Arab Spring Update: Freedom House's Arch Puddington on How 2012 Will Be Like 1989
Libyans took to the polls on Saturday in the first free election that country has seen in over 50 years. During an interview with Freedom House's Arch Puddington in February, Puddington made it clear that 2012 would be remembered as a banner year for Middle East liberty.
Here is the original text from the Feb. 6 interview:
"As significant as 1989 when the Berlin wall came down, overwhelmingly the story of 2012 is centered in the Middle East," says Freedom House's Arch Puddington. "People were inspired by events in Egypt, they started demanding their rights."
Puddington has helped record the long-overdue revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and countries in the Freedom in the World 2012 index. Founded in 1941, Freedom House quantifies and ranks the political freedom and civil liberties of every country in the world as "Free," "Partly Free," or "Not Free."
Though the Arab Spring has led some regimes to respond with arrests and killings, Puddington remains confident political rights and civil liberties will succeed in the longer run. Since the first Freedom in the World index was published in 1973, he notes, free countries have doubled in number and not-free countries have declined. In the 2012 edition, 87 countries are listed as Free, 60 as Partly Free, and 48 as Not Free.
To see where your country ranks, go here: http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2012
About 4.55 minutes.
Interview by Matt Welch. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain; edited by Swain.
Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Arch Puddington? I hope he grew up in the UK where I assume other kids with goofy names would be too scared to make fun of him.
I am pretty sure he was Arthur Slugworth’s assistant.
Don’t trust him.
Mmmm — pudding.
Gay cowboys eating pudding.
Towns like Little Buggerton exist, too, so don’t worry — at least the residents of that town will keep their mouths shut about it.
Tony’s from Little Buggert… ahh, skip it. Too easy.
He’s its namesake.
Looks like those folks are having a good ole time. Wow.
http://www.Top-Anon.tk
During an interview with Freedom House’s Arch Puddington in February, Puddington made it clear that 2012 would be remembered as a banner year for Middle East liberty.
Because they are going to elect Liberty loving groups into government like the Muslim Brotherhood? Because after 2012 there isn’t going to be ANY liberty in the ME, and the last year it existed there will be remembered fondly?
Guy should simply go ahead and change his name to Puddinhead cause he has mush for brains.
It might still work out eventually, as long as they avoid “one man, one vote, one time.”
The Muslim BroHood is a wimpy little group with little influence blown up by US AM radio wingnuts as a bogeyman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02……html?_r=1
Although originally the Brotherhood was organized into paramilitary cells, today it forswears violence in political struggle. This has made it a target of Al Qaeda’s venom. In January 2006, Ayman al-Zawahri, the former leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda’s leading strategist, blasted the Brotherhood’s willingness to participate in parliamentary elections and reject nuclear arms. You “falsely affiliated with Islam,” he said in vilifying the group. “You forget about the rule of Shariah, welcome the Crusaders’ bases in your countries and acknowledge the existence of the Jews who are fully armed with nuclear weapons, from which you are banned to possess.”
I know, Hannity and Beck put the fear into you and they do both have high school diplomas.
And now they are in charge of Egypt. Your linky thing does not demonstrate shit.
Wrong… it demonstrates how far up Obama’s colon shrike has burrowed.
They’re the mother organization of Hamas, a group about as batshit crazy as you can get. They’re fine with democracy as long as it’s one man, one vote…once.
They’re the mother organization of Hamas, a group about as batshit crazy as you can get. They’re fine with democracy as long as it’s one man, one vote…once.
They’re the mother organization of Hamas, a group about as batshit crazy as you can get. They’re fine with democracy as long as it’s one man, one vote…once.
The startling ignorance on Reason.com makes me think that all libertarians are as ignorant as the one who calls himself ‘Brutus.’
Hamas were the clear winners of the Parliamentary elections in 2006 and it was Fatah, backed by the Americans, who said “Fuck that, you aren’t getting power. Fuck elections!”
Here’s hoping.
2:36 mark – Watch Puddington get defensive as Welch’s piercing stare accuses Freedom House of being a CIA front.
I mean if the accusation is false, why deny it? Seems a little suspicious to me.
“Though the Arab Spring has led some regimes to respond with arrests and killings, Puddington remains confident political rights and civil liberties will succeed in the longer run.”
Yeah, Reason really needs to stop with this Ostrich approach to the Arab Spring.
Seems like every week they claim that it’s going to get better, or that there’s a silver lining, and then the next day it’s the same old fanatical BS.
You’re yearning for the heady days when Gaddafi was in charge?
Qaddaffi was GOP all the way. A favorite of Bush and McCain. The latter spent weekends at the dictators “ranch”.
