Transnational Law Blog

Sri Lanka and Trade Policy: Concession or Sanction?

The European Union last week produced an official notice derived from its year-long investigation on human right violation in Sri Lanka. Here are the Commission's final report, and the independent expert's report. Given the Commission's conclusion that Sri Lankan government breached its human rights commitments during it 25-year civil war with the Tamil Tiger, the country is set to  loose its trade concessions, known as GSP Plus, to the European Union, a sanction which will cost the country more than $100m trade benefits. Mr. Rajapaksa’s government has recently secured a $2.6 billion loan from the IMF with very little strings attached despite some delay due to international pressure and warnings of human rights violation in April and May.

From the European Commission:

The Commission has completed a thorough investigation into the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and in particular whether Sri Lanka is living up to the commitments it made to respect international human rights standards when it became a beneficiary of the European Union's GSP+ trade incentive scheme which provides for additional trade benefits.

The report comes to the conclusion that there are significant shortcomings in this area and that Sri Lanka is in breach of its GSP+ commitments.

We will now consult with Member States on whether to prepare a proposal with a view to temporarily suspending these additional trade benefits.

In response to the Commission’s announcement, Financial Times Editorial responded with a legitimate defense for Sri Lanka by emphasizing the inherent purpose of trade preferential treatments, which has been a successful economic instrument to lower many countries’ poverty line.

Sri Lanka is threatened with losing its trade rights because of human rights abuses committed by its government in the course of the conflict with the Tamil Tiger rebels. Such violations are well documented and abhorrent. But it is perverse to punish the clothing industry and other exporters for the actions of security forces they cannot control. In extremis, trade restrictions are a legitimate means to isolate the most vile abusers of human rights, particularly when an authoritarian government controls the entire country and its economy. That is not the case here. Sri Lanka is not Burma.

Using trade as a strategic tool makes the global trading system hostage to endless political posturing and negotiating games. Governments should grant trade preferences on simple, fair criteria, largely based on the poverty and vulnerability of trading partners. Trade deals should be a means for poor countries to haul themselves out of poverty, not a tool of foreign policy manipulation by their richer counterparts. Sri Lanka’s exporters have used their access to the European market well. They should keep it.

 I wrote about my trouble of justifying this civil war as well as concern over human right violations in Sri Lanka early this summer, and thought that leaders of both the Tamil Tiger and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government should be charged for war crime violations of international humanitarian law including unlawful killings of civilians particularly children and young men as well as forcing child soldiers. However, the removal of GSP Plus to publicly punish Sri Lanka and its people instead of the government, as argued by the Financial Times, seems unjustifiable ex-post. The penalty is estimated to cause more than 2% contraction of Sri Lanka’s troubling economy alone. Separating trade policy from politics and diverging international alliances (Sri Lanka, Iran, China versus other Western countries) is much harder than it sounds. Nevertheless, Sri Lankan workers and exporters should be excluded from international sanction against the country’s military government, while other available legal instrument, i.e. charge for violation of humanitarian right, remains a better tool for the purpose of punishment and deterrence.

*Image by the Economist

Reaching Out to Sri Lanka

I have been regularly following up with the news from Sri Lanka. Images and news from this civil war brought me solemn concern and uneasiness. Here in London, I caught this scene one weekend early this month. A sense of helplessness arrived soon after I stepped deep into the scene seeing men, children, elders and women yelling out loud their urging need and asking for international intervention. They were right, Sri Lanka is facing a humantarian criris; although, the Tigers themselves also committed the type of war crime that they are pledging against Sri Lankan government. There can never be a right reason for war and violence. Yet, at times people involved seem to put on a convincing case with the Tamil Tiger for their own justice (or injustice).

Last Thursday, Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, rejected advice from European high-level delegations to proceed a temporary ceasefire and told the representatives to stop lecturing him.

 “The government is not ready to enter into any kind of cease-fire with the terrorists. It is my duty to protect the people of this country. I don’t need lectures from Western representatives,” said the President in a speech distributed by his office, the New York Times reports.

