Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I Would Hate to be the Process Server Who Has to Serve this Judgement to Al-Qaida's Corporate Office in a Cave

Contrary to popular belief, I enjoy a surprise from time to time. Then again, it depends on the surprise. Finding an extra tenner in a pant pocket is always nice as is a balanced breakfast (for years, I had unbalanced breakfasts and wouldn't you know it, my days did not start on the right foot). This is not a surprise of that sort, this is another in the line of head scratching events... Actually, I cannot even file this event in human history. Perhaps, I had dreamt it. Sadly, this is not the case, Judge Frank Maas has awarded a judgment of $9.3 BILLION (yes, billion) dollars to the Chubb Corporation and four other insurers for the damages sustained during 9/11. Who were these five insurers suing and who will ultimately pay this sum... Why, none other than Al Qaida, that's who.

The question I have to first ask is this. Does the American legal system have nothing better to do than render judgments that will simply be ignored. Seriously, what is the point of suing Al Qaida, everyone knows they were never going to show up and defend themselves (they have their hands full with UAVs these days), let alone pay any judgment levied against them. In short, any civil suit against any terrorist individual or entity is completely specious and altogether frivolous. I am curious if Judge Maas is suffering from senility as I am slightly confident that any other judge would not trifle with such nonsense.

Do not get me wrong, I feel that Al Qaida deserves to pay for the atrocities committed against the United States on September 11th. The argument can be made that they are paying with something other than their pocket books currently. What I find irksome is the rationale behind the pursuance of a lawsuit against a terrorist organization and the subsequent judgment of nine (some odd) billion dollars. I suppose it could be called a symbolic victory but why try to obtain reparations and spend the time creating a legal case if nothing is ever going to come of it? There is never going to be a day where anyone from that organization is going to come forward and inquire as to whether the payments can be made in installments... By the way, I would hate to see what the interest would be on a principal amount of that size. I also shudder to think how much the American taxpayer paid for such a farce.

No comments:

Post a Comment