You know who else was GOP all the way? HITLER
Well, three out of the four GOP candidates for President in 1940, in a convention held a few weeks after the fall of France, didn’t want to get involved, and Herbert Hoover, according to Drew Pearson, was angling for another chance during the convention, saying what America needed was a man as President who could do business with Hitler, and who had never alienated him.
Obama has been the best foreign policy president in the past 80 years.
Economics, too! And education. And everything else. He’s so awesome. (sigh)
Oh, yes!
2 content-free replies in 8 minutes?
One more and I would have had a hit and run hat trick.
When you attempt to formulate a thought, does unholy pain pierce your brain?
Noaaaaaaaaaaarrrhg.
No I’m immune to unholy damage.
Right. That would require a brain. My apologies, Francis.
“Obama has been the best [insert whatever bullshit he’s supposedly best at here]” isn’t exactly “content”, Derider.
2 content-free replies in 8 minutes?
Three content free comments. You forgot the first one from that dimwit, The Derider.
I want to see him carrying Michelle uphill while running for his life.
Racist
Huh?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism
Nope, doesn’t pass the smell test, Derider.
What IS it with leftists, that they can’t use that word properly?
If Obama did anything right in regards to the Arab Spring, it was becasue of what he didn’t do.
He didn’t put troops on the ground in Libya, which compared to what Dubya did before him was a stroke of genius.
But then compared to what Dubya did before him, getting up in the morning and sitting on the can is a stroke of genius.
Over the last 80 years?
That’s ridiculous.
George Bush senior held together a coalition of Arab states against Iraq–even as Iraq was lobbing scuds at Israel. That’s gotta be one of the greatest feats of diplomacy ever!
Oh, and did I mention that he managed somehow to NOT invade Iraq? He gets credit for being smart that way…
One of the reasons why Madison should have been on Mt. Rushmore. He may have blown the War of 1812, but he’s the only president I can think of who managed not to expand the powers of the president during war time–and he managed that on purpose as a matter of principle.
Obama’s out there assassinating people in Yemen, American citizens…
Oh, on your list for great foreign policy presidents–you might want to include someone who was responsible for winning the Cold War. When he came into office, everyone thought the Cold War was lost, and when he left? The Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter…
He went against his advisers in spurning the Soviets when they wanted to deal, and he went against his advisers in embracing Gorbachev at just the right time.
Nato air power allowed the rebellion against Gaddafi to succeed.
Yes, not invading them was a good idea. But so was bombing them.
I’m pretty sure George Bush senior did invade Iraq– we just didn’t occupy it for long.
I think Reagan had good foreign policy moments as well- but if you’re upset that Obama is “out there assassinating people in Yemen” — Reagan did a shitload more of that than Obama did.
Reagan was very happy for the CIA to intervene in the democratic process in other countries in order to thwart popular communist uprisings.
And Reagan helped Saddam develop chemical weapons that he used to massacre Kurds, kill thousands of Iranians, and that eventually formed the casus belli for Bush2’s Iraq invasion.
Reagan didn’t do the last.
Facts are racist for folks like Derprider.
He just makes them up, apparently…
You know else used to argue this way?
Maybe it’s not the same person, but the demeanor?
It’s kinda got a Stack vibe to it.
Eh…I’m not feeling the Stack vibe. Too well put together. It’s like a Shrike on Adavan.
He doesn’t get his talking points from the likes of Glenn Beck or Hannity.
The Muslim Brotherhood sounds scary! Run with it wingnuts!
Meanwhile the Saudis fund more terrorism than any other in the region and they get a pass from the AM radio nut-tocracy on the right.
Which leftist outlet told you to say that shit, shrike?
http://www.independent.co.uk/n…..52327.html
Like I said…
If Saudi Arabia is doing all this terror sponsoring, one would think that the US president would not be in the habit of having friendly meetings with the Saudi leaders.
Do you have a pertinent point or of course you don’t.
Yes, he did.
Not only did we provide the Iraqis with extensive funding and military intelligence, which certainly enhanced his WMD program, we gave him active samples of biological agents he was able to weaponize.
Plus, when the UN tried to accuse Saddam of genocide, Reagan blocked the resolution.
What’s a stack?
Wait, wait… you leftists have been claiming Iraq did NOT have WMDs.
Which is it, Derp?
Are you really this stupid, Mr. FIFY? It’s hard to imagine.
Saddam had WMD… he used WMD on the Kurds during the Anfal campaign, for example.
He used mustard gas (aka Tabun) during the Iran-Iraq War.
