The Military and Veterans' Room
Victims look to punish Iran for attacks against US troops in Iraq
The lawsuit alleges that over 500 US military deaths have been directly linked to Iran- most from EFPs- explosively formed penetrators; EFPs require more sophisticated engineering than the terrorist organization typically have. But some US military deaths were caused by direct action by Iranian forces.
They read in simple, repetitive sentences with a date, location, name, age and cause of death. It is a seemingly endless list of those killed and maimed in Iraq by weapons supplied by Iran and used in attacks on the U.S. military.
- On April 4, 2004, in Baghdad, Army Spc. Robert Arsiaga, 25, was killed in a combined attack in which members of the Mahdi Army hit his unit with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
- On Sept. 8, 2009, in Tikrit, Army Spc. Zachary Myers, 21, was killed when an EFP detonated near his vehicle.
- On Nov. 14, 2011, in Baghdad, Army Spc. David Emanuel Hickman, 23, was killed when an EFP detonated near his vehicle.
These are only a sample of the deaths. There are more than 100 pages in the federal court documents, full of details of wounds, surgeries and trauma.
Their words carry legalistic accounts of 90 attacks that caused internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, severed heads, missing hands, arms and legs, brain injuries, third-degree burns on necks, faces and hands, suffering that persists in the victims and reverberates beyond those struck in the blasts, cascading waves of pain into the lives of wives, husbands, parents and children.
Those attacks are the subject of a three-day trial in federal court that begins Monday. It is a trial in which a small New Jersey law firm and a lawyer out of Arkansas are trying to hold the Islamic Republic of Iran accountable to the tune of $10 billion for weapons, materials, training and other support that led directly to the death or mutilation of more than 1,000 U.S. troops from 2004 to 2011.
But this will not be similar to trials most are familiar with, where two sides argue to a jury. Iran has no attorney defending it in court, and there is no jury.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys in this instance will argue their case straight to U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
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Originally Posted by MMC