According to the United Nation, 6,500 civilian have died and twice have been wounded since late January. At the moment, there are still 50,000 civilians are trapped in the combat zone with very little humanitarian supports. The refuge camps are reported to be "overcrowding, malnourishment, dehydration and limited medical facilities." Despite growing tension with foreign governments, the Sri Lanka government has been unwilling to openly allow international support-groups to enter further into the war zone.

Last March, Sri Lanka reported its slowest economic growth rate in five years last year, at 6% underlining the need for the government to push ahead with talks on a bail-out from the International Monetary Fund. However, due to the government's resistance, the United States had decided to delay a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout for Sri Lanka’s central bank to pressure the government to do more to help trapped civilians.

Such intervention seems to do little to change the Sri Lankan government's attitude toward cooperation and helping displaced civilians from boths ethinic groups. International governments and agencies must continue to pressure Mahinda Rajapaksa's government to allow international humanitarian groups to rescue and provide basic aids to the war victims.

Global Internet Rights and Censorship

The Internet has changed the way information is spread around the world. Internet usage has become ubiquitous in developed countries and it is still growing in less developed countries. The ability of populations to get information through the Internet is treated differently by various countries.

Some countries have codified the right to Internet access in law. Witness, for instance, Estonia’s 2000 law declaring Internet access to be a fundamental human right. Internet censorship is a big issue for freedom of information and civil right's groups. Human Rights Watch told the U.S. Congress last year that

Human Rights Watch believes that the Internet is a transformative force that can help open closed societies and provide the near-instantaneous flow of information to inform the public, mobilize for change, and ultimately hold institutions accountable. We have warned, however, that there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the Internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the Cold War, because some governments fear the potential of the Internet, want to control it and the companies that provide the services and products tied to it; and users fear the consequences of using it as a medium for openness and accountability.

This warning was timely because there are some worrying signs that governmental censorship is on the rise around the world. Australian lawmakers have recently proposed a controversial law that would institute a mandatory Internet filtering scheme. This is following a 2007 law that gave Federal police power to block access to any website.

Designed for the laudable goal of blocking access to pornography for children, the plan also has the potential to block websites discussing controversial topics such as euthanasia and anorexia. Citizens would not be allowed to opt out of the filtering (the original version of the bill would have let people contact their Internet service providers to opt out of the filtering.) Not surprisingly, advocates for freedom of information and rights groups have been extremely critical of the plan. One commentator even noted that a list of websites that would be blocked by the Australian law has been leaked, and it "has, in effect, given every 15-year-old in Australia a guide to porn online."

For a discussion of the proposed Australian law, including a defense of the law from a member of the Parliament, click here.

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The country that gets the most attention of Internet censorship is China. China already had the most sophisticated Internet censorship system in the world before last week's news that China has again blocked YouTube because of a video purporting to show Chinese police fatally beating a Tibetan protester. This is not the first time China has blocked access to YouTube; they do so from time to time when there are videos criticizing the Chinese Government.

Other recent Internet censorship acts by China include restricting access to international reporters covering the Beijing Olympics and China pushing the United Nations to curb Internet anonymity by drawing up surveillance and monitoring technical standards. Regarding the anonymity issue, a U.N. document leaked to Columbia computer engineering professor Steve Bollovin stated justifications for the China-drafted Internet standards:

A political opponent to a government publishes articles putting the government in an unfavorable light. The government, having a law against any opposition, tries to identify the source of the negative articles but the articles having been published via a proxy server, is unable to do so protecting the anonymity of the author.

According to a new study by the OpenNet Initiative, state-sponsored Internet censorship is on the rise. Other recent offenders include Burma, Bangladesh, and Turkey. According to Harvard Law Professor John Palfrey, "In five years we have gone from a couple of states doing state-mandated net filtering to 25."

