redefining the terms scumbags and war profiteers, the very politically connected, private military for hire (mercenaries) group Blackwater is suing families of it’s former employees to keep them from inquiring as to how their family members died. unbelievable. these family members worked as civilian contractors for Blackwater in iraq and were brutally killed and mutilated on march 31st, 2004 in Fallejuh. the families of the victims wanted to know how that happened. after Blackwater refused to share any information about the incident as to how or why they were killed, the families were told by Blackwater that they would have to sue Blackwater to find out. they did. the families filed suit in 2005 as their only course of action. after Blackwater lost every appeal against the suit all the way to the U.S. supreme court, Blackwater has reversed tactics. Now Blackwater is trying to sue the families of the American contractors for $10 million to keep them from finding out how their family members died. Blackwater is also trying to place a gag order on the families to keep them from talking about the case. feel free to contact your senators and congressional representatives to let them know this isn’t right. additonal information on the democracy now website. there is also a Blackwater Victims website seeking donations to help the families of the victims defense fund.
This story is outrageous, and everyone’s heart goes out to the families. But Callahan and Miles (the guys who wrote the story) are trying to take you to the cleaners. These guys are California personal injury lawyers who took the case on a contingency–the families aren’t paying lawyer bills! Even if they were, it says right in the fine print of this story (and in the court documents themselves) that the claims are against the lawyer running the estates and against the estates–the families aren’t even parties to the case!! These are mega-rich lawyers, who brag on their website about one case alone where they won almost a BILLION dollars (http://www.callahan-law.com/victories.php?select=26). They are just trying to get you to give them money out of sympathy for the poor families and/or hatred of Bush and his cronies. Here’s what I propose: If you check out the facts (not blogs!) on this and you believe the families are paying lawyer bills, donate your heart out. BUT, if you see that these two yayhoos are just trying to get line their pockets and get MORE rich off your nickel, do this: make a donation so the families know you support ‘em, but make it only a penny. Enough one cent donations, and these ambulance chasers will get the message that they are no better than Blackwater.
scar’d …
i might have actually taken this comment seriously if it wasn’t just an exact duplicate comment of yours copied then pasted from a post on the daily irrelevant blog. is this a campaign of yours?
yes, it may be odd that the lawyers representing the families of the deceased blackwater employees have written an article on alternet.org to promote the plight of their clients. but alternet clearly points out that the lawyers authored the post in the opening of the article.
please keep in mind these lawyers are going up against blackwater - a very highly politically connected, right wing, multi-billion dollar military contractor. so implying that these lawyers are crooks for being ‘mega-rich’ or saying they are trying to ‘take you to the cleaners’ is a joke considering who they are fighting. it feels like you are overly trying to discredit this story with re-posting the same comments on other blogs and using lawyer stereotypes that play into peoples’ fear of being taken advantage of.
also, the statement in your comment “if you check the facts (not blogs!)” infers that blogs are not providing facts on this case. that is some good spin right there! blogs/bloggers are the only media outlet giving coverage to this story (at least so far).
Pure logic has seems to escape from Scar’d. The lawyers representing families of the Blackwater victims are DEFENDING the estates against Blackwater’s $10 million lawsuit. They have set up a DEFENSE fund. Someone please have Scar’d explain exactly how the lawyers would be making any money taking a DEFENSE case on a contingency fee. If they won, they would get, what, 40% of ZERO. By my math, that would be ZERO. Instead, it appears that the families desperately need money to be able to even fight against Blackwater.