Tag: Saudi Arabia

9/11 victims’ family members speak out about recent secrecy ruling in lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

towersghostOn October 31, 2019, Fox News aired a short segment where Tucker Carlson spoke with Chris Ganci and Brett Eagleson who both lost their fathers in the attacks of September 11, 2001.  They discussed the US government’s decision to continue to keep information secret, 18 years after the attacks.  On September 12, 2019 the Department of Justice blocked the release of a 2012 FBI summary report about possible Saudi Arabian ties to the attackers.

Family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks sought the information as part of a long-running lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over allegations of the Kingdom’s involvement in the attacks.

Eagleson states in the interview that the Department of Justice invoked State Secrets Privilege in order to block the public release of the information.  The DOJ cites a reasonable danger that releasing the report risks significant harm to national security as justification for the rare invocation of the privilege.

When asked why he thought the DOJ blocked the release of information, Ganci says he thinks it is about one of two things.  Either they are “covering up their own malfeasance, or they are covering up the complicity of a foreign nation state.  Both of them are equally terrible.”

Saudi Arabia’s possible complicity in the attacks has been reported on numerous times in the years since the attacks.  But the reports are usually provided in a vacuum, with little to no connections that tie the information together into a complete picture.  This makes it all too easy to overlook these individual reports, or to miss their significance.

Similarly, the lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gets little attention in the news.  Unfortunately, it seems to get most attention when it is an issue that can be trotted out for political purposes.  However, Dan Christensen at the Florida Bulldog has done a great job keeping up with the case, as has the website 28pages.org.

Meanwhile, In Yemen…

yemen-2132697_1920

Katie Aguilera

It is being reported that at least 33 people have been killed in Yemen as the result of Saudi-led coalition strikes that hit a wedding on Sunday, April 22, 2018.  This comes just days after 20 civilians were killed when the vehicle they were traveling in was hit by another Saudi-led coalition airstrike.

But that’s okay, it wasn’t chemical-laden weapons that killed these civilians.  These were weapons likely sold to the Saudis by the US and the UK.  So don’t worry about it when Reuters reports:

“The head of Al Jumhouri hospital in Hajjah told Reuters by telephone that the hospital had received 40 bodies, most of them torn to pieces, and that 46 people had been injured, including 30 children, in air strikes that hit a wedding gathering.”

Or this:

“The attack hit a car transporting 20 passengers south of Taiz province, locals told Reuters. Six bodies had been identified but the rest were charred beyond recognition, they added.”

Let’s just continue to allow the US and UK to sell Saudi Arabia weapons.  Let’s continue to refuel their warplanes so they can keep dropping those bombs.  I mean, just think of the profits.  And, let’s continue to help the Saudi-led coalition select its targets because clearly that’s working.

Don’t worry that the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterras has stated that Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.  “As the conflict enters its fourth year, more than 22 million people—three quarters of the population—need humanitarian aid and protection.”  Don’t worry about the starvation, the cholera and diarrhea, the six children under the age of five that die from preventable causes every hour.  Just don’t pay any attention at all to what Gutteras has to say.

“Civilians have been facing indiscriminate attacks, bombing, snipers, unexploded ordnance, cross-fire, kidnapping, rape and arbitrary detention.”

But that’s okay.  It’s our ally committing many of these atrocities after all.  So, don’t worry about it.

Image courtesy of pixabay.com

 

Judge expected to make decision on dismissal motion in lawsuit regarding 9/11 attacks

Katie Aguilera

A long-running lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia brought by families of victims of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 may be dismissed before it goes to trial.  In August 2017, Saudi Arabia filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs “could not show that any Saudi official, employee or agent planned or carried out the attacks.”

On January 18, 2018, Judge Daniels “sparred with an attorney representing insurance companies and businesses seeking damages from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., which took the lives of almost 3,000 people, over whether or not plaintiffs could bring claims against the Saudi government under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA,” according to this New York Law Journal article by Andrew Denney.

That article goes on to say that Judge Daniels “questioned if the plaintiffs proved that providing funding to the group [Al Qaeda] specifically caused it to carry out the 9/11 attacks and if the Saudi government could be held liable for all attacks conducted under the banner of Al-Qaeda.”

Judge Daniels previously dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia in September 2015.  Daniels said that “Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.”  However, the passage of JASTA, which narrows the scope of foreign sovereign immunity, enabled the families to sue the Saudi government.  This allowed the case to move forward.

The 9/11 Commission report stated that, “It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11, although some governments may have contained al Qaeda sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al Qaeda’s fundraising activities.  Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.  (This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al Qaeda).”

The commission report also stated, “to date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks.  Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.”

If the case goes to trial, it will give the families of victims of the attacks the opportunity to seek some justice for what happened.  It will also hopefully bring attention to, and connect, information that has come out in the years since the attacks that often gets little coverage.

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