Candace Owens and the USS Liberty

[Trivia: Which 2 initialisms are missing from this chronological list?

• Cheka (1917–1922)

• GPU (1922–1923)

• OGPU (1923–1934)

• ____ (1934–1946)

• MGB (1946–1953)

• ____ (1954-1991)]

Ever since Candace Owens’ acrimonious split from conservative news-commentary site The Daily Wire back in March, she has followed a Tucker Carlson-like path of making increasingly wild and baseless claims. I haven’t bothered profiling her until now because I find the circular-firing-squad tendencies on the Right to be broadly unproductive, even when someone has fallen into obviously bad and toxic territory.

But this week Owens made the mistake of promoting a heap of virulent lies on a subject I just finished reading a book on, so I feel prepared to address this.

The Short Version:

In the middle of 1967’s Six-Day War, Israeli forces attacked a US ship off of Sinai, killing 34 and wounding many more, before calling off the attack. Owens is promoting the idea that this was not an instance of friendly fire but was intentional, where Israel knew it was an American vessel it was attacking. To further these accusations, she’s presenting a factually wrong account of events.

The Long Version:

Here’s the opening of Candace’s recent video where she goes down this particular rabbit hole. I’m going to quote her preface in full:

All right, you guys, I'll get right into this. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter that changed my life, certainly changed the course of my life in politics. And I am going to read you that letter now and let you know that the author of it is sitting across from me.

It reads,

My name is Philip Turney. I am 77 years old today. On June 8, 1967, I was just 20 years old when the gallant crew of the USS Liberty was savagely attacked.

Our American flag was proudly flying on our ship in the Mediterranean Sea that day. The designation AGTR5 was clearly painted on the bow,¹ port, and starboard sides. USS Liberty was written in English on her stern.

When we arrived on June 7, we were overflown by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft, and the same activity was repeated on the morning of June 8. We were positively identified as American and friendly by the IDF.

We had requested a destroyer escort long before we entered the Mediterranean, but we were denied twice. Our captain assured us that we were clearly marked as American and we therefore had nothing to fear.

We were alone, 12 and a half miles off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, always in international waters. The Israeli reconnaissance aircraft were clearly marked with the Star of David. We therefore felt secure seeing a flying boxcar and other smaller recon propeller aircraft taking good care of us.

The attack began at 2:00 on a beautiful bright sunny day by French-made Mirage and Mystere jets painted black with no markings. We had no clue who was attacking us, but assumed it was an Arab state.

During the first pass-by, the jets took out all but one of our transmitting antennas, as well as every watertight door above the water line.

The air attack lasted about 25 minutes, killing and maiming our firefighters and any sailor who moved.

Our radio man took one antenna offline so it wasn't transmitting and wasn't hit. He ran a long wire to it and the SOS went out to the 6th Fleet. It was even picked up as far away as Vietnam.

“Rockstar Rockstar under attack by an unknown jet aircraft. Help us. Help us.”

Captain Tully, skipper of the USS Saratoga, sent jets to come to our aid. Before the jets hit the horizon, they were recalled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Captain Engin of the USS America and Tully relaunched more aircraft to aid us.

They were also recalled, this time by Lyndon Baines Johnson himself. He said, quote, I don't care about a few dead sailors. I will not embarrass my ally, Israel. Return to base immediately, end quote.

How did he know who was attacking us if we did not?

We were set up by our own government to let a foreign government have their way with us. The IDF even dropped napalm on the bridge of our ship.

How low they would go we would soon find out.

Three motor torpedo boats headed our way and one torpedo hit our starboard side. We saw the Star of David on the boats; they were there to sink us. The attack continued for another hour and a half.

Attacking jet aircraft destroyed all but three of our life rafts which we had put overboard. We were going to place our most seriously wounded in them so that they would have a chance at life. But the IDF would have none of that. They shot two of them out of the water and took one aboard their boats as a trophy of the kill.

They continued shooting and killing my mates. They left and we thought that it was over, but it wasn't. IDF helicopters were sent with troops armed and ready to board our ship and finish us off.

Then they just left.

I guess the gig was up when the mighty IDF could not sink our defenseless ship.

When it was all done, there were over 821 rocket and cannon holes and over 5,000 armor piercing bullets riddling the ship. Napalm was burning us up and a 40 by 40 foot torpedo hole was in her side causing the ship to list badly to our starboard side.

We then waited 17 hours for help. I guess they hoped that we would sink that night.

Help was only 40 minutes away from us, but they left us out alone to die.

