Tsunami Victims Sue USA

[Pangloss]

We all knew this was coming, right?

 

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1000639&tw=wn_wire_story

 

The lawsuit suggests the Thai government and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which operates a Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, failed to issue the requisite warnings.

 

"Respondent NOAA did not notify all involved countries which lay in the tsunami's path. From public information it appears that ... NOAA failed to issue an alert that would notify countries where the tsunami hit that the deadly wave was coming," the lawsuit said.

 

"Published reports emerged that upon receipt of the NOAA alert and other data, the seismological and oceanographic experts of Thailand spent more than one hour talking about what the risk may or may not have been, instead of immediately issuing a warning to their population," it said.

 

It also accused Thailand of failing to notify Sri Lanka that a tsunami wave was headed its way.

 

This is a great example of how "litigiousness" is not solely an American trait. You want to talk about chasing the entity with the deepest pockets....

[Aardvark]

Even if every allegation was true, so what?

 

Since when did NOAA have any duty of care to any of these countries? And since when did Thailand have any duty of care to Sri Lanka?

 

What a contemptable lot of ********. Trying to make money out of such an event is sick.

[TimeTraveler]

At first glance this seems riduculous but I don't like making up my mind unless I know a good deal of information, which I don't.

 

The timeframe in which the NOAA knew before it hit was 1 hr? And what could have been done in one hour?

 

An hour does not seem like enough time to save anyone from what was coming, and how could they have known it would have caused so much catastrophy? I would assume in that hour they were trying to figure out who to warn and how to warn them. An hour is not much time when in the face of such a devestating natural disaster.

[budullewraagh]

meh, we had it coming i guess.

 

btw, my father was going over his taxes today. a little over 4 years ago he was making $16k/year on social security, with no payments against it. last year he paid $900 against his $16k. this year he's paying $5k against it. maybe we'll get out of this by using poor old peoples' money.

[Aardvark]

meh, we had it coming i guess.

 

 

I know you don't like America much, but blaming it for the Tsunami seems a bit unfair even for you.

[budullewraagh]

no, what im saying is that since we give the world so much bs, it was coming to us to get some back. yeah, i find the accusations to be without significant reason or evidence. yeah, i also think that it's karma

[TimeTraveler]

I know you don't like America much, but blaming it for the Tsunami seems a bit unfair even for you.

 

I don't think that is a fair statement. Budullewraagh, as far as I know, has never said he does not like America.

 

There is a huge difference between disagreeing and disapproving with what America is doing and not liking America.

 

I agree with alot of what Bud has said concering America's actions, and I have opinions about certain things that may even be, what one might consider, more drastic than his. However, I personally take offense to anyone saying I dislike America because of my opinions.

 

My personal feeling is if you care enough about your country to critisize what it does wrong and acknowledge what it does right there is nothing more you can do to show that you love and support your country. It is when you blindly follow the policies of an administration that may or may not being doing the wrong thing that is when you are not showing enough love, care and compassion for your country.

 

Aardvark, I think you did not mean offense when you said that, but to me that is the ultimate offense when trying to be objective about ones own countries actions and being accused of hating your country.

 

This country was founded on the people controlling and ruling the government, that is democracy. When the government controls the people that is when democracy fails. The US democracy is failing, unless the people decide to step up and take that control back instead of allowing the government to take more control, it will continue to fail.

 

Sorry to stray off topic, I was recently called an America-hater and it was an insult that, for me crossed the line. I only form my opinions about my government out of the love I have for my country and in consideration of the human beings that inhabit the rest of the world. If I didn't care I would blindlessly follow like the masses do.

 

According to Bud's profile he is only 16, I have to give him credit that he cares about the United States of America enough to pay attention. I know when I was 16 I was more interested in watching MTV than I was interested in American politics. I would classify Bud as someone who believes in America. If that is un-American, then everything I have come to understand about America and her principles have all been falsehoods.

[Pangloss]

Yeah I guess every nation has a little karma.

 

In a sense, my personal feeling about this lawsuit is that the story more or less ends with the filing of the suit. It's baseless and irrelevent in the overall scheme of things, and it's something most reasonable people would agree on. (Not to be dismissive of my own thread, mind you. It's still interesting to discuss.)

 

TT has some interesting points above.

[atinymonkey]

TBH, the Sri Lanka government said the day after the disaster that it had not been warned. The NOAA held it's hands up at the time and admitted that it had a warning that was not passed on in time. It's seems fairly obvious that Sri Lanka might be more than a little pissed off that the NOAA completely failed to fulfill it's purpose, and that the funds that Sri Lanka give NOAA were wasted.

