RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events UNPATRIOTIC TROOPS' GREED

These UnAmerican troops in the story are obviously liberals. Hopefully Bush's tort reform will put an end to these lazy libbies thinking they can get rich off of their minor injuries.

Quote:

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Ex-POWs Fight Iraq and U.S. for Compensation
Tue Feb 15, 2005 04:41 PM ET

By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of U.S. pilots tortured in the first Gulf War by Iraqis has hit an unexpected obstacle in its legal fight for compensation: Bush administration lawyers argue Iraq is no longer a pariah and should not be forced to pay.

The 17 pilots, some of whom are serving in Iraq, have asked the Supreme Court to take their case in the hope it will reinstate a 2003 ruling in their favor, which was overturned by an appeals court after the Justice Department intervened.

In a bitter twist, some of the ex-prisoners of war were tortured at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad -- the same facility where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners after President Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003.

Retired Air Force Col. David Eberly, one of the plaintiffs, said on Tuesday it was a "mystery" why the Justice Department was fighting their case and pointed to the irony that the United States might end up compensating Iraqi prisoners abused at Abu Ghraib but not its own who suffered under Saddam.

"Our case is not based on getting U.S. funds but Iraqi funds. We feel the case that was made and the judgment awarded was based clearly on U.S. law and should not have been appealed," said Eberly.

The U.S. District Court in Washington ruled in the pilots' favor on July 7, 2003, and awarded $653 million in compensatory damages and $306 million in punitive damages for the abuse, which included mock executions, floggings, starvation and denial of medical treatment.

Congress passed a law in 1996 which allowed lawsuits such as Eberly's to be filed against foreign governments placed on the State Department's list of nations supporting terrorist activities.

POLICY CHANGE

But Justice Department lawyers argued this ruling should be set aside following the invasion of Iraq and emergency legislation that authorized the president to suspend sanctions against Iraq and get the State Department to remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

"After the United States removed the Hussein regime from power in Iraq, our foreign policy toward that nation changed fundamentally," said the Justice Department in its argument to the appeals court.

"This dramatic change in foreign policy is at the heart of this appeal," it added. Continued ...

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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Here's more of these whiny libbie bitches.

Hurt Troops Often Denied Pay, Benefits

I say wear band-aids in protest of these libbie crybabies! A real Republican soldier would NEVER bitch and cry about his "due".

burp