When the USS America and the USS Davis arrived to help us, they took our wounded to care for them. Their wounds were so horrific, words cannot explain.

Admiral Kidd boarded our ship a few days later and the coverup immediately began.

We were ordered to never speak of the attack to anyone, not even with one another.

Penalties would be fines, imprisonment, or worse. And we all knew that worse meant death.

We have been treated like garbage for the last 57 years.

Congress has been bought and paid for with the exception over the years of a few brave lawmakers. Their names are Representatives Pete McCloskey, Paul Findley, and Jim Traficant.

As the courageous Rep. Thomas Massie has noted, all Republican members of Congress except for him have AIPAC handlers. We can assume this is also true of nearly all Democrats.

We are the most decorated ship in naval history for a single engagement.

I believe God saved us that day to allow us to communicate the truth of this attack to leaders like you.

We give all power to Jesus Christ. We are just his servants, that horrible day and now. The USS Liberty survivors are the biggest whistleblowers this country has ever seen. We have been smeared as antisemitic, Jew-haters, and Nazis.

Our only sin is that we survived.

We didn't kill anyone. Israel did all the murdering that day and the US government did all the covering up. I'm asking you to help us save America by telling other the facts about the slaughter of my mates. We are begging you to support us. Respectfully, Phil Turney, the President of the USS Liberty Veterans association

This is such a rat’s nest of lies it’s hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start here: I set the stage by mentioning that this happened in the middle of the Six-Day War, which lasted from June 5 to 10 of 1967 and was waged between Israel and a coalition of Arab neighbors (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan). This is a basic part of the story and nowhere, here or in the full 70-minute conversation, is this made clear. The repeated language of “international waters” and the Mediterranean, if anything, seems to prey on people’s ignorance by painting a lovely maritime picture far from the fact that Israel was embroiled in a multi-front war as this was going on.

Or how about what President Johnson said? “I don't care about a few dead sailors. I will not embarrass my ally, Israel.” I think that LBJ was a horrible, awful president and I have not been afraid to say so—but so far as I can tell this quote is a fabrication. I cannot find a source for it anywhere. The only other reference I can find online that didn’t spring to life only recently in connection with Owens’ video was a solitary 2017 allusion that does not provide a source. Where is this quote coming from? According to whom was this said? They make a huge deal out of this in the conversation and never provide a reference or any way of knowing that this happened.²

Or what about the help? “We then waited 17 hours for help. I guess they hoped that we would sink that night. Help was only 40 minutes away from us, but they left us out alone to die.” This is not what happened, at all. The aforementioned book on the Six-Day War, published in 1967 (the same year as the war took place), notes of the incident:

One of the Israeli MTBs signalled the Liberty asking if she needed assistance. The reply is reported to have been a curt one. It is a considerable tribute to the bravery and efficiency of the men in the USS Liberty that within half an hour of the attack all the fires had been put out and she was steaming north at 10 [nautical miles per hour] despite a 30 degree list.

Now, unlike the President Johnson quote, this is the sort of thing that someone onboard the vessel that day might be in a unique, eyewitness position to challenge. Maybe the official story is a fiction and he knows because he was there.

Except that this account is corroborated by the Liberty’s own logbook.

The idea that the President was in Washington saying he didn’t care about dead sailors is a fever dream. The story about them being left for dead all night long is completely untrue. This friendly fire incident happened in the middle of a war that Owens and her guest couldn’t even be troubled to mention.

This is a flaming pile of falsehood and I’m not even half done in pointing out what’s wrong with it. These are the biggest factual issues with Owens’ motivated reasoning—but there’s also nonsense in the logic when we look at the big picture.

To be continued…

~

Answer: The NKVD and the KGB. All of these were “security” services of the USSR. Since 1995, Russia’s latest incarnation has been the FSB.

1. Owens reads this letter aloud and pronounces this word like a hairbow, instead of the bow of a ship. She also mispronounces “Mystere”, “Sinai”, and “Napalm,” which, as Coleman Hughes said, was “on brand” for her.

2. Let’s also note that this sounds nothing like LBJ. As related by Sec-State Dean Rusk’s autobiography, you had this 1966 incident:

When President de Gaulle decided to quit NATO, President Johnson was determined to do everything that de Gaulle asked us to do, simply as a matter of dignity, and get out our forces out of France before the deadline. But de Gaulle's request went down hard in Washington. In fact, Johnson insisted that I ask de Gaulle, "Do you want us to move American cemeteries out of France as well?" I carried out my instructions. De Gaulle, very embarrassed, had nothing to say.