 

Honestly, I'm all for patriotic flag waving, go America. But if an office is set up with the explicit purpose of providing a warning, and the fail to do so then they are going to see repercussions no matter the origin of the office. If the NOAA were Austrian, this wouldn't be discussed at all.

[Aardvark]

TBH, the Sri Lanka government said the day after the disaster that it had not been warned. The NOAA held it's hands up at the time and admitted that it had a warning that was not passed on in time. It's seems fairly obvious that Sri Lanka might be more than a little pissed off that the NOAA completely failed to fulfill it's purpose, and that the funds that Sri Lanka give NOAA were wasted.

 

Sri Lanka doesn't give any funds to the NOAA. The NOAA isn't set up to provide Sri Lanka with any warnings of anything.

[Aardvark]

I don't think that is a fair statement. Budullewraagh' date=' as far as I know, has never said he does not like America.

 

There is a huge difference between disagreeing and disapproving with what America is doing and not liking America.[/quote']

 

In any discussion involving America budullewraagh consistently sides with the view that America is in the wrong. It doesn't matter what the topic. I fully understand the distinction between criticising a countries administration and criticising that country. To call someone Anti American because they dislike the present administration is plainly wrong.

 

However, when Budullewraagh posted that America 'had it coming' over the Tsunami lawsuit, that seemed so unreasonable it could only be explained by a dislike of America, there are no reasonable or logical grounds for holding America responsible here. Only an emotional dislike of America. You write that being objective about your own country is important. I agree. In my opinion Budullewraagh, in apportioning blame for the Tsunami to America was not being objective.

 

Basically, i agree that it is the peoples responsibility to hold their government to account. For someone to be criticised or called unpatriotic for not supporting an administrations actions is quite wrong. I do give budullewraagh full credit for showing an intelligent interest in the world around him, but i think it fair to say that in this case his reaction was coloured by an automatic assumption that America is always in the wrong.

 

I hope this post isn't seen as an attack on budullewraagh, he's one of the more intelligent posters on the forum with some interesting opinions. As for you being called an America hater. I sympathise, that sounds like cheap emotional blackmail and i can understand why you got pissed off.

[budullewraagh]

thanks for your support, time traveler. that's always been my view; the most patriotic thing to do is criticize your government.

 

if atinymonkey were correct in his statements that the noaa was funded by sri lanka with the purpose of warning nations about tsunamis, then they have a case, and quite a strong one at that. otherwise, they probably lack a strong case.

 

"In any discussion involving America budullewraagh consistently sides with the view that America is in the wrong"

perhaps you should bring up a topic involving the government doing something right. seriously. think of the topics we've had. iraq. privitization of social security. terrorism. north korea. corruption. the election. these are all very partisan topics. whether you agree with my opinions or not, i am completely sure you can understand the position i have on these topics. it simply makes sense that people oppose these actions, whether you agree with them or not; unless you have some action (mostly) foolproof, there will be, to a degree, dissent. i am critical of my government. i consider the negative perspective because, frankly, i can't just trust those in power. if my perspective is proven to be unfound, i abandon it.

 

"However, when Budullewraagh posted that America 'had it coming' over the Tsunami lawsuit, that seemed so unreasonable it could only be explained by a dislike of America, there are no reasonable or logical grounds for holding America responsible here."

consider the us 16 or so years ago. the berlin wall came down and not a shot was fired. why? the us was respected by the world. people liked us. we gave humanitarian aid to people and all. we were true peacekeepers. remember the peace corps that kennedy founded? probably the best way to fight terrorism. if they can't convince peopel to truly join them and they can't instill a true hatred, they are nothing. but now we've pissed everyone off, so they hate us and naturally, with hatred (or at least dislike) comes the will to screw the other guy over. thus, we have our karma.

 

from what you said in those last two paragraphs, i believe you misinterpreted me.

[Aardvark]

if atinymonkey were correct in his statements that the noaa was funded by sri lanka with the purpose of warning nations about tsunamis' date=' then they have a case, and quite a strong one at that. otherwise, they probably lack a strong case.[/quote']

 

NOAA isn't funded by Sri Lanka. It has no mandate to provide any warnings in the Indian Ocean.

 

 

 

consider the us 16 or so years ago. the berlin wall came down and not a shot was fired. why? the us was respected by the world. people liked us. we gave humanitarian aid to people and all.