If you are interested in combating the rise in censorship of the Internet, there are a number of groups you could join, including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the OpenNet Initiative.

Seeing The Tibet Situation Clearly: Old Tibet and Democracy for a Future Tibet

There is always two sides to every story and the same is true about the unrest in Tibet. The state operated Xinhua News issued an editorial today entitled, Don't See Tibet Through Tainted Glasses, which argues that Tibet is better now than it was before it came under the control of China. The basic argument is that people who view the Tibet situation through rose-colored glasses intentionally distort facts and deny that Tibet is experiencing its best era of development and stability and Tibetans are enjoying the broadest human rights ever. China Daily also ran an article today entitled, CNN: What's Wrong With You, detailing how the western media has been distorting the facts about the number of people injured during the rioting, the motives of the Tibetan rioters, China's response, and the history of Tibet.

According to the Tainted Glasses editorial, before China took control of the region the Tibetan people were "politically oppressed, economically exploited and frequently persecuted. A saying circulated among serfs: 'All a serf can carry away is his own shadow, and all he can leave behind is his footprints.' It is perhaps safe to say that Tibet's serf system represents the worst systematic abuse of human rights in human history."

Serfs? I had never heard of serfs in Tibet before. Articles like the one on China Confidential entitled, No Shangri-La: Life in Old Tibet, accurately summed up my western idea of old Tibet as a paradise. My musings about old Tibet pictured an idyllic religious retreat in the mountains with pleasant and content people living in harmony with each other and the rest of the world. However, it appears I was wrong. The Tibetan people lived in a feudal system before China took complete control of the region in 1959, and descriptions of life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation portray it as a country that consisted of slavery, oppression, and unimaginable human rights violations.

An article by Michael Parenti entitled, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2007), presents a synopsis of Tibet's feudalism, theocratic despotism, and the Chinese occupation. He gave the following summary of life in feudal Tibet:

Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.”

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

Land of The Not So Free

A recently released report found that more than one of every 100 adults in the US is in jail or prison, making the US the world's top incarcerator!  This report only bolsters past arguments I've made about the US being a police state (see here and here).  Moreover, a citizenry behind bars is not a productive, tax-paying citizenry!  An article by the AP included the following:

The report was compiled by the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which is working with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.

"Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers," said the project's director, Adam Gelb.

According to the report, the average annual cost per prisoner was $23,876, with Rhode Island spending the most ($44,860) and Louisiana the least ($13,009). It said California - which faces a $16 billion budget shortfall - spent $8.8 billion on corrections last year, while Texas, which has slightly more inmates, was a distant second with spending of $3.3 billion.

An article by the NY Times included the following:

But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, said the Pew report considered only half of the cost-benefit equation and overlooked the “very tangible benefits — lower crime rates.”

In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, violent crime rates fell by 25 percent, to 464 for every 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.

“While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons,” Professor Cassell said, “it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense.”

Ms. Urahn said the nation cannot afford the incarceration rate documented in the report. “We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime,” she said. “Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the ‘80s and ‘90s.”

Now, with fewer resources available, the report said, “prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets.” On average, states spend almost 7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare, education and transportation.

Is there any connection between this and a recent survey that showed a significant proportion of teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature?  I'm willing to say there is a connection.

Why is the USA Defying China for the Sake of Tibet and Not Taiwan?

It seems quite odd the support the Bush administration is lavishing upon the Dalai Lama when they refuse to publicly acknowledge the independence of Taiwan, a democratically ruled country that China continually threatens to invade if it makes any claims of independence.

On Wednesday, October 17th, President Bush presented the Dalai Lama with the U.S. Congress' highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. According to China Confidential and Yahoo News, China responded by postponing talks in Berlin with the UN Security Council about the Iranian nuclear crisis.

"I think they (the Chinese) had indigestion ... over the presence of certain spiritual leaders and an event in Congress," said a US State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is extraneous to Iranian issues."

