On Feb 19th, I had wrote about the Bush Administration's refusal to utilize Iraqi assets to pay a lawsuit judgment to American POW's held by Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War.
When the Bush Administration is wrong... they're wrong.
Former American POW's from Desert Storm/Desert Shield have sued Iraq, successfully, over their treatment while in captivity.
While I have some heartburn with the concept of "suing" former captors that were members of a foreign government, the fact is that the court has ruled in this matter, and it's not up to the Administration to ignore a court's order... particularly given the fact that there wouldn't BE an Administration if not for the courts of 2000. Much like the concept of the Second Amendment, if you don't like it.... change it. If the Administration doesn't like the outcome of the POW case, they should (if they can) get standing and appeal it. Otherwise.... pay up.
And then, I read this from the LA Times via the Seattle Times:
U.S. settles Holocaust lawsuit over missing loot
By Henry Weinstein
Saturday, March 12, 2005
The U.S. government agreed yesterday to pay $25.5 million to settle a suit by Holocaust survivors over goods that were stolen by the Nazis in 1944 and then disappeared after they were recovered by the U.S. Army.
The case of the so-called "Gold Train" is the only Holocaust-related litigation in which the U.S. government was a defendant.
If the deal is approved by a judge, most of the money will go to social welfare programs for survivors in the United States, Israel and Hungary, according to documents filed yesterday in federal court in Miami. No money will go to individual survivors.
More...
There is, I believe, something terribly wrong with this. We have two groups of people, equally wronged. One group was wronged the better part of 60 years ago and they get paid by dollars from the Federal General Fund.
The other group, wronged a little over a decade ago, gets nothing, even though the assets are here to pay them off.
I disagree. And I believe the Bush Administration is totally wrong on this.
Both are wrong. The Administration is correct in denying their claims from Iraq. It opens the US up to claims towards us which is something we do NOT want to do. If a ruling was held in a foreign court (France perhaps?) for an ungodly amount of money, should we be expected to pay?
ReplyDeleteThe issue is the utilization of Iraqi assets to pay for this. In this instance, "we" would not be paying... the Iraqi's would be paying. These folks would be paid using Iraqi money.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that foreign courts have no jurisdiction in this country, so the idea that we would have to pay for some claim based on a foreign court decision doesn't apply.
Here, we already ARE paying "foreign claims" to the extent that foreign individuals and entities make claims against the US and in this instance (that is, based on the claim related to the Gold Train) we actually pay.
And, I believe, the only way we could be "open" to foreign claims is if those claims are adjudicated through our courts... as this claim by these American servicemen and service women were adjudicated.
A court of the United States has ordered our government to pay these people. The US Government has no right, nor, I believe, no legal ability, to refuse such an order. If the government believes they have the legal right to ignore this order, than they should get a judge to say so. If they don't... then they need to pay.