Operation Northwoods Proves That The US May Be Capable Of Endorsing Or Committing Terrorism

1) My opponent lists his reasons for interpreting Operation Northwoods as "not actual terrorism"My opponent would like to use the legal definitions of terrorism as oppose to common definitions. The main difference between the common definitions and the DoD definition, as you might have noticed, is the word unlawful. "the calculated use of unlawful violence or the threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear and coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious or ideological".This is the first thing we need to address, before moving on. Should lawfulness disrupt our interpretation of these acts as terrorism? I very much believe it should not. I'll be working forward with my opponent's provided definition of "terrorism", less the word "unlawful". To illustrate that, let's first go over some of the proposals my opponent highlighted from the documents.--Blowing up a pilotless drone near Cuban waters, and pretending the wreckage was of a military plane shot down by Castro's forces.This proposal is a simulated use of violence to inculcate fear to coerce & intimidate both our government and society in pursuit of goals both political and ideology.-- Launching a pretend terror campaign in the Miami area and in Washington, even faking some woundings. My opponents makes an attempt at downgrading this proposal to a "pretend terror campaign" and "faking some woundings."The proposal reads specifically as follows:"We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated).""We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees un the US even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.""Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government."-- Recruiting friendly Cubans to stage an attack on the U.S. naval base, riots near the base, and sabotage inside the base.Important note here; staging does not negate the fact that riots near the base will be genuine. Just to give some context here, this is referring to turning a peaceful protest into a riot by staging instigation.Other proposals were included in the actual report if the reader is interested. These included things such as plane hijackings."Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba. Conccurently, genuine defections of Cuban civil and military air and surface craft should be encouraged."This notion that genuine defections of Cuban civil and military air and surface craft should be encouraged is particularly concerning because it emphasizes just what lengths our military intelligence felt able and willing to go in order to "inculcate fear and coerce or intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political" 2) My opponent suggests the US system is incapable of endorsing terrorism.This notion is quite novel and I won't spend much time on it. It's quite clear that our government feels what they did was lawful. It may have, infact, been lawful. If enacting the proposition was unlawful, I think it's safe to assume that their priority would be to seek the cooperation of the executive branch in working to make it legal. Today, our lower branches of government are hardly afforded the time needed to read new legislation that they are expected to rule on, let alone the time to interpret and consider that new legislation as it relates to current law. It seems reasonable to assume that the groundwork for such subversive operations had been laid long before this one proposal.The US government is capable. To embrace the notion that they are simply incapable is naive. If this notion seems even the least bit tempting to the reader, they're allowing an understandable bias to interfere with the reasoning. 3) The Posse Comitatus Act limits the government's power to use US forces domestically. Irrelevant. Again, you can generally assume that a debate for the legality of all this existed prior to the proposal. Bringing in a legal context, here, only distracts from the debate. We can have this debate without bringing in a slew of clean and official legal references to enhance our argument.Nonetheless, I'll indulge my opponent before we move on to Round 2. My hope, however, is that we can ditch the unnecessary legal context and move forward on the assumption that everything proposed in "Operation Northwoods" is legal. "The Act only specifically applies to the United States Army and, as amended in 1956, the United States Air Force. While the Act does not explicitly mention the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, due to them being naval services, the Department of the Navy has prescribed regulations that are generally construed to give the Act force with respect to those services as well" (https://en.wikipedia.org...)---I suggest to my opponent that the proposals were, in fact, proposals to commit terrorism against American citizens. You may define it as lawful terrorism, or unlawful terrorism. I propose it is terrorism, nonetheless.To clarify within established definitions:The proposals of "Operation Northwoods" are aimed at "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear and coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political or ideological."