Creative Lawsuits

I was shaking my head at the headline over at 911 Blogger:

Career Army Officer Sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, Saying No Evacuation Order Given On 9/11

Which describes former Army Specialist April Gallop, who despite the headline is not an an officer (unless she recently went to OCS without telling anyone), and arguably not really a career soldier either. I think she is going to have a difficult time with her case though, because rather than suing for damages, she is accusing Dick Cheney and a myriad of unnamed conspirators of being behind the whole thing:

Plaintiff, Jury Trial Demanded
vs.
DICK CHENEY, Vice President of the U.S.A., DONALD RUMSFELD, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, General RICHARD MYERS, U.S.A.F. (Ret.), and John Does Nos. 1– X, all in their individual capacities, Defendants.

The main complaint seems to be that they didn't evacuate the Pentagon, and thus had foreknowledge. This seems a bit backward to me. All they knew, and somewhat late at that, was that a plane was headed toward Washington. Short of evacuating every major building in the Washington DC area, and there are quite a number, wouldn't evacuating the Pentagon indicate that they had foreknowledge? Well, heads I win, tails you lose.

Included in this complaint are the usual bizarre statements. I would love to see this one argued in court:

26. Likewise, by the acts of one or more defendants in furtherance of the conspiracy, no defenses at the Pentagon responded either, no missile or anti-aircraft batteries opening from the ground around the building, or the roof; no sharpshooters deployed with hand-held missiles at stations close by; nothing. And, shockingly, when the towers in New York had already been hit, and Flight 77 (or a substitute, see below) was out of radio contact and headed back towards the capital; and even when the plane approached, and then doubled back and headed toward the building in a long dive, no alarm was sounded.

Where were the sharpshooters?!

And apparently we have lawsuits by Googling, poorly.

Further, it should be noted that on September 10, 2001, the day before the attack, Defendant Rumsfeld conducted a press conference at the Pentagon in which he publicly announced that auditors had determined that some 2.3 trillion dollars in Defense Department funds —$2.300,000,000,000 — could not be accounted for. To plaintiff’s knowledge and belief, part of the area of the ground floor of the Pentagon that was destroyed in the bombing is a location where records were kept that would be used to trace those funds, and where people worked who knew about them. On information and belief, there has been to this day no public report concerning the fate of those records, or that money.

And who knew that gunpowder was a high explosive.

Several trained and experienced military personnel at the scene noted the distinctive odor of cordite, a high explosive used in gunpowder, in the aftermath of the attack at the Pentagon. This suggests explosives as the cause for the destruction rather than the impact and fire resulting from burning jet fuel.

As a veteran myself, I hope SPC Gallop gets all the medical and financial help she deserves, but I don't think suing Dick Cheney and John Doe is going to get her anywhere.