Imperialism (Strong nations Striving to Conquer Weaker Nations)

"Let's start with deaths, because I think that Pro is pretty flippant about these. How many people died in Iraq? Most of the available statistics are pretty inaccurate, mainly based on reported deaths. This study, however, aimed to determine those numbers by going to Iraq and polling the heads of households and siblings across Iraq. It found that there were approximately 405,000 deaths attributable to the war, with at least another 56,000 that likely resulted from households forced to flee." Let's round this to 500,000 deaths resulting from the 2003 US Invasion of Iraq. Even if all of these casualties were Iraqi civilian casualties, (in other words, not foreign soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, or Iraqi terrorists) that'd only be slightly over 1% of the total population of Iraq. Now, according to this source the Iraq-Iran War killed more than 500,000 people. http://en.wikipedia.org... Saddam also initiated genocide against his own people. Just one example is the Al-Anfal Campaign of the 1980s, which killed an estimated 50,000-180,000 civilians. http://en.wikipedia.org... Saddam killed an estimated one million Iraqis in total, according to this source: http://www.iraqfoundation.org... Now, how many more people would that guy have killed had he remained in office and lived for another ten or twenty years? I conclude that many lives would've been saved had this "American Imperialism" that was the Invasion of Iraq happened a decade or two earlier. "Now, Pro would like to attribute these results to insurgent groups. This assertion is wrong. Again, in that study, more than 60% of these deaths were the direct result of shootings, bombings, airstrikes, or other violence, with the rest coming from stress-related heart attacks or ruined sanitation and hospitals, many of which were destroyed by us. The bombings that occurred upon our invasion alone were estimated to have killed 3,200-7,500 civilians, along with 30,000 enemy combatants and the losses of 172 U.S. and U.K. troops." Any civilian deaths were an unfortunate side effect of war, and not America's intention. But even you admitted that these bombings killed more terrorists than civilians. "Pro provides two justifications for this. He says that the U.S. is creating stability and rebuilding infrastructure, and our provision of freedom. Pro even admits that this only lasts so long as we are in the country. In this, he's partially right " the insurgency caused a large number of deaths and destruction even while we had troops there. Problem is that we're not there anymore. Pro doesn't actually discuss this at all we left. Why did we leave? Because the cost was tremendous, the number of troops we were still losing was too high, the Iraqi people wanted us gone, and the benefits we received were too few. These are also the reasons we're on the verge of leaving Afghanistan, though I'll get to that shortly. And how have they been doing since we left? Are they still free? Well, their democratic candidates for elections are being killed off, so that's unlikely. Acts of terrorism remain consistently high (and they're still losing vital infrastructure in the process), their military is still relatively weak, and their own government is having a hard time working together for the common good." Had the US taken over the nation's government and taxed the people ourselves, instead of providing them with services without asking for any tax money to handle it, things would've been easier financially on us. We could've created a supplemental Iraqi Army that the US controlled and we could get our own soldiers out of Iraq. "Afghanistan doesn't look any better. Coalition military fatalities are above 3000[5] and almost 20,000 civilians have lost their lives. Pro spends no time justifying this, and given the challenges they face in getting a stable government up and running that's not affected by Taliban influence and their still relatively weak military, that's not surprising.[7] The insurgency is less problematic here than in Iraq, but their relative stability and the transition to democracy have been slow to come about, and that's in our presence. We will eventually have to leave." The Civil Wars in Afghanistan from 1989 to 2001 caused 400,000 casualties. The War in Afghanistan (2001-present) caused 47,246"61,603 casualties. Had the "American Imperialism" happened sooner, a lot of lives would've been saved. Once again Con only proves my point. "And this is the problem. Pro would have voters believe that these invasions could turn into imperialist power grabs and keep us there forever. But he's provided no reason to support the U.S., or any other country, taking that step. I've given a number of reasons why not, but I'll add to them that the international community stands opposed to such imperialist actions, and therefore we will harm our relations with many of our allies and enemies. That's not to mention that forcing imperialism would do more harm than good to both countries." What I suggest is that we take over their government and use their taxes to rebuild their land and build and Afghan Army. We wouldn't have to station our troops there; they'd already have their own army, and all we'd be doing would be giving them aid. It wouldn't cost nearly as much! "Pro then provides a list of African countries that have functioned poorly in the absence of imperialism. He's wrong on two fronts here. First, they are all examples of imperialism gone wrong. Somalia went through 5 stages of imperialism, ruled first by a Arabic Sultanate, then it was Dervish, then Italian, then British, then a Trust Territory under the UN. Rwanda was ruled by Germany and then Belgium. Angola was Dutch, then Portugese. Ethiopia was subjected to Italian rule over much of their history. Many of these problems are the direct result of their experience with imperialism, which dramatically reduced their stability and made it impossible to establish any sort of long term government. They weren't helped by the fact that, being subjugated by these countries, they had many of their most important resources stripped and were forced into jobs that would benefit the more powerful European nations." That's true, but don't forget that all the genocides I mentioned happened after the European powers withdrew from Africa. Perhaps their European rulers could've prevented these genocides and civil wars were they still in the country even today? Also, please prove to me that European occupation caused their civil wars and genocides. "Second, Pro has provided absolutely no analysis for why imperialism would have solved for any of this. If anything, the reality that imperialism existed in their backgrounds shows that more of it wouldn't have benefited their countries. So long as he doesn't give any reason to believe that these nations would be bettered by the experience, the realities of the destabilization of war and occupation are always going to be more likely to cause harm than imperialism is to lead to benefit." Simple: let's say you live in the African nation of Wogotana. You are of the Banana Tribe. In this nation there is also the Coconut Tribe. One day, the two ethnic tribes begin fighting. Here comes the British Army! The fighting is broken up, and refugee camps are quickly established for use by both tribes, a camp guarded by the British. But let's say that there are no British. Then what? In that case, the Banana and Coconut tribes will kill each other in the thousands every day while all the European politicians wonder if maybe they should get involved. "So, let's talk about benign imperialism. The reality is that a country will never engage in this practice if it doesn't see any benefits for itself " the financial, human, and political costs are simply too large to ignore solely for the benefit of another nation. That's why benign imperialism isn't really benign " it's simply a justification for transgressions." Are you kidding me? The US has never directly gained anything from any conflict we've been in! At most we got rid of a problem or a threat to our nation. "We could look at Panama, where our interventions led directly to the Watermelon War, the Thousand Days' War, innumerable deaths among the workers forced to build the Panama Canal, and indirectly led to a series of military coups in the 50's and 60's. We were trying to help free them from tyranny under the Republic of Colombia, or so we said." The Watermelon war caused 17 deaths. It's not even worth mentioning. http://wars.findthebest.com... The Panama Canal, on the other hand, now generates money for Panama. http://answers.yahoo.com... As for Haiti, that's unfortunate what happened to their roads. But had we stayed in the country, their roads would still be good today. I await my opponent's response.