U.S. Court Says It's OK for Iraqis to Torture American POWs.
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Posted on 06/04/2004 1:20:46 PM PDT by treeclimber
A federal appeals court today took back the $959 million awarded to U.S. prisoners of war tortured by Saddam Hussein's goons during the 1991 Gulf War.
Claiming that Congress never authorized such lawsuits against foreign governments, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dumped a ...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I don't see how you get from the point of the article (the court says that the plaintiffs had no legal recourse for suing for damages) to the headline (the court says that torturing people is O.K.).
I didnt write the headline, but my take on it is that there will be no specific punishment for these incidents. Its a stretch on the headline, I agree...
Where is that chimp!?
Here is how Americans are dealt with when they commit war crimes. That lawsuit was a bit of a stretch, but the way the court dismissed it contrasts with how Americans are held.
* * * * * * * *
UNITED NATIONS, June 4 — The United Nations' top human rights official said today that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers could constitute a war crime, and he called for the immediate naming of an international figure to oversee the situation.
Well then Mrs. Goose meet Mr. Gander.
Soldier are SOLDIERS, not private or contract individuals. NO soldier should be allowed to sue an enemy or a former enemy, EVER, for injuries (no matter how unjust) suffered during wartime. The last thing we need is scumbag lawyers infiltrating our military. You sign up, you take your changes. That's what I did.
Leave it to NewsMax to make that kind of leap in logic.
I'm surprised the court didn't order all Americans to turn themselves in to the nearest Iraqi for immediate torture and execution.
U.S. Court Says It's OK for Iraqis to Torture American POWs.
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Mere words cannot erase these images.
And I dont hear the Arab or Muslim world apologizing to us for these acts, either, I hear them rejoicing over it!
NewsMax is not currently on the MUST EXCERPT list (yet).Friday, June 4, 2004
U.S. Court Says It's OK for Iraqis to Torture American POWs
A federal appeals court today took back the $959 million awarded to U.S. prisoners of war tortured by Saddam Hussein's goons during the 1991 Gulf War.
Claiming that Congress never authorized such lawsuits against foreign governments, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dumped a lower court's ruling that said 17 former POWs and 37 relatives were due damages under a federal statute allowing suits against terrorist nations.
The judges insisted that the law allowed lawsuits for pain and suffering only if filed against torturers not acting on behalf of their government.
Even though the lawsuit names Saddam Hussein, he is immune because the POWs sued him for his alleged activities as Iraq's president, the judges said.
"We are mindful of the gravity of [the POWs'] allegations in this case. That appellees endured this suffering while acting in service to their country is all the more sobering," Judge Harry Edwards opined. "Nevertheless, we cannot ignore ... its impact on the United States' conduct of foreign policy where the law is indisputably clear that appellees were not legally entitled."
The POWs suffered severe beatings, starvation, electric shock, threats of amputation and dismemberment and continual death threats. Among the atrocities revealed in their 125-page complaint:
- Marine Maj. Michael Craig Berryman was beaten with a pipe and an ax handle.
- Marine Col. Clifford Acree was so near starvation he could "feel his body consuming itself."
- Navy Cmdr. Lawrence Slade's body was so blue from bruises that it was "as if he had been dipped in indigo dye."
Retired Air Force Col. David Eberly told the Associated Press: "This is difficult to take. We served without question and withstood the worst the Iraqi torturers handed out. ... I am also concerned for those who serve our country in the future, as future torturers may now believe that the United States will not stand behind its servicemen and women."
Government lawyers had claimed that legal judgments against foreign regimes would hamper diplomacy and that the POWs shouldn't get the money because President Bush decided the statute didn't apply to Iraq since Baghdad no longer supported terrorism after American troops toppled Saddam.
The Bush administration does, however, continue to talk of giving U.S. taxpayers' dollars to Iraqi terrorist suspects who underwent far milder indiginities such as as being posed nude and deprived of sleep.
Plaintiffs' attorney Tony Onorato pointed out that 13 of the 17 American POWs had been imprisoned at Abu Ghraib.
"It adds to the parallels," Onorato said. "Our very guys who were tortured in that very prison are being told to get out of the way."
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