 

The Berlin war coming down had nothing to do with the USA being respected or liked. It had to do with the puppet regime in East Germany having its support cut off from Moscow as the USSR collasped.

 

the us was respected by the world. people liked us. we gave humanitarian aid to people and all. we were true peacekeepers.

 

You're talking about the Reagan administration here. The administration that racheted up the arms race, confronted communism in an agressive manner, brought cruise missiles to Europe against strong opposition. The administration that bombed Libya and increased military aid to Israel.

 

 

from what you said in those last two paragraphs, i believe you misinterpreted me.

 

From my reading of your posts every act the US administration ever took was always, without exception, wrong. If this is a misinterpretation then i apologise.

 

I certainly look forward to the day the US administration actually does something you do approve of. Careful you don't die of shock

[Pangloss]

That's the first I've heard about Sri Lanka paying NOAA. Do you guys have a source on that? It certainly is an intriguing piece of information, if it's true.

[Aardvark]

That's the first I've heard about Sri Lanka paying NOAA. Do you guys have a source on that? It certainly is an intriguing piece of information, if it's true.

 

The NOAA is a US government department. It recieves no foreign funds. It has no obligations to report or make any warnings for events in the Indian Ocean.

 

It does have some reciprocal arrangements for sharing warnings and information in the Pacific ocean.

[Pangloss]

So let's hear more about that.

[budullewraagh]

"The Berlin war coming down had nothing to do with the USA being respected or liked. It had to do with the puppet regime in East Germany having its support cut off from Moscow as the USSR collasped."

if the us weren't respected, war would have ensued.

 

"You're talking about the Reagan administration here. The administration that racheted up the arms race, confronted communism in an agressive manner, brought cruise missiles to Europe against strong opposition. The administration that bombed Libya and increased military aid to Israel."

i was actually referring to kennedy's peace corps.

 

"I certainly look forward to the day the US administration actually does something you do approve of. Careful you don't die of shock "

i approved of some military action in afghanistan. i did not approve of the way in which it was handled; the us neglected saudi arabia, then trusted warlords to capture bin laden and allowed the afghan economy to become 40-60% poppy farming and in response decided to spray the poppy farms (and farm workers) with carcinogens.

 

i think that if the noaa knew of the tsunami, they had the moral obligation as humans to warn the sri lankans

[syntax252]

meh' date=' we had it coming i guess.

 

btw, my father was going over his taxes today. a little over 4 years ago he was making $16k/year on social security, with no payments against it. last year he paid $900 against his $16k. this year he's paying $5k against it. maybe we'll get out of this by using poor old peoples' money.[/quote']

 

Perhaps he is taking a dispersement out of his IRA. That is taxable income. The same thing happened to me when I started taking money out of my IRA.

[syntax252]

Just out of curiosity, Who is suing NOAA and in what court is it being brought?

 

I couldn't get the link to work.

[atinymonkey]

The NOAA is a US government department. It recieves no foreign funds. It has no obligations to report or make any warnings for events in the Indian Ocean.

 

It does have some reciprocal arrangements for sharing warnings and information in the Pacific ocean.

 

I was under the impression that the NOAA's core activity's in fishing and research was funded by the American government' date=' but the non-domestic applications were part funded by the groups concerned.

 

The funding methods come from institutes of higher education, state funds, governments and US Federal agency's. Like all research agency's it provides what's paid for, to whomever pays for it.

 

However all, that is all beside the point.

 

The point is wandering out into the world with a [b']Tsunami Warning Center[/b], which took over from localized warning centers, puts a duty of care on the NOAA that they failed to live up to. Given the huge loss of life stemming from the inept ability to live up to the claims the Tsunami "Warning" Center put out, I'd say the right to demand compensation is justified.

 

If someone offers a service, and people take up and depend on that service, then that places a legal obligation to provide the service that was promised. It doesn't matter about the financial details of the obligation, just the obligation itself.

 

It seems pretty cut and dry to me. Perhaps that's just me, but I actually feel empathy for the millions left destitute and the hundreds of thousands dead.

 

Lets face it. If the Tsunami had hit Florida, and the Tsunami Warning Center was not American, the country responsible would have been invaded and destroyed by now.

[syntax252]

According to this article taken from CNN's web site, most countries affected by this tsunami did not have a warning system in place--------

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/asia.warning.brown/index.html

 

HONG KONG -- On Sunday morning, shortly before killer waves reached Sri Lanka and India, a report was transmitted to a monitoring station in Hong Kong.

