WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
May 20, 2009:The Attack on the LIBERTY: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship: A Book Review and Much More...
Four days before the
forty-second anniversary of that other day in infamy, the release of The
Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Shipwill reopen many wounds caused by the
Israeli attack on the unarmed spy ship that navigated in international waters
during the Six-Day War.
Acclaimed
journalist and son of a survivor, author James Scott dedicated his extensively
footnoted, compelling and dramatic account to his father, who lived to tell
about it and the thirty-four sailors who did not.
On
June 8, 1967, out of a crew of 294, thirty four were killed, 171 wounded and all
scarred for life because the USA Government failed to support the troops who continue
to request an open Congressional hearing to address the Israeli claim of
mistaken identity.
Scott
blows apart the only American investigation that was ever conducted;
the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry's white wash rush job that confirmed the
Israeli claim which is contradicted by the facts that he uncovered.
Scott conducted hundreds of interviews with Liberty survivors, senior
administration and intelligence officials and investigated recently
declassified documents by Israel and America. Scott's fast paced tome
gives voice to the frustrated outrage felt by many inside the Pentagon, State
Department, NSA, Navy and even a few Congregessional representatives.
Among
many issues Scott illuminates, is that Israel’s chain of command were well aware
of the Liberty’s true identity and he eviscerates their excuse of
"mistaken identity" of the uniquely American flag waving ship.
Scott
reveals how the American government de-emphasized the attack because of the war
in Vietnam as he illuminates the
American Governments preference in support of the Industrial Military Complex
over the lives and well being of American servicemen.
Scott
documents that Israeli pilots, air control staff and navy officers in Tel Aviv
and Haifa were aware that before
their unprovoked brutal torpedo attacks on the unarmed spy ship that the vessel
was definitely American.
"More
than twenty minutes before the fatal torpedo strike killed twenty-five sailors;
Israel's chief air controller
conclusively identified the Libertyas
an American ship." [Page 216]
Many
years after the attack, Lieutenant Colonel Shmuel Kislev, the chief air
controller at general headquarters in Tel Aviv, confessed that he knew the U.S.S.
LIBERTY was an American ship as soon as an Israeli pilot radioed in its hull
numbers.
Two
months before the sailor's mass burial at ArlingtonCemetery, Navy analysis also
uncovered that the Israeli torpedo boat gunners had targeted the spy ship with
40-mm tracer rounds made in the United States.
In
1967, the Republican representative from Iowa, H.R. Gross asked
questions that still demand an answer today:
"Is
this Government now, directly or indirectly, subsidizing Israel in the payment
of full compensation for the lives that were destroyed, the suffering of the
wounded, and the damage from this wanton attack? It can well be asked whether
these Americans were the victims of bombs, machine gun bullets and torpedoes
manufactured in the United States and dished out as military assistance under
foreign aid." [Pages 271-272]
By
November 1967, lawmakers were willing to spend six million USA tax dollars to
build schools in Israel but during the debate, Representative Gross spoke with
the voice of conscience and introduced
an amendment that "not one dollar of U.S. credit or aid of any kind
[should] go to Israel until there is a firm settlement with regard to the
attack and full reparations have been made [and Israel] provides full and
complete reparations for the killing and wounding of more than 100 United
States citizens in the wanton, unprovoked attack…I wonder how you would feel if
you were the father of one of the boys who was killed in that connection-or
perhaps you do not have any feelings with respect to these young men who were
killed, wounded and maimed, or their families." [Page 272-273]
Gross's
amendment failed, justice remains delayed and American tax payers continue to
support the Jewish State which has reaped a more violent and insecure planet for
innocent civilians.
"Since the
October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support
dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest
annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and
the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel
amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3
billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of
America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States
gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is
especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy
industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”[1]
During Fiscal Year
2007, the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by
Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, [updated January
2, 2008]
reported that the US gave Israel at least $2,500.2 million
in 2007. This number does not include the $137.894 million we spent on joint
U.S.-Israeli missile defense projects or the $1.4 billion in loan guarantees
made available to Israel in 2007. [Ibid]
While
U.S. economic aid to Israel has been phased out, it
has been replaced with increased military aid of $3.1 billion each year out of
American wallets that go to provide even more weapons of destruction to one of
the most powerful militaries the world has ever known.