And then, as a result of the 1991 Gulf War, he destroyed it all.
All of it. There wasn’t one scrap for Brave, Patriotic George W. Bush and his happy camper Charles Duelfer to find in Iraq.
No WMD. No WMD Programs. That was the result of the Duelfer report.
George Bush senior held together a coalition of Arab states against Iraq–even as Iraq was lobbing scuds at Israel. That’s gotta be one of the greatest feats of diplomacy ever!
Eh…I don’t know. Kuwait is pretty close to Iran and would have made Iraq even stronger if it held it and Saudi Arabia was probably pretty motivated in keeping an alliance together.
All the People who normally would have wanted the US to fail seemed to be put in a position that a US success was in their best interests.
All the People who normally would have wanted the US to fail seemed to be put in a position that a US success was in their best interests.
I’m really good at showing investors what’s in their own best interests. That’s why I’m good at what I do. I don’t try to convince them to do anything that’s bad for them–and good for me! I figure out what’s in their best interests–and make sure that the investments I’m offering are in their best interests.
That way? I don’t have to convince them to do what’s in my best interest! I just have to convince them to do what’s in their own best interests…
When I do that with an investment, it’s called being a good a entrepreneur. When George Bush Senior did it (Jim Baker really), that’s called being an amazing diplomat.*
It’s the same thing. Getting people to do what’s in their own best interest is sometimes the hardest thing in the world. People who can get people to see their best interests and commit to them? Are some of the smartest people in the world.
*Incidentally, Bush Senior was basically a career diplomat. Even being the Director of the CIA was basically a form of diplomacy. The man was a genius for diplomacy and free trade–and his son made almost every mistake his father purposely avoided.
Oh, and if you’re going back 80 years, you might want to mention the people who won World War II, too.
I mean, Obama is absolutely amazing–he won a Nobel prize and everything…
But winning World War II and the Cold War, that was pretty amazing too.
Doncha think?
I mean, don’t get me wrong…
Winning the Nobel Peace Prize and then somehow managing to keep Guantanamo open and operating–and completely escaping any accountability for that from the liberals who voted for him because he promised to close Guantanamo?
That’s impressive!
But defeating the Nazis and world Communism over the past 80 years, that’s pretty impressive too, from a libertarian standpoint…
Doncha think?
What’s the libertarian foreign policy standpoint?
If it’s non-interventionism, then no, defeating the Nazis and Communism wouldn’t be very impressive.
What’s the libertarian foreign policy standpoint?
In reference to Nazis and communists?
Are you serious?
Nazis and communists are extremely unpopular with libertarians.
Here, take a look at this link:
http://tinyurl.com/y3c8cs
I’m sure terrorists are unpopular with libertarians as well, but that doesn’t mean that libertarians support a foreign policy that seeks to aggressively counter them.
You don’t think libertarians are glad that the Nazis are gone?
You don’t think libertarians are glad we beat the communists in the Cold War?
And you’re dead serious.
He is serious, Ken. And if you answer it wrong, he’ll claim you’re a Nazi, while comparing libertarianism to communism.
Oh, and racism.
Hmm we propped up the KMT and Stalin so I’m not completely comfortable with this “winning WW2” thing.
The Derider is a socialist as far as I’m concerned, debt accretion and central planners don’t accomplish anything.
And if we ever needed to defend ourselves, it should be with private soldiers and voluntary charity.
We should at least get a constitutional amendment to more narrowly define the role of government.
I, for one, would be thrilled to see a Hellfire missile screaming at me, secure in the knowledge it was launched by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Any presidents in the last 80 years not bomb any innocent civilians?
I think Obama has bombed fewer than his predecessors.
Let’s see, Reagan had Grenada, but he just shot a bunch of Cuban assholes there.
He bombed Libya in 1986.
He also trained the Mujahideen — that sure didn’t blow back!
No it didn’t because those Mujahideen went on to become the Northern Alliance, our chief allies against the Taliban.
“I think Obama has bombed fewer than his predecessors.”
When the goal should be “a president who bombs no one unless it’s absolutely necessary”, that’s damning with faint praise.
Obama is a creep, the standard should be defense not countering anything.
The government can’t counter mailman unions, let alone foreign policy crises.
Obama has been the best foreign policy president in the past 80 years.
Next to Jimmy Carter.
Obama has been the best foreign policy president in the past 80 years.
So you must love Bush right? Because they are the same. That is an objective fact.
And I think pushing the USSR over the edge was just a little bit more important that shit-stomping a lame holdover from the 1980s.
Bush started a war in Iraq
Obama ended a war in Iraq
That’s the same because…
HAHAHAHA!