 

It came from a federal agency in the United States, which had detected a major earthquake near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and it noted there was the possibility of a tsunami near the quake's epicenter.

 

Although that news was picked up in Hong Kong, it never reached many other parts of Asia or faraway east Africa.

 

Alexis Lau, who runs the Hong Kong Coastal and Atmospheric Research Center, says that is not good enough.

 

"The thing I find frustrating is that the area which is likely to be affected doesn't seem to have done enough," he says.

 

Currently the Indian Ocean does not have a tsunami warning system, and of the 11 countries affected by the tsunamis, only Thailand belongs to an existing system working among the Pacific Rim countries.

 

India's Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal announced on Wednesday that a system would be installed there, but would take two to two-and-a-half years to put in place at a cost of up to 1.25 billion rupees ($27 million).

 

Governments with Pacific Ocean coastlines share real time information that can help detect giant waves, but tsunami warning systems do not always work.

 

On Sunday, India's meteorology center in Andaman and Nicobar informed the government of the earthquake that hit the region and the damage caused to the buildings but it did not have information on the approaching tsunami.

 

"We could not have imagined that a tsunami of this magnitude would hit our coast and cause so much devastation," The Associated Press reported Sibal as saying.

 

"No government thought of it because this really was not on the horizon."

 

In 1993 Japanese authorities scrambled to issue a tsunami warning after a quake off Hokaido. But the alert came too late for people living on the shoreline who were mown down by waves up to 29 meters high.

 

Nearly 200 people died.

 

"If the earthquake occurs very close to the coastline of any island or continent the tidal wave or tsunami would come much quicker than the system works," Japan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima says.

 

Even so, Japan is now pushing for new measures to protect the people living around the Indian Ocean and wants to discuss the possibility of an early warning system at a conference next month.

 

Australia has also said it would push for an Indian Ocean warning system even though that may seem like "closing the door after the horse has bolted".

 

Analysts say that makes a lot of sense since tectonic plates off Sumatra, close to epicenter of the quake that caused this disaster, remain unstable.

 

Does that mean more major quakes will occur sometime soon?

 

No-one knows for sure, and that is why scientists say we should be prepared for next time.

 

The existing international warning system is designed to alert nations that potentially destructive waves may hit their coastlines within three to 14 hours.

 

Scientists said seismic networks recorded Sunday's massive earthquake, but without wave sensors in the region, there was no way to determine the direction a tsunami would travel.

[Aardvark]

The point is wandering out into the world with a Tsunami Warning Center' date=' which took over from localized warning centers, puts a duty of care on the NOAA that they failed to live up to. Given the huge loss of life stemming from the inept ability to live up to the claims the Tsunami "Warning" Center put out, I'd say the right to demand compensation is justified. [/quote']

 

The NOAA has never made any claim at all to provide any Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. Therefore it has no duty of care.

 

 

If someone offers a service, and people take up and depend on that service, then that places a legal obligation to provide the service that was promised. It doesn't matter about the financial details of the obligation, just the obligation itself.

 

The NOAA has never offered any service concerning Tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean. No service, no offer, no obligation.

 

It seems pretty cut and dry to me. Perhaps that's just me, but I actually feel empathy for the millions left destitute and the hundreds of thousands dead.

 

That comes across as cheap emotional blackmail.

 

Lets face it. If the Tsunami had hit Florida, and the Tsunami Warning Center was not American, the country responsible would have been invaded and destroyed by now.

 

There was no country responsible for issuing Tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean. Taking your example, it is as if a Tsunami were to hit Florida and the USA were to blame an Switzerland for not providing any warning.

[Aardvark]

"The Berlin war coming down had nothing to do with the USA being respected or liked. It had to do with the puppet regime in East Germany having its support cut off from Moscow as the USSR collasped."

if the us weren't respected' date=' war would have ensued.[/quote']

 

Curious opinion you have there. Perhaps you'd like to start another thread to discuss it in?

[Pangloss]

Tiny I guess what I'm looking for here is some source citation to back all that up. If what you say is true then you might well have a point, but your implications that NOAA (or some US organization) "took over" localized warning systems, and/or made promises of providing warnings, does not make it so.

 

Back it up, please.

[budullewraagh]

"Curious opinion you have there. Perhaps you'd like to start another thread to discuss it in?"

would you like me to post it as a debate challenge?