And they said it couldn't be done! They said, "gee, those people don't have any historical experience with democracy; they won't know what to do with it. Should we really try and impose our western values on them?"
And the answer is, "Yep."
WASHINGTON - As the political battle intensifies over President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to Iraq and the Middle East, an influential human rights organization, Freedom House, has found that the past year brought significant improvements in personal and political rights across the region.Reports of increased freedom emerged from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian territories, and observers attributed the results to the Bush administration's support of fledgling democracies worldwide.
The findings were released yesterday as part of Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2006 report, a global survey of political rights and civil liberties published annually by the organization since 1972. The report evaluates countries based largely on criteria drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and rates countries under the categories "political rights" and "civil liberties" on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 indicating the greatest level of freedom.
This year's Freedom in the World based its evaluations on events that took place between December 1, 2004, and November 30. During that time, according to the study, the number of electoral democracies increased from 119 to 122, the most in the report's 33-year history.
In the Middle East, the sweep of successful democratic elections was the decisive factor in improving the region's ratings, Freedom House's research director and a co-editor of Freedom in the World, Arch Puddington, said yesterday.
The most significant change, Mr. Puddington said, took place in Lebanon. Freedom House uses countries' numerical ratings to divide nations into three categories: "free," "partly free," and "not free." This year, Lebanon transitioned from "not free" to "partly free," largely owing to its "Cedar Revolution" in February and March, Mr. Puddington said.{...}
Go read the whole thing.
{Hat Tip: Fausta}
Posted by Kathy at December 20, 2005 10:16 AM | TrackBack