Friday, October 08, 2004

This from Al-jazeera: Iraqis may sue US over invasion

Well, it would at first glance look like their best way to go would be a wrongful death civil suit in a state court. In such a suit, damages are calculated by how much the person would have earned had they continued to live, plus pain and suffering of the survivors. So you see, this will be a problem for the Iraqi plaintiffs:
(15,000 dead civilians) x (US$100/person/year in a sanction wracked economy) + (pretty much the same amount of suffering as life under Hussein, so zero) = US$20,500,000.00
And the lawyers are going to eat up at least a third of that on contingency. So that's not going to work. The United States has alread spent $150,000,000,000.00 in this fiasco, so the Iraqis will need something with more punch.

Maybe the World Court. They'll be plenty plaintiff-friendly in a suit like this, and the court probably still has a hard-on from the last time they spanked America's tiny pink bottom.

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