In May, I wrote a post about the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), a bill that would enable families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for ties to and alleged support of the 9/11 hijackers.  At the time of my original post, the bill had passed in the Senate and was on the floor of the House.  On September 9^th, the bill passed the House, and just yesterday President Obama vetoed the bill , as promised.  The bill now returns to the Senate, where it is anticipated that there will be sufficient votes to override the veto. In May, I argued that JASTA was a bad idea, and I stand by that premise today.

The European Union (EU) weighed in this week with a letter  . One line from the letter summarizes my primary concern:

“ … the European Union is of the view that the possible adoption and implementation of the JASTA would be in conflict with fundamental principles of international law and in particular the principle of State sovereign immunity.”

It needs to be understood that JASTA is not limited to families of 9/11 victims filing suit against the Saudi government, but opens the door for any nation to sue the government of any other they believe may have supported terrorism.

In June, President Obama acknowledged that U.S. drone strikes may have killed as many as 116 civilians in recent years, and some argue that the count is actually much higher.  JASTA would open the door for countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia to sue the U.S. government.  Famous historian and political analyst Noam Chomsky wrote an article in 2014  titled “Noam Chomsky: The Long, Shameful History of American Terrorism”, wherein he purports that the U.S. ‘covert aid’ to nations such as Angola, Nicaragua and Cuba are nothing less than state-sponsored terrorism.  Whether we agree or disagree with that statement, we must seriously consider that JASTA might well open some doors that could do as much or more harm to the U.S. than it would to Saudi Arabia.

Since my original post, the 28 pages from the 9/11 commission that had been classified, have been de-classified.  Taken at face value, the infamous ’28 pages’ detail contacts between Saudi officials and some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, checks from Saudi royals to operatives in contact with the hijackers and the discovery of a telephone number in a Qaeda militant’s phone book that was traced to a corporation managing an Aspen, Colo., home of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the Saudi ambassador to Washington. However, the document was written in 2002, and subsequent investigations have found that many of the allegations in the original report had no basis in fact. The 9/11 Commission’s final report, released in 2004, said that the panel had found no evidence that the “Saudi government as an institution, or senior Saudi officials individually funded” Al Qaeda.

In addition to the potential diplomatic fallout that a deviation from the principle of state sovereign immunity could lead to, there is a serious concern about economic fallout for the U.S.  As I mentioned in my original post, Saudi Arabia has threatened that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom in the event that JASTA becomes law.  This would be damaging to the economies of both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Tensions are already high between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the two most contentious issues being Syria and Egypt, which are issues too complex for this discussion.  While these do not necessarily constitute a crisis in the relationship, there are certainly problems and JASTA may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  The likelihood that any of the 9/11 families could successfully sue the Saudi government is slim-to-none, however the years of litigation would be costly and in all likelihood lead to additional international discord.  Even some members of Congress who formerly supported the bill are now expressing concern that other countries might use the bill as an excuse to drag the U.S. into court over some of its more controversial foreign engagements.

Senators Chuck Schumer and John Cornyn, the original sponsors of JASTA, both predict a veto override as early as next week, and it should come as no surprise.  The real surprise is that a Congress who sat on their butts for the past two years or longer, refusing to even consider a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has worked so diligently to push through legislation that is almost certain in the long run to do more harm than good. If the veto is over-ridden, it will be the first during the Obama presidency.  The last president to have zero vetoes overridden was President Johnson.