NEVER MIND THE SAUDIS. HOW ABOUT THE ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS?

The Twin Towers would not have collapsed had they been properly designed and constructed

The 9/11 attacks killed some 3,000 thousand Americans, most of them dying in the collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. The families of those who perished on September 11, 2001 in the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, have wanted to sue the Saudi government which has been accused of bankrolling al-Qaeda and some of the 9/11 terrorists. With the congressional override of President Obama’s veto, they are now free to do so.

Al-Qaeda received much of its funding from Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 19 terrorists who committed the 9/11 attacks were citizens of Saudi Arabia. According to the 9/11 Commission report, the government of Saudi Arabia had no involvement in the September 11 attacks. However, 28 pages of the report were redacted. According to Sen. Bob Graham, the redacted pages show that “the hijackers received active support and guidance from rich Saudis, Saudi charities and top members of the Saudi government.”

In order for the 9/11 families to prevail in any lawsuit against the Saudi government they will have to prove the Saudi government played a significant role in the 9/11 attacks. Lotsa luck there.

The Saudis have the money to employ the best of the very best lawyers in the U.S. … no, make that in the world. And you can bet that’s exactly what they are going to do. To begin with, the Saudi lawyers will seek dismissal of the suits and this can drag on for some time, including the time for appeals. If the courts rule in favor of the families, the Saudi lawyers will seek as many postponements as the court will allow. And if by some good fortune the families will prevail, the Saudis will appeal that decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. By the time this case is resolved, one way or the other, many of the plaintiffs themselves will have died.

What I don’t understand is why the 9/11 families have not sued the architects and engineers behind the building of the Twin Towers which would not have collapsed had they been properly designed and constructed. The collapse would have occurred only to the floors above where the hijacked planes struck and possibly a few floors below if the buildings had been designed to prevent such a catastrophe. While the architects and engineers would not have foreseen a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers by planes, they should have designed the buildings to withstand an accidental crash by a large aircraft.

Thus the architects and engineers were directly responsible for most of the Twin Tower deaths and would be the guilty parties to sue instead of the Saudis. But then they do not have the deep pockets of the Saudi Arabian government.

The families have already received compensation of more than $7 billion from the government with an average payout of $1.8 million. Hmmm, the payout they received makes me think the families that want to sue the Saudis are driven by greed, not by grief.