Obama’s main Iraq accomplishment: carry out Bush’s plan to the letter. Then, bomb Libya for no good reason.
Obama also pressured Honduras to put an incipient dictator back in charge after they overthrew him. Everyone involved in that revolution and resisting the pressure to concede is hero.
This article makes it abundantly clear that bombing Lybia was not without purpose.
Sorry. LEGITIMATE purpose. It did not have legitimate purpose.
Getting rid of Gaddafi was not a good idea?
They couldn’t have voted today otherwise.
It had nothing to do with our self-interest, which is the only legitimate basis for foreign policy.
Funny how leftists forget that “only legitimate basis” part, isn’t it?
Remember, they and the Neocons want foreign policy run on an altruistic basis…just like most non-interventionists actually. How they run US FP for the benefit of others is wildly different.
Right you are, Cyto.
Yes the interventionists think they can police the world efficiently, but the government doesn’t do anything well.
Obama followed Bush’s time-table for withdrawl (even though he wanted to extend it). So actually Bush ended the Iraq War. Derp.
Ok, well Truman started the Korean war so it’s really him that ended the cold war.
Double Derp.
You certainly live up to your name DerpRider.
The cold war did not start in Korea nor did it end in Korea, the only point you manage to make there is that you clearly have very poor reasoning ability.
Obama wanted to stay in Iraq longer, and only voted against the war because Bush suggested it. Had a democrat been in power he would have authorized spending for a war.
They’re $$$$$$$$penders, they think the government will solve all problems.
And Susan Rice the best ever Ambassador to the UN.
Hey, remember in 1989 after the Berlin Wall came down and East Germans started to integrate with the West? Remember how, once unified, the Germans elected a government that based its law on a strict interpretation of Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine? Remember how Germans would gang rape the female journalists from other countries who came to report on these developments? Remember how a newly unified Germany attempted to provoke a war with Poland?
Good times.
Remember how we treated the Loyalists after the American Revolution?
How we treated the Indians after the Revolutionary War was over? It was the British that were holding us back from taking their land–that’s a big part of what made us want to get rid of the British!
Remember how we fought a Civil War over some lingering issues regarding freedom some 70 years after the American Revolution was over? How even after the Civil War was over, we still used the government to actively discriminate against and degrade people of African ancestry by way of Jim Crow?
How the police used to harass and arrest black people for trying to leave the South ’cause the landowners needed ’em for cheap labor?
Things weren’t about to get better in Libya so long as they were under a vicious dictator, but the Libyan people could do a whole lot worse than they’re doing right now? And up doing a whole better than we did in the decades after we won our freedom–that’s for sure.
Egypt is fooked, but I think they are mostly a threat to themselves. They may well become the ME’s France.
The other nations: it’s too early to tell. Tunisia is well, Salafi riots aside (that can be dealt with). Syria is a godsend to pro-freedom forces. All of our enemies (Hezbollah, AQ, Russia, etc) all pummel-fucking each other to death. Today’s Libya vote will be interesting.
Ranks right up there with Carter’s brilliant non-support of the Shah, thus enabling the wonderful, liberty-loving Khomeni regime to rise to power.
Man, if only the United States could prop up unpopular dictators forever! That’d be so sweet.
Propping up the Shah would’ve been easy and even just doing it for a little while would’ve allowed progressive forces to come to the fore in Iran. Dropping him was stupid and now Islamist Iran is the root of most of terrorism.
The reason Kholmeini was so successful was because people in Iran absolutely hated the Shah. Waiting would have made it worse.
That wouldn’t have been necessary if we hadn’t deposed Mossadegh.
We didn’t depose Mossadegh the people of Iran did.
The reason Khomeini was so successful in Iran was because America did nothing to stop him. The Shah was hated but waiting would’ve allowed some liberal forces to exist.
That’s sugarcoating it just a bit. The CIA and MI6 were behind the coup
The CIA was behind the failed coup. The extent of their involvement in Mossy’s ouster is unclear. It is clear that the Iranian people had had it with him.
The fact that we overthrew a leader, and it later turned out to be a disaster is good enough reason to not intervene again.
That’s really stupid.
The only disaster was not invading Iran.
We supported South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee because even though he was authoritarian he pursued smart capitalist growth policies. And what happened? Oh yeah, eventually the country became so prosperous that his own people got fed up with him and killed him. Democratic reforms then followed.
Same thing happened in the Philippines with Marcos and probably would have happened in South Vietnam if JFK hadn’t stupidly assassinated Ngo Dihn Diem.
Diem was incredibly unpopular, people were burning themselves alive in the streets to protest his government. Continuing to support him made North Vietnam’s victory inevitable.
