Kjhalliwell

Personal Info

It might be worth asking an admin to delete your user page to remove the traces of personal info. When dealing with controversial subjects like the Liberty, you can get some whackos who will net-stalk you and crap. Narson (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning...Ken (talk) 19:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

the information is much appreciated, thanks from a Canadian Canoe Captain to our valued American allies

what interests me is that after the six-day war, american influence on israeli domestic and foreign policy through intense lobbying to surrender to the defeated enemy portions of the land which had been occupied by arabs since the final 1949 ceasefire of the war of independence increased.

I'm not very well versed on the political dealings immediately after the war; so, I'll refrain from commenting on pressure exerted on GOI to return lands taken during the '67 war.

american sales of weapons to israel happened between 1967 and 1973, when Henry Kissinger threatened Israel with an arms boycott if Israel did not absorb the first waves of Arab attackers. Golda Meir resigned in shame after Israel's crushing political defeat in that disgusting disaster of a campaign. arms shipments resumed, and now Israel has american ground and air equipment, and some excellent 'pocket battleships'.

It's my understanding that prior to 1967 the USG provided military aid to GOI via a backdoor process that involved helping Israel acquire arms from Germany and France. Then, shortly after the '67 war, the backdoor closed and the frontdoor opened.

Thanks for removing the information and clarifying the route of the signal intelligence between the israeli forces and the greek station. did the signal by any chance get intercepted in greek cyprus and transmitted to amman, jordan? thanks to Narson for the warning. I will clean up my user- and talk- pages now, my e-mail is yosef.garibaldi@gmail.com. Yosef.garibaldi (talk) 22:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Your edit still stands, unless somebody else removed it.

The HF transmissions from Liberty could have been intercepted by any country in the area, but it would have been useless as a source of intelligence unless the receiver had a KW-7 cryptographic device and the proper key setting for decrypting the signal's message.Ken (talk) 23:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

my the way, my grandfather of blessed memory was on the royal canadian naval ships and the canadian merchant marine during the war.

he told me a story when i was young about a soldier whose head was injured on a german submarine when a hatch prematurely closed.

the soldier walks into a bar and says '

the nazis shot the top of my head off

'. I hope the story was as informative as the comment you left on my talk page Yosef.garibaldi (talk) 22:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I fail to understand the humor or what it has to do with the topic at hand.Ken (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Liberty

I think I am getting a tad vexxed by the bad faith and incivil attacks, so I'm going to try and take a break from the page. I just wanted to say that I respected the way you had gone about putting forward your arguments in the past and getting your edits in and sourced. I thought the article had a chance of emerging from the quagmire it is in, I guess not. --Narson ~ Talk • 17:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

There were at least 60 uncited statements last time I checked and tagged the faults. No effort was made to fix anything, most of the tags were simply removed.

Meanwhile, we have solid RS (three of them now, by the look of it) saying that Moshe Dayan threatened to sink the Liberty - but only quite feeble objections to including two of them the second one. We may have reason for discounting Alan Hart's claim - but that "his book comes from an iffy publisher" is not a valid one - and claiming such is not BRD. Alan Hart's personal web-site alone would be good RS for what he's reporting - and his words (unless we have serious reason to doubt his integrity) have most of the same authority as that of the ITN and the BBC.

There is a detail that you might be able to help with, Hart claims "At about 2200 hours the Liberty's sophisticated radar-sensing equipment detected Israeli jets circling the ship. That was not surprising given where the vessel was. The surprise was that fire-control radar was being directed at it. The Israeli jets were homing their rockets as though for an attack."

Hart continues "As it happened the Liberty did not report its 2200 hours contact because of the assumption that the Israeli pilots were playing games. But the Liberty's failure to report the incident was of no consequence because the report of the U.S. Defence Attache had weight enough on its own. Washington knew that Israel's one-eyed warlord was not a man who made empty threats." Is any of this mentioned by authors such as Ennes, Bergmann and Green? If so, it's a bit of a mystery why it's not been included until now. PR^talk 19:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

