Daniel Pearl's Widow Wants to be compensated from 9/11 Fund

I'm going to be a dick and agree with you. The WSJ can't take care of her?

 

I'm going to agree too, and I won't even say I'll be a dick about it. He wasn't in the buildings on 9/11, he wasn't on any plane that went down - what the hell does it have to do with the victims fund?

 

Hey, I agree with all of you guys here. And, just to show what a swell guy I am, I'm going to give you all postive rep for your comments.

 

I agree with Ian too.

I'll tell ya what, tho. I'd like her to sue the media person(s) who revealed Pearl was Jewish, despite her pleas to keep it a secret. That person(s) is a scumbag, and in part responsible for his death.

 

I personally find the money payouts pretty offensive in the first place.Isnt it kind of admitting the US is in the wrong on something.
we didnt compensate the OKC familes,nor did we compensate the Embassy families.Their realtives deaths were no less tragic,nor was the Sept 11 attacks any more "valid".

also, for the Widow Pearl... Her husband was overseas in a hostile enviroment risking his life for a paycheck.The WSJ and not the American taxpayer should pay his expense.He did not HAVE to be there, it was his choice.Just as it was the Missionaires in the Phillipines and the American professor in Grozny who were also murdered by Islamothugs.

 

I agree completely.

 

http://www.ereleases.com/pr/2002-05-07f.html

The families of the victims of Oklahoma City apparently agree with you that the deaths were no less tragic.

 

I have yet to hear about Lawrence Foley's family suing to get a piece of the 9-11 fund as well.

Dan- Apparently the WSJ and the Dow Jones Co. have completely stiffed her. If anything, she should be suing them instead of angling for a slice of the 9-11 victims fund pie.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A56146-2003Oct20&notFound=true

 

That must be part of that "compassionate conservatism" we've all heard so much about.

 

I don't know if I say this because I saw the video, but I'd give it to her.

Granted, the USA was not a "battle zone" but there was an example years before that the WTC complex was a target. I'd guess that there were people in the WTC "doing their job" and knew of the risks. Be it the known fire trap the two towers were or the fact that these were known terror targets, does this make the 9/11 victims any less deserving?

In fact, in my city, we have this victim fund that pays people who were mugged, raped, etc... Should the city abolish this fund for people who "ask for it"?

 

Since part of the War on Terror is to close/control terror funding, couldn't she sue to get some of that money?

A civil lawsuit worked for the Brown family against OJ, but there has to some international law against this action.

 

Pearl was a classmate of mine.

First of all, Fineberg is right -- the statute is the statute. But his widow raises an excellent point.

In my opinion, I don't think any of the folks who died in 911 deserve money more than anyone else.

But I will say that I think Danny Pearl deserves the money more than them, because he is doing a service by working for the WSJ and putting himself in harms way. If we are going to give money for people who die at the hands of terrorists, I would give money to journalists and soldiers and diplomats and even businessmen who go out and engage in the world. I would, in effect, encourage people to go overseas and become engaged in the world.

And, and most of you are real dicks, IMO.

 

I'm fine with that assessment. However, don't we ah, PAY people to go out and be journalists and soldiers and diplomats and even businessmen? I would imagine Pearl was making a bit more than minimum wage.

If you want to talk about Fulbrights, fine. But to give money to people already well compensated in case they die abroad seems superfluous to me.

 

The entire debate should be moot because if we had to do all of October - December 2001 over again, there wouldn't be a VCF. It's a very bad law.

In order to fully comprehend the enormity of the VCF issue you have to keep in mind that it was added on late to a bill that gave loans and grants to "bail out" airlines that lost business after 9/11/01. And, its purpose isn't to give victims money for bad things that happened because of what the government did or didn't do -- when victims' families take their checks, they sign a waiver immunizing American and United Airlines from product liability claims. That's the real purpose of the VCF, to keep American and United from going bankrupt under the weight of 3,000 wrongful death lawsuits.

So the question here is, what does Daniel Pearl's death have to do with American and United? What do the OKC victims have to do with American and United? Nothing, of course, which is why under this law they shouldn't get anything.

But beyond that, the entire concept is flawed. If the government is going to set up a humongous "we so sorry for you" fund every time something bad happens to an American, we'll become a welfare state where the non-victims pay higher taxes to support the victims. We're giving $5 billion to 3,000 people -- imagine the size of the VCF if somebody blows up the grandstands at the Daytona 500, for example. And besides that, if the idea in this particular case was to protect American and United, I'd love to be on the first jury of some 9/11 widow who passed up on the VCF and tries to convince me that United Airlines is as much to blame for her husband's death as the guys who flew the plane into the building. The lawyers who convinced these people to pass up the VCF and go for the massive bucks in court against the airlines should be rounded up and shot.

 

Before the families of the lawyers in question start applying for the VCF, let me point out one thing. What we know about the actual hijackings are fairly sketchy - this was, after all, one of the things we set up the 9/11 commission for, to straighten out some of the details.

Well, we'll never know if Dick Cheney ordered Flight 98 shot down, obviously. But one of the lingering questions was whether the hijackers were armed with guns or knives, instead of boxcutters. I think the negligence case is a little stronger if they had guns than if they had X-acto knives.

Oman - yeah, I see where you're coming from. And I'm glad I'm not the one who has to tell Pearl's widow that she's not getting any taxpayer money. But the cold facts are, Pearl's death didn't even have that much to do with 9/11. Journalists get killed doing this sort of thing fairly frequently. They may not be insurable risks, of course, which is why their employers need to step up in this situation. But it's not the responsibility of the federal government.

Now, if I get greased by AQ on the way to work this morning, this post should probably used to say "This guy was a dick, his family doesn't deserve jack squat," and my family would probably have to say, "Well, can't argue with that, really."

 

The most recent conventional wisdom is that they had mace and real knives, not the box cutter bullcrap that was floating around right after 9/11/01. But there's no proof either way. (The VCF is closed, by the way -- if you didn't accept your payment by now, you have no recourse except a lawsuit against the airlines.)

But even so, United runs 3400 flights a day every day and almost all go off without a hitch. Is there really product liability here? Since some of this will inevitably go to trial, United and American's defense should be:

1. We were following FAA regulations regarding what could and could not be put on airplanes.
2. No one can prove that anything outside of those regs got on to the planes.
3. No one from the government informed us of a heightened threat.
4. Even with all that, if you still think that we did something wrong, the only reason why we're stuck in court today is because we have money and the people who really are to blame for this died on the planes. Put a percentage on the liability that we should incur -- 0%? 2%? 5%? Then take that percentage and multiply it by the expected value table that the plaintiffs' lawyers want you to use, and award that. That number will inevitably be a hell of a lot less than what the VCF would have paid out.

My wife commutes into NYC every day and she has said to me that if the Lincoln Tunnel is blown up with her in it, I shouldn't demand a dime from anybody except possibly the terrorists themselves, assuming that they are still around and flush with cash that I could get access to. And I feel the same way about my potential demise -- if I had a heart attack on the street tomorrow I wouldn't get squat from the government, so a terrorist attack shouldn't be any different.

 

I'd agree on this. It's like the US Government is acting as a Life Insurance company for anyone that has died tragically. The only exception is that no one has paid into it.

 

I work in one of the biggest and most prominent buildings in NYC. If, Poku forbid, something were to happen to me, I would haunt my family from beyond the grave if they demanded compensation from the government.