It seems quite odd that the Bush administration would choose now as the time to recognize the Dalai Lama as a "universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd of the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people," which is how Bush described the exiled leader of Tibet. The Bush administration may have ulterior motives for delaying talks with the UN Security Council about the crisis in Iran. Namely, if the US is preparing to invade Iran on the grounds that it must prevent a nuclear Iran, then it doesn't make much sense to participate in events that would handle the problem diplomatically.

China said that the event supported Tibetan separatism, which goes against the "One China" policy legislated by the Chinese government in 2005. Most people think of the "One China" policy as being a ploy to justify invading Taiwan, but it also justifies using any means necessary to keep Tibet as part of China. It is unclear why the Bush administration would willingly cross China on this issue when it concerns Tibet but not Taiwan. It could simply be that there is still the possibility of war between Taiwan and China and the US would likely be in the middle of any conflict between Taiwan and China. When it comes to Tibet, however, the damage has already been done, and it's quite obvious that the US isn't willing to do anything more to help the Tibetan people than hang medals around the neck of their exiled leader and whisper disparaging remarks about China's human rights abuses.

Legal Development in Sierra Leone

First, I would like to apologize for my extended absence from Transnational Law Blog.  After graduating in May, I spent a delightful summer studying for the California Bar.  That experience was a piece of cake - a cake made out of glass shards, rotten eggs and fish guts, with just a pinch of self-loathing for the icing.  I spent most of August recovering by drooling on the couch and watching sports, which I highly recommend.  However, my days of flipping between ESPN, the Food Network and Bravo (I wanted Trey to win) are over as I am back in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

For the next 8-10 months I will be conducting rule of law research as a Fulbright Fellow.  My research will be examining the impact of moving the Charles Taylor trial to the Hague upon local legal development in Sierra Leone.  More generally, my research will look at the capacity building efforts of the Special Court in order to assess how war crimes tribunals can be more effective in post-conflict environments. 

I will be using this space to make periodic reports on the research as well as to comment on other Sierra Leonean and international developments.  I am coordinating my research with the American Bar Association's Sierra Leone Task Force and will hopefully be posting reports on their page as well.

I am still at a very early stage in my research; revising my research plan, drafting research materials, making contacts and setting up meetings with local rule of law experts.  For now, I will provide a brief background on the conflict in Sierra Leone and outline the details of my project. 

From the early 1990s to 2002, Sierra Leone was ravaged by a brutal civil war allegedly supported by Liberian President Charles Taylor in which an estimated 50,000 people lost their lives and the society of Sierra Leone was shattered. The conflict was characterized by campaigns of amputation, rape and the widespread use of child soldiers. In an effort to bring stability to West Africa and provide accountability for the atrocities, the United Nations and Sierra Leone established the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2002. 

The Special Court is a hybrid tribunal comprised of international and domestic personnel and applying both international and domestic law. One of the central reasons for locating the tribunal in Sierra Leone and employing local personnel was to improve the capacity of the domestic legal system. In March 2006, Charles Taylor, the most notable figure in the conflict, was detained by the Special Court for his role in allegedly controlling and supplying munitions to the rebel forces in Sierra Leone. However, due to concerns that forces still loyal to the rebels and Taylor would pose a security threat, the Taylor trial was moved to the Hague.

While the trial will be conducted by Special Court personnel under the authority and law of the Special Court, the removal of the trial and limited involvement of Sierra Leonean personnel may undermine the capacity-building ability of the Special Court. By comparing the strategies and impact of rule of law development programs before and during the Taylor trial it will be possible to assess the development capacity of the hybrid tribunal model. The rule of law programs in Sierra Leone focus upon increasing the awareness, access and respect for law, as well as improving the basic due process standards of the local justice system. If there is a significant decline in development capacity it may indicate the necessity of trying major figures within the country of conflict. 