According to Liberty's Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT) Log, on June 7, at 2200Z the ship was at 31d 59m North by 32d 24m East. Using Google Earth, you'll see that these coordinates place ship about 45NM (80KM) directly north of Port Said. It seems odd to me that IAF jet fighters would be flying around at night, 45NM north of Port Said, (about 100NM from the nearest IAF airbase) searching for ships. I can envision a long-range search aircraft (e.g., Nord) doing this, but not fuel-inefficient jet fighters. Also, it seems odd that a contact of this nature would not have been mentioned in one of Liberty's SITREPs (Situation Reports). But, of course, anything is possible.Ken (talk) 22:24, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The business about the jets activating their fire-control radar comes from "First Class Petty Officer Charles Rowley". I don't know whether Hart spoke to him personally or not (Hart was a top-ranking journalistic, his style is to report things as "true" without saying where he got it, unless in someone else's book). What Hart says is: "The small group gathered around the Liberty's radar screen playfully employed the ship's electronic countermeasure {ECM} to "spoof' the Israeli pilots. The Liberty's ECM equipment was of the latest and most sophisticated type and enabled the ship to distort its radar image and send it back to the Israeli planes - making the Liberty appear to be much smaller and then much bigger than it was. ... The Israelis, it was assumed, were only playing games." Hart's credibility would have to be rated "excellent", and (I would think) we'd almost certainly include his assertions even if they were "surprising" and credibly refuted elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we now have three sources that say Dayan threatened to sink the Liberty. Narson has correctly queried whether Stephen Green's very well-cited "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel" really does assert threats to attack the USS Liberty - and it does indeed ("Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening ... the NSA learned ... that Israel was planning to attack the Liberty ..."). Green's book (according to Google Scholar) is 26 times more cited than Cristol's book but not mentioned atall by us, so there's clearly something badly wrong at this article.

Actually, the deeper one goes into this incident, the more puzzling becomes the resistance to blaming Israel. Michael B. Oren is a Senior Fellow at The Shalem Center in Jerusalem (whatever that is) and quotes Reverdy S. Fishel (whoever he is) in a 1995 issue of the "International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence" making the assertion that “all serious scholarship on the subject accepts Israel’s assault as having been perpetrated quite deliberately....”. PR^talk 09:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Liberty's radar repeaters (screens) for its navigational radar system (AN/SPS-10) were in the ship's pilot house and CIC (Combat Information Center), adjacent to the pilot house, on the third deck above the ship's main deck, within the superstructure. According to several attack survivors, shipmates of the now deceased Rowley, he was a CTT (Communications Technician, Technical branch) who worked on the first deck below the ship's main deck, in the forward part of the ship -- nowhere near the ship's navigational radar repeaters. He was involved with usage of passive (signal intercept) ECM research equipment (AN/WLR-1) to discover, record, and evaluate radar signals for inclusion in a catalog of radar signal profiles and sources. In other words, there is no evidence that the ECM equipment in Rowley's work location was capable of modifying and repeating an originator's radar signals in a manner that would make the ship appear smaller or larger on radar than in reality; it could only receive and analyze radar signals. If Liberty had an active (signal emitting) ECM system, it would have been an AN/ULQ-6. This system was used in conjunction with the AN/WLR-1; it was capable of jamming (blinding) radar, but not intelligently manipulating the received radar signal and then repeating it in a manner that varied the size of target's radar image; although, this device is sometimes referred to a being a "radar deception repeater" which suggests an ability to simply repeat a received radar signal and, thus, make a target appear larger than in reality.Ken (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I heard from a reliable source (a former navy Electronics Technican trained on the ULQ-6) that the ULQ-6 did have an operational mode that repeated a received radar signal to make a target appear larger than in reality. Thus, by simply turning this operational mode on and off, one could alternatively make a target appear two different sizes -- its actual size and a larger size. Regardless, I have yet to find evidence that Liberty was equipped with an AN/ULQ-6.Ken (talk) 20:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Attempt at Mediation

I am attempting to help with the dispute regarding the USS Liberty incident. If you are interested in participating, please add your signature accordingly. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for getting my typos on USS Liberty. That chronology looks a bit more rounded now, I hope. --Narson ~ Talk • 18:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Your new Doppelgänger account

I created User:USS Liberty Inquiry, a Doppelgänger account that uses the name of your website, to prevent you from being impersonated. I don't have access to it, I used a random password that I didn't record. I gave it your aol.com e-mail address that you listed on your website, so feel free to take control of it if you want to. You don't need to worry about maintaining it, there's nothing to maintain. It's job is just to sit there doing nothing other then keeping imposers from using that username. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 04:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks...Ken (talk) 19:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Known to this editor

Kjhalliwell,

I've been looking at your edits and your discussion, and I have great respect for you as an editor, and I appreciate your involvement. However, I don't have any way of verifying statements by you that people have told you X or Y, unless you offer a reliable source indicating such. As such, it's a bit tougher to allow such stuff into the article, even though again I respect you as an editor, simply because I can't verify that, and a core pillar of Wikipedia is WP:VERIFIABILITY. So if you say X, and a reliable source says Y, we have to go according to the reliable source. However, if you can bring up other sources that contradict the reliable source and go according to what you said, then the situation would obviously be different.

I'm bringing this up because I reverted such one edit, and I want you to understand my reasoning for doing so. At face value, I don't know that an edit that says "known to this editor" is true or not. And I say this with the greatest respect.

