Diplomatically Terrorized

The Case
The Bush Administration kept getting it wrong at home and abroad. The bad policy didn't seem to stop. Financial regulators looked the other way, as unbridled greed knew no bounds. In this post-9/11 world, we have a pair of shoes now symbolizing an unwanted, inextricable war in Iraq, a country proven to have had no connect to the 9/11 attack.

Yet, we are a country not unfamiliar with terrorism pre-9/11. We had experienced several incidents abroad. On September 19, 1989, we knew who struck UTA Flight 772. So did Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and the Libyan officials charged. 17 countries lost citizens. France, several African countries, and the United States to list a few. In a 2004 settlement, Libya agreed to pay those families $170 million for the lost lives, $1 million per victim.

The Loss
But for the Pugh family of Vermont, that simply was not enough. They wanted to hold Libya accountable for the actions of their citizens. The loss of Bonnie Barnes Pugh came at too high a price. You see Former Ambassador to Chad, Robert Pugh, lost a wife, and eventually due to the trauma, his career as a diplomat. Anne Carey (Pugh) lost a mother. Her son, Malcolm Pugh, after her loss, took his own life. This was a family that knew pain and the cost of a life or two.

The Judge
Under the Anti-Terrorist Act of 1996, the Pugh family, along with 44 relatives took their case before U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy and, in January 2008, won a $6 billion judgment. But they haven't seen a dime, stalled in the bureaucratic machine called U.S. Government. In July, Congress approved the Libyan Claims Resolution Act. This Act while it re-established a diplomatic relationship with Libya it also placed the State Department as the roadblock for families to go through to receive their financial compensation. The State Department granted a sum of $10 million to the estates of seven Americans, an amount roughly equal to the 2004 settlement (a far cry from $6 billion). They have also refused to forward Judge Kennedy's writings and the evidence presented in court to the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission in the Department of Justice, charged with handling the appeals for this Act.

The Jury
When did the State Department become the law, the judge and the jury? This major foreign policy decision passed without so much as a public hearing or announcement, according to Andrew Cochran of Counterterrorism Blog, who tracks these kinds of issue.

Experts in the know, had never seen this done. While I am no lawyer, I know that the stepping in of the State Department into a civil case matter sets a bad precedent because it gives other questionable state actors like Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe equal access under the law, thus deflating the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996.

Wrap Up
So let's see if I get this right. We can spend trillions of dollars in a country that has not committed one terrorist act against the United States. Yet we can buy off on the cheap known, proven and charged terrorist actors such as Libya. Hey, may be we should settle with Saudi Arabia for Osama bin Laden's actions for a few barrels of oil and $2 million per victim. A life simply isn't worth what it used to be. Thanks Bush.

This is just one more suicide that will not be vindicated under the Bush Administration.

The Afterw@rd