However, if significant legal development can be achieved in the absence of the Taylor trial, it suggests that an alternative framework for war crimes and genocide tribunals can yield positive results. This information will clarify the function and benefits of hybrid tribunals and whether rule of law development should be directly linked with hybrid tribunals. This research will provide domestic and international policy makers with valuable information for addressing future atrocities.

I intend to conduct the research in two parts. The first element of the research will focus on the rule of law development programs of the Special Court as well as civil society, including the Justice Sector Development Programme and the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance.  These programs provide training to legal professionals, research and advocate justice sector reform, campaign for legal awareness and provide legal assistance. The research will examine the relative success of these programs and how they have adjusted their efforts in light of the Taylor trial moving to the Hague. 

The second element of the research will involve surveys and interviews of local prosecutors, judges, legal professionals and law students at Fourah Bay College in order to study how the absence of the Taylor trial is perceived and how it has affected the local legal community. 

The research will provide insight into how the presence of the Special Courthas affected the rules, procedures, and due process standards of the local legal system. This information will be compared with the impressions and opinions of local legal professionals as to impact the Taylor trial will have upon local legal development. 

The Situation in Burma -- Update

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari has returned from Burma (also referred to as Myanmar), and has briefed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the results of his diplomatic mission. Gambari's visit was prompted after the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution calling for an end to the human rights abuses in Burma--a failure due, chiefly, to the vetos of Russia and China. No details of Gambari's visit have yet been made public, though Gambari is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council tomorrow.

Over the course of his visit, Gambari was able to meet both with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as top officials from the ruling military junta in Burma, and there has been some speculation that Gambari couriered messages between the two. Suu Kyi has been under some form of imprisonment in Burma for much of the past two decades. She was first placed in detention in 1988, when the National League for Democracy won the Burmese general election and the military junta subsequently nullified the election results.

Since Burma's military crackdown on protestors began last week, both the US and the EU have sought to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against Burma and its military elite. On the other hand, India, who sells arms to Burma, and who has just signed a deep-sea oil exploration deal with the country, has kept its words measured. China, who is the country seen as having the largest influence on Burma (China is Burma's chief trading partner, and also has significant interests in Burma's oil and natural gas reserves), has also been careful to stay out of the limelight. However, given the reaction of the global community over the past weeks, there are rumours that China's position on the matter is quietly changing. According to an unnamed US official, the message from the US has been "You wanted to become a big power -- part of being a big power is you will be held responsible for your client states." Stay tuned.

When Will China Invade Taiwan?

Despite support from Ozzy Osbourne (see here), Taiwan's bid for United Nations admission has been rejected, again, making this the fifteenth time Taiwan has been denied since it began its attempts for UN membership in 1993. As mentioned in a previous post, the UN charter says that "Membership in the United Nations is open to all other [non-founding] peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations." There is no doubt that Taiwan is a peace-loving state, willing to accept the obligations that would be put upon it by the UN if membership was granted. However, the authoritarian China has once again bullied the rest of the world into refusing democratic Taiwan's bid for membership.

In a recent interview, Taiwan President Chen Shui-Bian said, "The Chinese government is trying to push us up against a wall. We are not part of the UN because Beijing does not recognize us as a sovereign state. Besides, Beijing insists on its One China policy, and Beijing oppresses us by claiming that we are merely a local government. This demeans us and weakens our position. But 23 million Taiwanese know that Taiwan is a sovereign state and that under no circumstances do we belong to China."

Whether China will invade Taiwan is slowly transforming into simply a question of when, and the general opinion seems to be that China will not invade before the 2008 Olympic Games. Taiwan President Chen said, "Western countries should not overlook the fact that the Chinese threaten Taiwan militarily. They had about 200 missiles pointed at us in 2000. Today it's 988. Beijing has increased its military budget by a double-digit percentage each year since 1989. An anti-secession law was adopted in 2005, creating a legal basis for an attack on Taiwan. The Chinese military is expected to be capable of attacking Taiwan by 2010, and conquering the entire island in a single strike by 2015. The world should not ignore these facts."

