War in Afghanistan

Thanks, Pro. 1. My opponent says I have neglected her point that we will not be continuing war in Afghanistan, and also says that I have skipped over some of her "key points." First, I specifically addressed and clarified that Pro's proposition - using drones and other missiles - is, by definition, continuing WAR. In fact, in the last round I specifically defined war and explained exactly why her proposition counted as warfare. She chose not to respond to this argument at all and instead said I ignored this point, when in fact I responded to it and she is the one who did not make a sufficient argument against my rebuttal. Once again, for the audience, Pro believes we should use tactical missiles and other forces to fight - which by definition is considered war (see last round's citation). Additionally, Pro has not pointed out one argument that I dropped (because I haven't dropped any) whereas I have specifically singled out the arguments that Pro did not address. I welcome the audience to find any "key points" that I may have missed to post along with their RFD. 2. Pro writes, "Con must not have understood my Pakistan advantage which says that by doing the affirmative plan we stabilize Pakistan." However, you'll notice that Pro never clarifies what her point really did mean, so we have no reason to accept that I misunderstood it instead of Pro not just being able to defend it. What I said under this point in the last round was: "Pro writes, 'As I stated above in my last argument the war in Afghanistan has gotten nowhere but we do need to stay in the country for stability issues.' May I ask what stability issues Pro is referring to if not training troops and keeping troops on the ground to secure the area? Moreover I'd like an answer to another question I asked in the last round pertaining to this topic: If there are only 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan, then why perpetuate war in Afghanistan?" Pro chose to ignore both of those questions, indicating that I did not misunderstand anything and she simply chose not to respond. Pro continues in this second point saying, "The con has also neglected my second advantage which is terrorism so say you don't totally believe the aff can solve Pakistan stability because con did not argue terrorism in the last round you cannot let them bring it back up in their next speech..." Nowhere in the last round did my opponent ever mention thwarting terrorism specifically, ergo there was nothing for me to respond to -- so I have no intention of discussing it in this round either. Moreover the fact that Pro never emphasized this as being even remotely relevant, and then having the audacity to condemn me for not responding to something she mentioned (when in fact I have pointed out all of her dropped arguments all along, and she continued to ignore them) is nothing short of bad conduct. Clearly her last round was a last ditch effort to discredit my arguments, though nothing she says is accurate if you look back over the course of this debate. Her main point here is, "So even if we don't solve for Pakistan stability which we do, we still solve for terrorism. Which is still a huge deal...." However, nowhere did I ever say Pakistan couldn't be stabilized, nor did I ever say anything about terrorism not being an issue. Instead, the questions I brought up were how creating stability in Pakistan had anything to do with war in Afghanistan. My opponent chose not to respond. However, she did mention that withdrawing from Afghanistan would help strengthen relations with Pakistan, though this ignores my original question and was not backed up with any evidence other than a random quote. Pro continues to give a fourth benefit - which is not only bad conduct because you're not supposed to introduce new arguments in the final round - but she completely plagiarized it which is most definitely bad conduct. Indeed I figured it must be so considering it was the only aspect of her argument that did not have bad spelling and grammar. Her paragraph beginning, "The fourth benefit to be gained by a military withdrawal would be the opportunity for the government of Pakistan to erase the stigma of being a United States pawn..." and the following sentences thereafter can be found written word for word on another other website [1]. As such, I don't think I am obligated to respond to this contention in any way; however, my quick response to this would be reiterating the fact that it has nothing to do with continuing war in AFGHANISTAN. That article supports a significant decrease in American military action from the Middle East, whereas my opponent is advocating military action -- just not in the form of troops. 3. Pro says that I "MUST" be voted down because I have not given any evidence in my favor from someone with the "right credentials." I apologize to Pro if she expected me to plagiarize like she did or take my argument word for word by copy and pasting other people instead of doing the proper thing like making my own argument. I much prefer to use reliable sources to back up my case. Nonetheless this is a terrible suggestion; nothing about it is relevant or even true -- that's not how voting on debates works. Moreover I've been polite and cordial throughout this whole debate whereas my opponent has not. Ahh, I digress. == CONCLUSION == I specifically asked Pro what stabilizing Pakistan had to do with perpetuating war in Afghanistan. Pro responded by saying it would help their foreign relations, etc. However as I pointed out, the source that affirms this conclusion supports military withdrawal from the region -- not just troop withdrawal. It wouldn't be effective if we removed our troops but still kept bombing the area; our violent presence would still be felt and still have the same impact. In the last round I also pointed out how she said reports would be filed, etc., regarding knowing when and where to bomb, and I asked who would be doing the reporting without troop informants on the ground. Pro never responded. I also asked why it wouldn't be beneficial to keep troops there if training Afghan troops was among our primary goals. Even though I had brought this up even earlier in the first round (and again in the second), Pro still never responded. This was important for her to respond to, considering I asked if it was specifically referring to equipping Afghan troops with the wherewithal to secure their grounds without American troops. Most importantly, I asked Pro why it was important to perpetuate war in Afghanistan when there were only about 100 al Qaeda members left there. Once again, Pro never responded. This was of course my main contention and argument; Pro chose to completely drop it. