This is huge...I wonder if the U.S. still has control of those assets of Iran, like the money in those Iranian bank accounts, it seized control of in 1979?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/07/marines.beirut/

From the above link,

Iran must pay $2 billion for attack on U.S. Marines, judge rules

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A judge Friday ordered Iran to pay $2 billion to victims and their families in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 Americans.

"The cost of state-sponsored terrorism just went up," said U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in his ruling for a group of 800 lawsuits related to the Beirut suicide attack.

It was unclear how lawyers would collect from Iran, which the Bush administration has labeled "a rogue nation." Tehran has denied responsibility for the attack, according to The Associated Press. It did not respond to the six-year-old lawsuit, AP reported.

"This is a sense of victory, of winning a battle," said Paul Rivers, who was a 20-year-old enlisted Marine on the second floor of the barracks when it exploded, according to AP. "When we win the war is when we collect, when we make them pay for what they did."

Lamberth ruled in May 2003 that Iran was responsible for the attack, which also wounded 26 people. He concluded that the suicide truck bombing was carried out by the militant group Hezbollah with the approval and funding of Iran's senior government officials.

Hezbollah is blamed for anti-Western and anti-Israeli terrorist acts dating from the early 1980s and is on the U.S. State Department's official list of terrorist organizations.

The American troops were deployed in Beirut as a peacekeeping force during Lebanon's civil war. Within six months of the attack, most of the American troops had pulled out of Lebanon.

"These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken on October 23, 1983, have waited patiently for nearly a quarter of a century for justice to be done and to be made whole again," Lamberth said in court Friday.

Capt. Vincent Smith was a Marine killed in the attack. His sister, Lynn Smith Derbyshire, described him as "a person who often played practical jokes and loved to laugh."

"Time does not heal wounds," Derbyshire said. "Whoever said that was an idiot. Only hope heals wounds. If we can hold terrorists accountable, I believe we will have hope for the future."

In his ruling, Judge Lamberth said, "Though this court can neither bring back the husbands, sons, fathers and brothers who were lost in this heinous display of violence, nor undo the tragic events of that day, the law offers a meager attempt to make the surviving family members whole through seeking monetary damages against those who perpetrated this heinous attack."

Lamberth said he hopes the judgment will "sound an alarm to Iran that their unlawful attacks on our citizens will not be tolerated."

I wonder what the chances of collecting that are?

so now the military members in the pentegon on 9/11 can sue Saudi Arabia?

quote:

Originally posted by SacraficialMetal:
so now the military members in the pentegon on 9/11 can sue Saudi Arabia?

If it can be reasonably proposed that the state of Saudi Arabia had any hand at all in the planning and the launching of 9-11, then more folks than just soldiers and sailors should be able to sue. Anybody whose stock-market funds tumbled, folks like you and me, should be able to sue. However if a suit was approved by the judiciary, and the verdict then went against Saudi Arabia, the next question would be whether or not the Executive Branch would allow for the collection from seized funds and assets (which, right now anyway, are zero), or whether or not it would seek to block the frank seizure of Saudi assets (which the Executive Branch can presently do).

It would not surprise me in this case if the Executive Branch was to block seizure of Iranian assets the same way it did with the Iran hostages when they won a millions-dollar judgement against the state of Iran a decade or so ago. Adding to that is the fact that those who were killed by Iranian-sponsored terrorists at the Marine Barracks in Beirut were soldiers and sailors who were there at the behest of the United States, meaning they were there as a military occupying force owned, so to speak, by the President, and not by private or non-military government interests. So their families likely will never see a dime of this judgement, making it a hollow judgement in monetary terms, but definitely a solid and righteous judgement in moral terms.

quote:

Originally posted by brianconway:
I wonder what the chances of collecting that are?

Can you imagine all those annoying phone calls Iran is going to get from various collection agencies...

Don

quote:

Can you imagine all those annoying phone calls Iran is going to get from various collection agencies...

...emanating from India, no doubt...

...gjd

DB,

Great article. I have been harping on this for a while. I think that Countries should be held economically responsible for damages caused by their citizens against a foreign sovereign.


SacMet:

It stands to reason that Saudi Arabia should pay 19 of the terrorist directly invovled were their citizens, not to mention OBL.

BMC (ret)

Next we’ll want to control things as a police action. I can see it now… “Mr. Osama, it seems you have an outstanding warrant…”

I would like to invite Iran to have sex with it's self.