How Does This Violate Quora.Com’s “Be Nice, Be Polite” Rule?
by Joe Meadors
This morning I checked into my Quora.com account to see if there was anything interesting I could comment on. To no one’s surprise, I found yet another poster claiming that the US government has conducted an investigation of the attack on our ship. To prove it he posted a link to a Wikipedia article along with condemning everyone who disagrees with him as an anti-Semite. Since we prefer to base our position on personal accounts as well as official US government documents and not on the opinions of anonymous authors writing in an online publication that does not insist that articles be correct, I wrote a reply to the comment and posted it to the original poster. I barely had time to do a screen print to verify that the post had been made before I was notified that my post had been deleted. Were I not on that page at the time I would not know that the post was deleted. Quora.com doesn’t tell me when they delete my posts. They’ve deleted a number of mine without telling me. I’ve appealed their decision and asked why my comment was deleted. I anticipate a boilerplate response that ignores the question I asked. I am posting my deleted comment below. You tell me. How does it violate Quora.com’s “Be Nice, Be Polite” rule? Of course, everyone is invited to take the actions I refer to in my post below. Indeed, I hope everyone will not only take the action but encourage your friends and neighbors to take the actions as well.The claim that the US government has conducted any number of investigations of the June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is provably false. In only a few minutes, anyone can prove it is false by contacting the US government instead of relying upon the opinions of intermediaries such as the authors of a Wikipedia article or of a book written by someone who failed to interview any USS Liberty survivors. Contact your Congressional Delegation and ask them to send you a copy of the Congressional investigation of the attack. You will receive no such document. Contact your Congressional Delegation and have them request the Congressional Research Service to send you a copy of the US government’s investigation of the attack. You will receive no such document. Contact the Historians of the US House and US Senate and ask for a copy of the Congressional investigation of the attack. You will receive no such document. The closest report to a US government investigation of the June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is the US Navy Court of Inquiry that was conducted as a result of the attack. In a March 6, 2005, Letter from Capt. Jane G. Dalton, USN, JAGC to Congressman Rob Simmons, Capt. Dalton writes, “The Court of Inquiry was the only United States Government investigation into the attack..” That is not to suggest that the US Navy Court of Inquiry Report doesn’t have its detractors. One of the most vocal is then-Captain Merlin Staring who at the time of the attack was serving as the Legal Advisor to ADM John S. McCain, Jr. who as CINCUSNAVEUR was the Convening Authority who established the Court of Inquiry. In a July 27, 2005 letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Staring writes an excoriating rebuke of the US Navy Court of Inquiry Report. Merlin Staring is not some johnny-come-lately who has no basis to criticize the Report. He later rose to the position of US Navy Judge Advocate General. Some selective quotes from RADM Staring’s letter of many available:
“We most respectfully submit, Mr. Secretary, that such a position by the Department of the Navy – if it is to be construed as a firm and considered determination – can only be adopted by ignoring a complex of evidence and circumstances that demonstrate the utter inadequacy and unreliability of the investigative proceedings conducted by the Navy Court of lnquiry of June 1967 – to put the kindest face on the record of those Proceedings.”
“Some of the few crewmen whose testimony was in fact recorded included in their sworn testimony factual observations concerning the attack which were eliminated by the Court from its written record or were otherwise subsequently redacted from the Court’s record as it is now officially held and acknowledged by the Government.”
“Some of the LIBERTY crewmen who did have an opportunity to testify before the Court attempted to respond in full, or to include in or add to their accounts factual observations which would have been clearly relevant to the ‘pertinent facts and circumstances . . . connected with the armed attack’ that the Court had been charged with eliciting — but were stopped and expressly forbidden by the Court to testify further in those areas.”
“We would first note that the U.S. Navy commander who appointed the Court of Inquiry directed it ‘to inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with‚ the armed attack[, the] damage resulting therefrom[, and the] deaths of and injuries to naval personnel.’ In contrast to the fully waranted and completely justified breadth of that investigative assignment, the recent letter from your Department to the Congress purports to restate – and, in the process, seeks to narrow – both the scope and significance of that Court of Inquiry investigation. Noting simply that the Court had been ordered ‘to investigate the circumstances surrounding the attack,’ it told the Congress that the investigation had ‘focused primarily on U.S. military communications problems prior to the attack’ and upon ‘the heroic efforts of LIBERTY’S crew in damage control during the aftermath of the attack.’ To the extent that these latter representations may be true, they constitute in themselves an acknowledgment that the 1967 Court of Inquiry fell far short of inquiring into ‘all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with the armed attack,’ as had been clearly directed by the Convening Authority.”