I’m sure you all remember what happened on 11 September 2001. How could you possibly forget? It was the seminal event upon which the modern American republic was founded. A quick recap, though, for those who overdosed on cocaine back in the 80s and have been in a coma ever since: a group of Saudi nationals, in the United States on Saudi passports, hijacked several aircraft and crashed them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, killing thousands of innocent people and also the ones at the Pentagon too. Now, fifteen years later, the United States government has finally conceded that Saudi Arabia was perhaps — perhaps! — involved, and congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act:
This bill amends the federal judicial code to narrow the scope of foreign sovereign immunity by authorizing U.S. courts to hear cases involving claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damages that occur inside the United States as a result of a tort, including an act of terrorism, committed anywhere by a foreign state or official.
It amends the federal criminal code to permit civil claims against a foreign state or official for injuries, death, or damages from an act of international terrorism. Additionally, the bill authorizes federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over and impose liability on a person who commits, or aids, abets, or conspires to commit, an act of international terrorism against a U.S. national.
I’ve read the full text of the bill, and it appears to be exactly what it claims to be. It has just one suspicious section ("for an injury arising from an act of international terrorism… liability may be asserted as to any person who aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance, or who conspires with the person who committed such an act of international terrorism," which gives me a case of the ooks, though I’m compelled to note that "knowingly providing substantial assistance" is a vastly higher standard than current law requires for lifetime imprisonment anyhow), but otherwise just limits sovereign immunity such that, when foreign governments are culpable for the murder of a bunch of Americans on American soil, the victims’ survivors can sue for damages. As far as things congress does go, this one isn’t too shabby.
Naturally, president Obama vetoed it. His official problem with it was that it set what he called a "dangerous precedent," the idea being that, if Americans can sue foreign governments for the trivial crime of murdering Americans in America, then maybe other countries will start allowing their citizens to sue the United States for all of its trivial slaughter of their civilian populations.
First off, I am compelled to note that it is extremely unlikely that any such thing would happen. Which of the United States government’s puppet regimes do you expect will enact such a law first? Whichever it is, it will clearly be a government that has decided it no longer wants the United States military propping it up, and would prefer to forgo all the "foreign aid" money that gets spent buying palaces and statues for satraps. No, there’s no real danger that the "Government of National Accord" in Libya is going to pass such a law anytime soon.
The more interesting question, however, is: why should we be against that anyhow? Wouldn’t it be lovely if the threat of a civil suit could actually deter the United States from annihilating any more foreign nations? According to president Obama, this would put the U.S. taxpayers at risk, since, ultimately, we’d be the ones footing the bill, but that line of reasoning never seemed to occur to him when we were forced to pay for the slaughter to begin with. In the long run, it would be a good thing for the American taxpayers — the president’s bluster aside, a truly unbelievable amount of our lives, liberty, and treasure is spent every year fueling the war machine. Anything that slows it down it a positive boon for us poor tax chattel who foot the bill.
Isn’t that a bit beside the point, though? Consider what the president is actually saying. He’s saying that people should not be held accountable for crimes they commit, because that could get expensive. Between this guy telling us that justice is too expensive and this other guy telling us that peace is too expensive, public discourse in the modern United States has truly become asinine.
The comedy reveal, of course, came yesterday, when both the house and the senate voted overwhelmingly to override the president’s veto. The White House was outraged, announcing in a statement that not only would this bill be bad for the economy, but, of course, bad for national security too:
To have members of the United States Senate only recently informed of the negative impact of this bill on our service members and on our diplomats is in itself embarrassing.
For those senators then to move forward on overriding the president’s veto that would prevent those negative consequences is an abdication of their basic responsibilities of representatives of the American people.
Apparently the copy of the Constitution they have at the White House explains that the basic responsibility of the senate is to remind ordinary Americans of all the sacrifices we’re expected to make for the glory of our betters. Fortunately for us deplorables, every senator except good ol’ reliable Harry Reid disagrees, and they told the White House to stick it 97-1. Now, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that 97 plus 1 utterly fails to equal 100. Which two senators were derelict? Who was it who failed to show up for the vote? Those fine, upstanding public servants Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders, of course. They had other obligations — specifically, they had to go stump for Hillary Clinton. Priorities.