01/10/2016
01/10/2016
RIYADH, Sept 30, (Agencies): Saudi Arabia has warned of “disastrous consequences” from a United States law allowing 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom, in a major spike in tension between the longstanding allies. The warning came after the US Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA).
“The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States,” said the statement, which was carried on state news agency SPA. Still, the new law is not expected to have a lasting effect on the two countries’ strategic relationship. Saudi-US ties have endured “multiple times of deep outrage” over 70 years, said Thomas Lippman of the Middle East Institute. “The two countries need each other as much today as they did before the day before yesterday,” he said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest mocked lawmakers for shifting “within minutes” from overwhelmingly voting to override Obama’s veto to wanting to change the law.
“I think what we’ve seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer’s remorse,” Earnest told a White House briefing. Corker said he had tried to work out a compromise with the White House, but Obama administration officials declined a meeting. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who championed JASTA in the Senate, said he was open to revisiting the legislation. “I’m willing to look at any proposal they make but not any that hurt the families,” he said at a news conference. He said he would oppose a suggestion that the measure be narrowed to only apply to the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. “You know what that does? It tells the Saudis to go ahead and do it again, and we won’t punish you,” Schumer said. Corker said another suggestion was establishing an international tribunal so experts could determine whether there was culpability. He said the Saudis were been willing to work on a compromise, and denied they had threatened retaliation.
Trent Lott, a former Republican Senate Majority Leader now at a Washington law firm lobbying for the Saudis, said attorneys would look carefully at JASTA’s language. “I do feel passionately this is a mistake for a variety of reasons, in terms of threats to troops, diplomats, sovereignty, there’s serious problems here. Hopefully we can find a way to change the tenor of this,” Lott said. A bill passed by Congress allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government has prompted reactions of outrage and ridicule among some in the Arab world. Many critics say the bill reinforces a long-held perception in the Middle East that the US only demands justice for its own victims of terrorism, despite decades of controversial US interventions around the world. Others support the bill, but point out that the US is meanwhile backing a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen that has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians there.
Two Arabic hashtags were trending on Twitter when the bill was passed, one referring directly to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, and the other simply titled: #TheAmericanTerrorism. Some Arabic Twitter users shared a photo montage that depicted US military actions in Japan and Vietnam, as well as naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison being humiliated by smiling US troops. It read: “Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan can’t wait for JASTA to be implemented so they can, in turn, prosecute the US.” Another shared a 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoon of a young boy on his father’s lap watching an image of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud and asking: “Which terrorist group did that?” One post shared more than 750 times included a clip with Arabic subtitles of stand-up American comedian Eddie Griffin talking about US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying these wars are about “money, money, money.” The criticism, of course, is nothing new, says Eurasia Group’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa Ayham Kamel. “The Middle East, as a region where the US has been dominant, has always been critical of US policy,” he said. The US, for example, has supported unpopular leaders in the region, such as the Shah of Iran until 1979 and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak until 2011. Both were ousted from power after mass protests. In America, though, “the feeling is the US does more good than bad,” Kamel said. “I think there’s a genuine disconnect and it’s not a new thing ... No matter what the US does.” Yemen-based lawyer Haykal Bafana said he’s lost relatives and friends to al-Qaeda attacks in Yemen and fully agrees with the legislation’s intent of allowing lawsuits in US federal courts against foreign countries for actions alleged to have contributed to acts of terrorism in the United States. But, he also had just one word to describe the bill: “Hypocrisy.”
“That’s the only way to see it,” Bafana said, pointing to White House support of the 18-month-long Saudiled intervention in Yemen and US drone strikes launched from Saudi Arabia that have killed Yemeni civilians. Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, said the war in Yemen may have actually contributed to a more anti- Saudi stance among members of the US Congress, who have expressed their concerns about Washington’s involvement. Even so, outside the US the bill could reinforce a widespread view in the world that the US seeks to dominate and dictate rules to others, said Kinzer. “They could easily see it as yet another chapter in the more than centurylong history of Americans trying to apply their standards and laws to the whole world,” he said. Existing law allows lawsuits in the US to be brought against countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, such as Sudan, Syria and Iran. JASTA expands that to allow any foreign country to be brought to trial for alleged involvement in terrorism acts on US soil. The bill was passed Wednesday by both the Senate and House, overriding President Barack Obama’s veto. In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ahead of the vote, Obama wrote the US relies on the principles of sovereign immunity to prevent foreign courts from second-guessing its counterterrorism operations and other actions taken daily. Reciprocal lawsuits abroad could subject US service members to litigation. Foreign courts could also decide whether classified US government information is required in trials.