The
United States has given more money to Israel than to any other country,
and the "indirect or consequential costs to the American taxpayer as a
result of Washington’s blind support for Israel exceed by many times the
amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel. Some of these ‘indirect
or consequential’ costs would include the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the
Arab boycott, the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the Arab oil embargo
and consequent soaring oil prices as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the
1973 war, and the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq,
Libya and Syria. [Ibid]
During
the Bush Administration, Israel killed more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians-including
more than 1,000 children during its December-January war on the Gaza Strip-with
U.S. made weapons in violation of the Arms Export Control and Foreign
Assistance Acts. In 2007, the United States agreed to increase military aid to
Israel by 25% over the next decade, totaling $30 billion.
"In
May 2009, President Obama sent his FY2010 budget request to Congress which
includes $2.775 billion in military aid for Israel,
an increase of $225 million from this year’s budget. The budget request will
go to the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on
State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs for hearings
and “mark-ups”.
"This
request for an increase in military aid to Israel comes despite the fact that
Israel consistently misuses U.S. weapons in violation of the Arms
Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts."
[2]
The
Pentagon dismantled the spy ship program in 1968 while survivors and supporters
continue to pursue justice. A letter writing campaign to Congress has been
established to request a new Court of
Inquiry and also that the Congressional Record on June 8th, 2009
will be the first annual "USS LIBERTY Remembrance Day."
USS Liberty Survivor, Dick Carlson, a member of the
National Cryptological Veterans Association, is asking all survivors and
supporters to send a snail mail letter to their Congressional representatives
[3] which I slightly edited and have mailed to:
Dear
President Obama, Senator Martinez, Senator Nelson and Congresswoman Ginny
Brown-Waite,
As
we approach the 42nd anniversary of the attack of the USS LIBERTY it
is appropriate that all Americans pause a moment to remember the survivors of
the attack on the U.S.S. LIBERTY and to observe a national moment of silence
for the 34 sailors who died and the 171 wounded on June 8, 1967, aboard the USS
LIBERTY that was patrolling in international waters of the Mediterranean when
Israeli planes and torpedo boats attacked the ship.
June 8, 1967, will remain a day of
infamy because it was the first time in history that the US NAVY was delayed
from coming to the aid of an American Ship under attack. Although, planes were launched
from the USS SARATOGA, they were called back by the Secretary of Defense,
Robert McNamara and President Johnson accepted the Israeli excuse as he did not
want to embarrass an ally.
Israel paid minimal compensation
to the families of the crew and six million for damages to the unarmed spy ship
which in fact should have exceeded 40 million. Israel has never acknowledged
that the attack was premeditated and instead, blamed the victims.
In
recent years, Admiral Moorer, General Raymond Davis, Rear Admiral Staring,
Ambassador James Akins and others have come forth stating the attack was
deliberate. They have asked that a new Court of Inquiry be convened by the
Department of the Navy, operating with Congressional oversight, to thoroughly
investigate the attack on the USS LIBERTY, which is the only way justice can be
rendered to the survivors.
Admiral
Moorer and his distinguished colleagues have called for June 8th to
be known as “USS LIBERTY Remembrance Day, in order to commemorate the Liberty’s heroic crew”.
I
ask for your support in opening a new Court of Inquiry, so that the survivors who
have been denied justice for 42 years will have their voices recorded and Americans
will know what these heroes endured.
Might
this June 8th see justice begin to be served by entering into the Congressional
Record: USS LIBERTY Remembrance Day.
Most
Sincerely and with HOPE,
Eileen Fleming, Founder
of http://wearewideawake.org/
A Feature
Correspondent for www.arabisto.com/
and www.paltelegraph.com/
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish
American
'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
I produced "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with
Vanunu"
because corporate media has been MIA all during a Freedom of Speech
Trial in Israel.
"HOPE
has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is
COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St.
Augustine
Sources:
THE
ATTACK ON THE LIBERTY: The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a
U.S. Spy Ship
by James Scott. Simon & Schuster, June 2009.
The Blow Back from "My nightmare in the
Mediterranean" : 6th in the LIBERTY series "It was God that kept us
afloat"Read more...
"There Can Be No Peace in
the Middle East Until Israel Owns its Own Atrocities" 7th in the USS
LIBERTY Series: "It was God that kept us afloat" Read more...
Disrespecting the Troops, the
McCain's and Hillary
8th in the USS LIBERTY Series: "It Was God That Kept Us Alive"Read more...
Visitors since 07.22.05
Visitors: 32213797
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel