9/11 -Groundbreaking law suit filed against Saudi Arabia

[Indika]

Widow of Man Killed in 9/11 Files Groundbreaking Lawsuit Against Saudi Arabia
POSTED 1:50 PM, OCTOBER 1, 2016, BY CNN WIRE


Stephanie DeSimone was two months pregnant when her husband, Navy Cmdr. Patrick Dunn, was killed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

An American flag is draped over the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2016, where it was hit by an airliner 15 years ago. (Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Now, 15 years later — and two days after Congress legally paved the way — she’s filed a lawsuit against the Saudi Arabia, claiming the kingdom is partially responsible for his death.

In court documents filed Friday in Washington, D.C., DeSimone alleges Saudi Arabia provided material support to al Qaeda for more than a decade and was aware of the terror group’s plan to attack the US.

“Absent the support provided by the Kingdom, al Qaeda would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan, and execute the Sept. 11th attacks,” the documents say.

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs — which include DeSimone’s daughter — suffered “severe and permanent personal injuries” and are seeking unspecified compensation.

The documents go on to allege Saudi Arabia, through agents and purported charities, provided al Qaeda members with financial and other logistical support to carry out the attacks.

Messages left Saturday with the Saudi embassy in Washington were not immediately returned.

The lawsuit comes just days after Congress voted to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows Americans to sue a foreign state for acts of terrorism.

Congress voted overwhelmingly to override the veto — the first time it has done so during Obama’s presidency — but the President warned it could damage the America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and even open the U.S. government up to lawsuits by other foreign states for acts by the military.

One day after Congress passed the bill, top congressional leaders from each party expressed buyer’s remorse over the legislation, calling for changes to be made to the law. House Speaker Paul Ryan specifically called for a “fix” to protect service members overseas.

Earlier this year, the U.S. released portions of a formerly classified Congressional report showing some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with and received support from individuals likely connected to the Saudi government.

Fifteen of the 19 9/11 attackers were Saudi citizens.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry put out a statement earlier this week saying, “The enactment of JASTA is of great concern to the community of nations that object to the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity, which has governed international relations for hundreds of years.”

“The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States.”

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http://ktla.com/2016/10/01/widow-of...-groundbreaking-lawsuit-against-saudi-arabia/

 

[bobsm]

Senators Blame Obama For Not Helping Them Understand Their Own Bill
It’s the apotheosis of Congressional stupidity.
09/30/2016 01:58 pm
Jason Linkins Eat The Press Editor, The Huffington Post

Last Friday, President Barack Obama vetoed a bill called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, better known as JASTA. The bill, which enjoyed broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, would, among other things, have allowed plaintiffs to sue countries known to have sponsored terrorist acts for compensatory damages. Many of the bill’s supporters had pitched JASTA as a “sue Saudi Arabia” bill, based on their insistent belief that Saudi Arabia was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The bill’s supporters in Congress frequently cited the 9/11 attacks as their motivation for passing the bill in the first place.

Obama vetoed JASTA, but the story didn’t end there. Earlier this week, Congress handed Obama the first veto override of his presidential tenure. JASTA was law, baby! All that’s left is the high-fiving!

But there always has to be a morning after. And many members of Congress, after they’d come down a bit from their veto override high, evidently started to wonder about what they’d done, exactly. That’s when they found that the bill they supported through a veto override maaaaaybe needed a tweak or two. Per Jordain Carney at The Hill:

A day after the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to override President Obama’s veto, GOP leaders are expressing reservations about legislation that would allow lawsuits related to 9/11 to go forward against Saudi Arabia.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) both said they were open to discussions about changing the bill, which Congress approved unanimously.

Oh, my stars and garters, what needed to be changed to make these sudden “reservations” go away?

“We want to make sure the 9/11 victims and their families have their day in court,” Ryan told reporters. “At the same time, I would like to think that there may be some work to be done to protect our service members overseas from any kind of legal ensnarements that occur, any kind of retribution.”

Huh, well, that’s interesting. Congress wrote a bill that would allow sovereign immunity protections to be waived so that people could sue other nations for sponsoring terrorist acts, and it turns out that when you do that, it causes these other consequences ― like establishing the legal precedent through which the United States may be similarly sued. Someone should have really seen this coming. Perhaps the authors of the bill will step up and take responsibility?

Ha, ha: no. As Carney went on to report last night, it’s very clear who the bad guy is in all of this.

Though the Senate voted on Wednesday to overwhelmingly nix the president’s veto in a 97-1 vote, some lawmakers said they had misgivings about the bill. They stressed, however, that any push to find an alternative was largely ignored by the Obama administration.

McConnell echoed that sentiment Thursday, calling the legislation “an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier.”

“You know, that was a good example of — it seems to be a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation was obviously very popular,” he said.

So let me get this straight. Congress wrote the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. It was super popular with members of Congress. But the president insisted he’d veto the bill. Congress was like, “Bring it on, mofeaux!” They overrode the veto without a second thought. Then suddenly they started having those second thoughts, and now it is somehow the White House’s fault for not fully communicating the unintended consequences of the bill and the impact they might have.

It’s a pretty insane response from McConnell (and it’s just as nuts that his claim was reported uncritically). It would be pretty inconvenient if, say, White House press secretary Josh Earnest had at some point communicated this specific concern with the JASTA bill, wouldn’t it?

More @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senators-jasta-override-durrrrrrr_us_57ee7303e4b024a52d2e725c

 

[CHD]

Where can i file a lawsuit on behalf of miilions killed in Iraq in pursuit of WMD?????

 

[JonAsad]

Lets open lawsuits for drone strikes in Pakistan