Blog Editor Intro to:
Obama v. 9/11 Families
John R. Houk, Editor
I suspect President Barack Hussein Obama will continue to
betray the American citizens and the U.S. Constitution by bowing to the wishes
of Saudi government pertaining to Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act:
JASTA allows terrorism victims,
like victims of the September 11th attacks, the right to
pursue foreign states and sponsors of terrorism in federal court. The bill
allows Americans to direct financial damage claims against those who funded the
attacks. The legislation would also afford this right to families of other
American victims of terrorism, that have occurred since September 11, 2001.
The following is a summary of the
bill:
o
First, JASTA amends the Foreign Sovereign
Immunities Act (FSA) so that foreign sponsors of terrorism cannot invoke
“sovereign immunity” in cases arising from a terrorist attack that kills an
American on American soil.
o
Second, JASTA amends the ATA so that civil suits
against foreign sponsors of terrorism can be held accountable in U.S. courts
where their conducts contributes to an attack that kills an American. (SCHUMER, CORNYN ANNOUNCE ‘JUSTICE AGAINST
SPONSORS OF TERRORISM ACT’ – LEGISLATION, LONG SOUGHT BY 9/11 FAMILIES, WILL
ALLOW VICTIMS OF 9/11 & OTHER …; Schumer.senate.gov; 9/17/15)
If JASTA becomes law and President Obama declassifies 28
pages of sealed documents that many in-the-know have hinted, links Saudi Arabia
to financial involvement in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. The Saudis have
threatened to sell off their USA Treasury Securities if JASTA becomes law. A Fox News story says the
Saudis believe that amount is in the area of 750 BILLION bucks.
I suspect President Obama will continue to heinously betray
America by fighting and preventing JASTA from becoming law. After all, BHO
simply needs to veto JASTA and not declassify the 28 documents that may indeed
implicate Saudi Arabia in some manner to 9/11.
Alisa
Platow
JRH 4/19/16 (Hat Tip
Donald Moore of Blind Conservatives)
*******************
Obama v. 9/11
Families
By Editorial of The New York
Sun
April 18, 2016
President Obama owes Americans a public explanation for why
his administration is lobbying Congress to protect Saudi Arabia from lawsuits
by families of those killed in the attacks of 9/11. The lobbying was disclosed
Friday in a scoop by the New York
Times. It reported that the kingdom threatening to sell hundreds of billions of
dollars in American assets if Congress exposed it to suits related to the
attacks, most of whose perpetrators, including Osama bin Laden, were Saudis.
NEVER FORGET: The Obama administration owes America an
explanation for why it is fighting against a bill in Congress that would allow
9/11 families to pierce Saudi Arabia's sovereign immunity from civil suits and
be brought to book for its role in the terrorist attacks of 2001, most of whose
perpetrators, including Osama bin Laden, were Saudis. The use of tort law
against terror was pioneered by the Estate of Alisa Flatow, slain by Iran in
1995; her campaign to seize Iranian assets was also opposed by the State
Department. She is remembered widely, including at a memorial, above, in the
Jewish state.
Mr. Obama’s administration isn’t alone. Its truckling to the
Saudis, its siding against Americans, is part of a long scandal going back to
the Clinton administration, which fetched up in court on the side of Iran
against the estate of Alisa Flatow. She was the Brandeis coed who was slain in
1995 by Iran in a bus bombing at Israel. Her heroic father, Stephen Flatow,
pressed her case in an early test of whether American tort law could be used in
this war.
The estate of Alisa Flatow won that case, and was awarded
something like $247 million dollars. Come time to collect, however, the Clinton
administration appeared in court against Alisa Flatow’s estate. In the
settlement that followed, the Flatows got a pittance of the court’s award —
only $16 million. The government, using taxpayers’ money, essentially bought
the Flatows’ claim, giving it the right to keep whatever it can wrest from the
Iranians. It’s unclear as yet what that will be.
Saudi Arabia can’t be sued under the same law that the
Flatows used against Iran, however; that law, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act, covered only certain nations officially listed by our State
Department as sponsors of terror. The families suing Saudi Arabia tried to
pierce its sovereign immunity under more traditional law, but they lost in
United States district court and are now appealing. The law the administration
opposes would end the sovereign immunity defense for the Saudis.
It may well be that Mr. Obama could make a case for what it
is doing. The administration argues that by piercing sovereign immunity in
these kinds of cases we would open ourselves and our allies to a reciprocal
strategy. It wouldn’t surprise us were the State Department animated by baser
instincts, including a notorious pro-Arab bias. In any event, despite the
danger of reciprocity State has been warning against, no one has laid a legal
glove on us in a generation.
Whatever case the administration wants to make, though, will
be difficult to advance while skulking around Capitol Hill — or bowing to Saudi
Kings in their opulent tents. Mr. Obama is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia this
week. The measure Mr. Obama opposes passed early tests in the Congress by
overwhelming votes. We’d like to think that this reflects growing ire in a
Congress the administration has attempted over and over again to sideline from
foreign policy.
It’s been more than 20 years since Alisa Flatow was slain,
and the only thing Iran has received is Obama’s appeasement. It’s been 15 years
since 9/11 and our government still won’t come clean on what it knows about the
Saudi role. The bill to which the administration objects is called the Justice
Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. It’s a marker of the American retreat that
the battle in the Middle East is being left to the tort lawyers — and that the
administration opposes even that.
__________________________
Obama v. 9/11 Families
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