Also, the deposing of Sihanouk in Cambodia in favor of Lon Nol.
Also, the deposing of Sihanouk in Cambodia in favor of Lon Nol.
I don’t care, don’t use my money for your lottery ticket foreign policy. Gamble with your own money.
Sometimes it’s a matter of least-worst. Jimmeh didn’t pick the least-worst, but the worst. Same as Prezzydint Unicorn. Now we have Islamist dickheads running the show in Egypt, from the same outfit that Hamas is part of. Super.
Hold on there. Obama is not at fault for the state of Egypt. Mubarak had to go his overthrow was inevitable. What was anybody supposed to do? ‘Hey stop it. Or I’ll get mad’.
One of the few things Obama hasn’t fucked up, then.
Don’t worry. He’s on it. He doesn’t let any stone go unfucked. That’s what makes him different from Bush.
He’s different from Bush?
Oh he goes that extra inch in fucking America up wazoo.
Obama has been worse than Bush. I’m not afraid to say it.
They both suck, but I’ll agree… bad as Bush was, Obama has the edge.
Wonder how much his replacement will suck…
Romney will suck, but he will be an improvement even compared to Bush. I think.
If Romney wins. If not, we have four more years of Obama, which will suck.
Romney will be just as bad, he’ll probably be more aggressive militarily speaking.
Some might say we are doing a good job propping up a homegrown one.
OT: Tattoos and piercings: How young is too young?
I say let’s draw the line at 105. If you reach 105 and still want that nosering and sleeve, I say have at it.
To both right and left wing Americans here, you are both wrong, American blundering in the middle east be it Libya, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon etc. has left all these places worse off.
That is objectively false. Iraq and Libya are both much better off than before. That is an objective fact.
Iran is worse off because our blunder there was to not invade in 1980.
No they are not, having ink on your finger does not make you better off. Baghdad is still to this day one of the most dangerous places cities in the world, that is fact, Libya is even worse. Its one thing being an armchair general, I very much doubt you would have the guts to visit the places on you own, and visiting a well fortified America compound hardly counts.
When you are whining about not visiting places, your argument sucks and you are embarrassing yourself.
Baghdad is not that dangerous anymore. Iraqi wealth and freedom are much great than before. That is a fact. Libya is much more…fluid, but they are still better off than under Khaddaffi.
By what metric is Libya better off today than it was five years ago?
It’s freer.
In the stone your ex-wife, kill the jews and burn shrines and ancient texts sense?
Are you kidding me? It is in no way freer, with Sharia-based law now official. Qaddafi allowed a relatively large degree of personal and financial freedom (though certainly not political freedom), and so did Saddam, while keeping Islamic fundamentalists at bay.
Cyto, what a Keynesian neocon.
Fuck Republicans and Socialists, you people don’t say it enough. Both political parties are incompetent and unworthy of my taxes. Only Libertarianism and self-defense will allow the government to become economically solvent.
You are talking about northern Mali. Totally offbase. Right now, it looks like Libyans just voted for a truly liberal government in a big way.
There are about ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TO ONE FUCKING MILLION DEAD IRAQIS who, I think, might object to your characterization of their situation as being “better off.”
Arch Puddington seems to forget that in 1989 there were not Americans bombing Rumania, East Germany, Poland etc. there the changes were led by civil society. Places like Libya, Iraq etc. were violently transformed by people that are no better than thugs, does anyone seriously believe that Libya, Iraq or Yemen will be like Eastern Europe in 20 years from now ? If you want a better comparison to the “Arab Spring”, it would be something like the what happened to Kenya after its bloody rebellion, or even more bleak what happened to Russia after its uprising in 1917.
This is what Guy Milli?re, a French intellectual think.
http://www.dreuz.info/2012/07/…..lanetaire/ (Here the approximate translation made by Google translator)
Here the correct link to the translated version, sorry for the inconvience. bit.ly/NPQ9mt
Sounds liek a plan dude.
http://www.Top-Anon.tk
Though the Arab Spring has led some regimes to respond with arrests and killings, Puddington remains confident political rights and civil http://www.maillotfr.com/maill…..22_26.html liberties will succeed in the longer run. Since the first Freedom in the World index was published in 1973, he notes, free countries have doubled in number and not-free countries have declined
Puddington has helped record the long-overdue revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and countries in the Freedom in the World 2012 http://www.ceinturesfr.com/cei…..-c-12.html index. Founded in 1941, Freedom House quantifies and ranks the political freedom and civil liberties of every country in the world as “Free,” “Partly Free,” or “Not Free.”