The United States is obligated by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 to defend Taiwan from military aggressors, including China. However, since 9/11, China has become an indispensable ally of the US, who needs China to diplomatically handle the threats of North Korea and Iran. The US is too bogged down in the war in the Middle East to defend Taiwan from an invasion by China. Consequently, the Bush administration is opposed to either country unilaterally disturbing the status quo.

Yuan Jing-Dong, professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said the following in an excellent article entitled, China, US delicately Juggle Taiwan:

The Sino-US relationship has evolved into one characterized as cooperative, constructive and candid or, to quote President Bush, "complex". Beijing and Washington cooperate on a whole range of issues, from the North Korean and Iranian nuclear challenges, to the environment and global warming, to the "global war on terrorism". China and the US have become ever more interdependent economically, with bilateral trade surpassing US$300 billion this year.

Both have come to recognize the importance of handling the delicate Taiwan issue. Washington seeks to maintain the status quo so it can stay focused on its "war on terrorism" and on combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Beijing recognizes the role that the US can play in reining in Taiwanese independence even as it continues its military preparation to deter and respond to such a scenario.

It is my opinion that the only possible way the US can invade Iran is if it sells out Taiwan. Despite its obligations to the US and the UN, China has been selling weapons, missile technology, and nuclear technology to Iran, which are used to bolster Iran's military as well as the military forces of its allies that are in Afghanistan and Iraq (see here). Obviously China realizes that if the US ever wants to defeat its enemies in the Middle East, it will have to make a deal with China, and the US's best bargaining chip is the island of Taiwan.       

Clear and Present Danger: University of Florida Student Tasered When he Refused to Give up the Mic

As law students we should all be very disturbed when we see a student being arrested and tasered for peacefully asking an elected representative some questions during an open mic question and answer session. Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student, was wrestled from the microphone while he was asking Senator John Kerry some questions and he was subsequently tasered while being held on the ground by multiple police officers. Here is the video:

As you'll notice, Meyer is holding a yellow book, which has been identified as a book entitled, Armed Madhouse, written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. From this book, Meyer formulated and asked Kerry the following three questions:

1. Given that you won the 2004 election per Greg Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse", why did you concede so on the day of the election itself when there were many reports on the day of the election of disenfranchisement of black voters and corrupted vote count?
2. If you are really so opposed to the Invasion of Iraq(Iran?), why don't you urge impeachment of Bush now before he can invade Iran? Clinton was impeached for a blow job, invading Iraq/Iran is much for serious than that?
3. Were you a member of the secret society Skull & Bones in college?

Is this a dangerous book? Dangerous enough to justify tasering a student? And who is threatened by this book?

Democracy Now has a good interview with Palast about his book, which reveals how the 2000 and 2004 elections were fixed. It also delves deeply into the motives behind the Iraq war, which is about oil but not in the way most of us think. He also points out that Chavez is willing to sell the US oil at a price far cheaper than the oil the US purchases from the Middle East, and he explains why the US would rather assassinate Chavez than lower the price of gas.

We should not forget that this is not the first incident of university police tasering a student. During fall semester 2006, a UCLA student was tasered when he failed to show his student ID card (see it here on Iranian Truth).

UPDATE: FP Passport has posted an article entitled, Ahmadinejad Has More Rights Than a US College Student, which is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

Something is seriously wrong with this picture: An American student enrolled at the University of Florida is denied his constitutionally-protected right to question an elected leader in a nonviolent way. He's tackled by a half dozen police officers, tasered, and thrown in jail. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be given free reign to hold court before a group of students and faculty — and hordes of television cameras — at Columbia University next week.

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What's more worrisome, however, is the realization that, while Ahmadinejad will enjoy and test the very limits of the freedoms Americans are supposed to enjoy, a U.S. citizen was denied this priviledge earlier this week. American universities, one is left to assume, value the insights of a man like Ahmadinejad more than they do those of their own students.

There is something rotten in America.