Thanks. --Jethro B 23:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I understand. The two sources I rely upon most often are the NSA History Report and the IDF History Report. These two reports are from parties directly involved, but they seem fairly objective and rely completely upon verifiable primary sources. For the aforementioned specific edit, a statement attributed to Oren is not supported by either the NSA History Report, IDF History Report or the primary sources these reports cite.Ken (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you link here to these two reports, and the specific quote (or paragraph or page) that contradicts this? Again, I just want to check up on this. If so, I'll self-revert myself. --Jethro B 01:12, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

See map on page 30 of http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/uss_liberty/attack_sigint.pdf

See map on page 18 of http://thelibertyincident.com/docs/israeli/IDF-history-report-en.pdf

These two reports contain maps of Liberty's navigational track on June 8. Both reports are relatively sparse in time data that can be associated with events relative to the ship's navigational track. Nonetheless, time v/s position can be deduced from times cited within the reports for various events. In this respect, both reports are weak sources.

Nonetheless, the ship's Deck Log and Dead Reckoning Trace (DRT) Log (primary sources) are in the public domain. The logs state time and position at various points along the ship's track. The logs indicate clearly that the ship was directly north of El Arish (point B on the map) at about 11:30 A.M., when shelling was reported by the IDF, not at the eastern most part of her track as stated in the paragraph with a statement attributed to Oren.

See Deck Log entry 08-12 here: http://www.ussliberty.org/g/log-pg01.gif

See DRT Log here: http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/evidence/logs/drt.pdf

Two well-known (at least to folks who study the attack) secondary sources -- on opposite sides of the fence -- have used and reported this information accurately in their books: Ennes in his book "Assult on the Liberty", and Cristol in his book "The Liberty Incident". Assuming the statement attributed to Oren fairly represents what he actually wrote, he seems the only one confused about the ship's location at about 11:30 A.M.

If you're interested, I've performed a bit of original research (OR) on this matter.

My findings are here: http://sites.google.com/site/usslibertyinquiry/essay19

Of course, my findings cannot be used in the article due to their OR nature.Ken (talk) 03:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

OK I've had a look at page 30 of 1st one, as you've said it doesn't show the time though (unless there are other figures there that can help to figure it out). Page 18 in the 2nd one seems better, although tough to read sideways! The handwriting on the Deck Log is also a bit tough for me. But the last one, the DRT log, is pretty clear, and I plugged in the coordinates for 11:00 and it's essentially north of El Arish. Thanks! --Jethro B 03:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

You may find it interesting to read embedded comments I made a while back in the "Air and sea attacks" section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident#Air_and_sea_attacks). There you'll find more statements attributed to Oren that don't jibe with primary sources.Ken (talk) 04:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I think there could be specific instances where a discussion would be necessary on this type of stuff. Wikipedia itself prefers secondary sources to primary sources, and we can't discount a source completely because it "contradicts" primary sources, simply because primary sources can be influenced by the shock of an event or the surroundings and may not always be accurate. So if there's something really important said, it could perhaps warrant a discussion, and not a full-scale dismissal (perhaps it'd be different if there's an RS saying specficially Oren is wrong...). Anyway, that time isn't now though, so I'll bid you good night/good morning/good afternoon. --Jethro B 05:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Typically, Oren cites primary sources. Occasionally, he cites no source. Since he wasn't involved in the attack, he had to depend on primary sources for information about the attack. One measure of a secondary source's reliability is the degree to which his/her statements can be verified. The way to verify is to review primary sources cited. If a secondary source truly represents his/her primary sources, then the secondary source is deemed reliable. If a secondary cites no sources, then he is deemed unreliable; i.e., no way to verify. If a secondary source contradicts a primary source, then the secondary source has to present convincing evidence or argument to support his/her contradiction; i.e., contradictory statement must be verifiable in some manner. In short, verifiability is the key to determining reliability.

A subtle point in all of this is that verifiably is not necessarily truth; i.e., a secondary source's statement may be entirely verifiable, but primary sources may be incorrect, evidence flawed or arguments faulty. In this regard, Wiki is not about truth, it's about citing sources deemed to be reliable.

For statements attributed to Oren that I challenged, they cannot be verified by primary sources and some are contradicted by other secondary sources who relied on the primary sources. In some cases, it appears that the contributing Wiki editor involved, Reenem, misrepresented Oren, and synthesized his own version of events.

Anyway, Reenem is a run-away-train who seems to enjoy performing extensive editing of articles to match his understanding of events, and avoids any discussion thereof. I have little desire to clean up his mess, and it makes little difference anyway. As soon as things appear somewhat settled, somebody new will come along to rewrite the article to match his/her understanding of events – it’s a never ending game.Ken (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

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