I think this highlights one of the troubles and absurdities in trying to crack down on "those who finance terrorism".



Do I believe the victims and their families have been harmed and deserve justice? Even if it can only be financial? Certainly.

But this whole reasoning runs into the same problem that any non-thought-out endeavor does. And the logic goes something like this (here, in an example on a smaller scale):

1. The economy has grown so large the population depends on that economic activity, not just for livelihood, but even for day-to-day survival. (A lone hermit might sever themselves almost entirely from the economy of even his own nation and live, but whole populations are completely unable to do this. They'd just die.)
2. The economy is so complex that everyone's money runs everywhere. Sooner or later, that includes people you politically disagree with, even terrorists.

It's like how political disagreement with and opposition to China is increasing, yet those plates most people eat dinner on and the toys everyone buys still gonna be made there!

And until more well thought-out rules are made and more sophisticated tools are created for tracking financial activity and intent properly, there's gonna continue to be a lot of heartache, perceived injustice, and pursuit of the wrong people/groups for the wrong reasons.

KEVIN BACON'D

I don't see why they should be declared "immune".

There is a big difference between just tossing money around and not paying enough attention to where it goes and:

"Can I just make the check out to Bin Laden?"

"No, make it out to The Faith Based Flying Charity Circus."

"Oh, that's a good one."


IDK what happened but I'd think the idea would be to find out.

Meh...I paid for my ticket to MI:3 and I bought it on DVD, but I don't consider myself to be funding Scientology.

Yeah, but if you bought 100,000 tickets and Tom Cruise used the cash to by some TNT and blew up the Saudi Embassy, I bet they'd have a few questions they'd like answered.

Agreed.

But that wouldn't make me automatically guilty of any real crime.

I mean, it's a matter of public record that PETA funds known arsonists. Do pet lovers who cut a check to PETA support firebombing? Probably not, even if they should be a little smarter about who they cut a check to. But they haven't done anything illegal.

While I completely understand the desire to want to hold them accountable, I just think it's a slippery slope we don't want to go down.

Maybe they'd start a war with somebody in the same vague general area as Tom Cruise and hope for the best.


15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, while two had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government. Luckily for everyone, the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship.

But what the court is saying is they are automatically NOT guilty of a crime they may well have committed.

I don't see whats so slippery about investigating if these (probably large) donors knew where there money was going.

Especially considering if they did deliberately finance the attack then they and their money represent a far greater future threat then some yutz in a cave in Pakistan.

It'd set a dangerous precedent in the US if wealthy people were actually held accountable for their crimes.

CRAZY TALK

As much as I agree that what may have occurred behind these transactions was "wrong" (in whatever sense of the word matters), a crime is only a crime if illegal.

Aside from that, arguing that "because the defendants gave money to Muslim charities that in turn gave money to al Qaeda" doesn't translate into having the ability to bring a suit against them in US courts. If you read it, it pretty much makes sense. It's how nations on generally friendly terms respect each other's sovereignty over their own nationals. How absurd would it be if Saudis could just sue us in their own courts and according to their own laws for "crimes" we may or may not have committed against them here in the US?

And I don't find the designation of Saudi Arabia as not being a state sponsor of terrorism to be inappropriate (unlike say, the President's sole discretionary ability to designate any individual, including US citizens, as "unlawful combatants" and thereby deny or significantly delay their access to their usual Constitutional rights).