By Ray Hanania, Southwest News-Herald, 17 October 2008
If Barak Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers is a critical issue in this campaign, then Sen. John McCain’s role in protecting the actions of his father in the deaths of 34 American sailors is an issue, too.
While most Americans know all about the Ayers controversy, few know that McCain’s father, Navy Admiral John McCain Jr., was involved in the cover-up of the Israeli assault on the U.S.S. Liberty on June 8, 1967.
On that day, Israeli fighter jets, torpedo boats and helicopter assault ships killed 34 sailors and wounded 174 others during the Arab-Israeli war.
McCain and pro-Israel activists insist the attack was an “accident.” But eyewitnesses on the ship, American veterans in uniform who went into the Mediterranean Sea as champions of Israel, insist Israel wanted to sink the ship to force the United States to join the war against Egypt, then a Soviet client.