, were aware that the vessel was an American spy ship…The report stated that the U.S. National Security Agency—to which the intelligence gathering ship belonged—was able to intercept IAF communications according to which, at some stage, the pilots identified the ship as American but were nonetheless instructed to push ahead with the attack.”[8]

Some of these transcripts are in U.S. government archives and prove that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing.

“Oliver Kirby, the NSA’s deputy director for operations at the time of the Liberty attack, is quoted by the Tribune as confirming the existence of the transcripts, saying he personally read them. ‘They said, “We’ve got him in the zero,” Kirby was quoted as saying, ‘whatever that meant—I guess the sights or something.’ And then one of them said, “Can you see the flag?” They said “Yes, it’s U.S., it’s U.S..” They said it several times, so there wasn’t any doubt in anybody’s mind that they knew it.’”[9]

Kirby went so far as to say that the attack was “something that’s bothered me all my life. I’m willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that we knew they knew.”[10]

Yet in light of all of these facts, “the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel’s reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.”[11]Bamford notes, “Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel had attacked the ship and killed the American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.

Johnson was planning to run for president the following year and needed the support of pro-Israel voters.”[12] Q. “Tony” Hart, who was a First Class Petty Officer stationed in Morocco at the time of the attack, declared after much reflection on the incident, “President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors.”[13]

Haaretz brought the whole Zionist house down last month by publishing an archival document proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that Israel was exclusively behind the attack on the USS Liberty.

“In the document, which is also on the official CIA website, an anonymous source is quoted as saying: ‘They said that [then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe] Dayan personally ordered the attack on the ship, and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the action and said, ‘This is pure murder.’”[14]

There was more to the attack than meets the eye and ear.

“The new book quotes a story reported by former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter, who recounted a conversation between an Israeli pilot and the Israel Air Force war room, which was allegedly picked up by an NSA aircraft and inadvertently cabled to CIA offices around the world:

“Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

“IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

“Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship – I can see the flag!

“IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.”[15]

So, should Israel be treated as an America’s ally? Shouldn’t it be viewed as an enemy to the United States and arguably much of the world?