
Senate Passes Bill Exposing Saudi Arabia to 9/11 Legal Claims - espeed
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/us/politics/senate-passes-bill-that-would-expose-saudi-arabia-to-legal-jeopardy-over-9-11.html
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BillyParadise
Admittedly I'm neither American nor an expert in international affairs, but if
taken down to a personal level, I'd rather be taken to court than bombed into
oblivion.

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dreamsofdragons
So does this not open the door to pretty much everyone suing the US? As far as
deaths and destruction on foreign soil, nobody beats good ol America.

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sparky_z
I can't tell if you're genuinely asking or just making a snarky point, but no.
It's a US Law pertaining to "foreign" governments, so I don't see how it could
apply to the US Government. And it will be vetoed anyway.

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jkestner
Obviously, but it would set a precedent for other countries to pass similar
laws in retaliation. Same reason the U.S. keeps relatively quiet about China's
corporate hacking.

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krapp
Other countries could pass similar laws anyway, they don't because they know
the US will just ignore them.

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hackuser
Apparently, the bill has been substantially neutered:

[https://www.justsecurity.org/31156/senate-killed-jasta-
passe...](https://www.justsecurity.org/31156/senate-killed-jasta-passed-it/)

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gkya
>> various members of the royal family indeed helped to finance the attacks.

IIRC the attacks were forcing some planes to run into two skyscrapers. What
financing was necessary for it other than the plane tickets?

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pquerna
That is a massively simplification and frankly very wrong.

Several of the 9/11 Hijackers enrolled in flight schools:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_of_the_September_11_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_of_the_September_11_attacks)

And were otherwise supported to operate inside the US for many months.

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MichaelGG
Apart from getting in the country and finding a job, isn't that something that
they could each finance personally, individually? Especially with a bit of
credit, as they didn't have long-term credit rating concerns.

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pquerna
From Wikipedia:

>> The 9/11 Commission stated in their final report that the "9/11 plotters
eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct
their attack"

Still a non-trivial amount of financial support.

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narrator
They said they were going to sell their treasuries recently, so we might as
well not let them do that while lawsuits are pending...

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vonklaus
This is so fucking absvrd it is almost as bad as giving Charlie Sheen a real
estate empire and a trucker hat and letting him run for president on a
platform of "winning so much America might get bored".

A decade and a half later, e.g. 15 fucking years after a terrorist attack we
would allow people to sue a nation state because they may have played a role.
Well guys, better suit up for the inbound lawsuits you would be fielding from
the entire world if this precedent was set, and if it wasn't a bizarre
farcical attempt at mastubatory populism* by Chuck Schumer. Except it is just
that. It will never happen, and it is rediculous. 9/11 was fucking absurd, and
we still don't know what the fuck happened. I mean, I don't want to go 100%
jetfuel can't melt steel beams, but tower 7 just didn't suffer any structural
damage, at all. So, does it make sense for some families to sue 15 years
later, a country, of which some people _may_ have contributed to this? Nah.

It took fucking 6-7 years [ _and I want to be super fucking clear that I
believe this and it is not sarcasm_ ] to compile a several hundred page manual
on what the fuck happened to tower 7. Tower 7, as a reresher, was the tower
that spontaneously dropped to the floor and did the worm even though it didn't
get hit by that plane that crashed in pennsylvania. So, if you can't figure
out why tall buildings are falling down after 3/4 of a decade, how the fuck
are you going to let people sue a nationstate for the actions of individuals
and not only prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, but then apply some sort of
metric to this to quantify it financially.

Shockingly, Chuck Schumer is up for reelection in 2016. Also, as an aside (and
this was true when I did the math a couple months ago) more people died from
the auto-erotic asphyxiation than were either killed or rendered severely
handicapped from the Zika virus.

WTF is going on.

* Sean Penn said a phrase like this and I fucking love it.

edit: While the downvotes make sense, I challenge someone to disprove the
following:

* This is strictly political posturing by Chuck Schumer and will never pass & was never inteneded to.

* The concept of holding a country responsible for something like this, if applied to America, would certainly outweigh any positive it would have for the families of 9/11 victims.

* Tower 7 was fucking pulled. I know it. The core of engineers know it. And the fundamental laws of physics demand it.

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aioprisan
> Tower 7 was fucking pulled. I know it. The core of engineers know it. And
> the fundamental laws of physics demand it.

If you're going to go all 9/11 conspiracy theorist on us and make some wild
claims about the core of engineers, maybe you should cite your rants.

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vonklaus
I have another top shelf _conspiracy theory_ (such a dirty phrase), there is
right now, at this very moment, a global subset of intelligience frameworks in
place to monitor much of the internet traffic and provide survellience for the
CIA & NSA. Some whistle blower leaked some evidence but it never went
mainstream...

edit: Also, that was hyperbole you referenced however there is a group called
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who dispute the findings. As well as
other outspoken individuals.

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aioprisan
Just because one may be true does not make some other crazy claims true. And I
see you failed to cite again when you went to your 9/11 conspiracy theory.

