Only in America!
This is classic American stupidity. A Utah soldier, Sgt. Layne Morris, of West Jordan, has won a lawsuit he filed against an Afghan "terrorist" because - get this - the "terrorist" threw a grenade at him and the shrapnel blinded him in one eye. He's won $102million in damages.
At its most basic level, he has sued an enemy combatant in a war, for shooting at him.
This is so retarded I wondered whether to blog about it or not, but the sheer stupidity of it made it worthy of inclusion. To put that into perspective, that's nearly 4% of the entire annual gross national product of Afghanistan.
Does Sgt. Morris think these guys who fight with 30 year old Russian weapons, have billions of dollars stashed back at the cave under a rock or something? He's obviously never going to see a single cent of this, which makes it the golden pinnacle of frivolous lawsuits. I'm sorry Sgt. Morris got blinded in one eye but there is (currently) no draft, which means he voluntarily joined the army, knowing he'd be sent into combat, which means he knew he'd be at war with bullets, bombs, grenades and other explodey bangy things. Chances of being injured? Pretty frickin' high.
What makes this even more bizarre is that Morris (and a lot of other bloggers and media observers apparently) seriously believe that he's going to be robbing the "terrorists" of this money. Because of course the Afghans will certainly abide by the loophole in the Patriot Act which allowed this case to proceed. And naturally they'll pay up. I suspect Al Qaeda are writing the cheque right now.....
Come on. This is just another in the long series of examples of America demonstrating that it does lead the world in one thing : outright stupidity.
It's worth pointing out that normally "acts of war" are not subject to civil suits. Morris argued that Khadr (the person who killed his partner) was a terrorist, not a soldier - so his actions were not an act of war, but terrorism, and were therefore subject to civil suits.
It's also worth noting that Morris hasn't even been able to prove who threw the grenade that injured him so basically he's sued nobody and won a buttload of cash he's never going to see.
If you want a good chuckle, check out some info on this lunacy here.
To put this story into perspective, look up Jeremy Ross Purcell. He was a marine who was killed during an August 2002 training exercise when another trainee marine put real bullets in his gun and shot Purcell four times. The supreme court threw that out today and said they didn't want to waste everyone's time listening to arguments about the case.
At its most basic level, he has sued an enemy combatant in a war, for shooting at him.
This is so retarded I wondered whether to blog about it or not, but the sheer stupidity of it made it worthy of inclusion. To put that into perspective, that's nearly 4% of the entire annual gross national product of Afghanistan.
Does Sgt. Morris think these guys who fight with 30 year old Russian weapons, have billions of dollars stashed back at the cave under a rock or something? He's obviously never going to see a single cent of this, which makes it the golden pinnacle of frivolous lawsuits. I'm sorry Sgt. Morris got blinded in one eye but there is (currently) no draft, which means he voluntarily joined the army, knowing he'd be sent into combat, which means he knew he'd be at war with bullets, bombs, grenades and other explodey bangy things. Chances of being injured? Pretty frickin' high.
What makes this even more bizarre is that Morris (and a lot of other bloggers and media observers apparently) seriously believe that he's going to be robbing the "terrorists" of this money. Because of course the Afghans will certainly abide by the loophole in the Patriot Act which allowed this case to proceed. And naturally they'll pay up. I suspect Al Qaeda are writing the cheque right now.....
Come on. This is just another in the long series of examples of America demonstrating that it does lead the world in one thing : outright stupidity.
It's worth pointing out that normally "acts of war" are not subject to civil suits. Morris argued that Khadr (the person who killed his partner) was a terrorist, not a soldier - so his actions were not an act of war, but terrorism, and were therefore subject to civil suits.
It's also worth noting that Morris hasn't even been able to prove who threw the grenade that injured him so basically he's sued nobody and won a buttload of cash he's never going to see.
If you want a good chuckle, check out some info on this lunacy here.
To put this story into perspective, look up Jeremy Ross Purcell. He was a marine who was killed during an August 2002 training exercise when another trainee marine put real bullets in his gun and shot Purcell four times. The supreme court threw that out today and said they didn't want to waste everyone's time listening to arguments about the case.
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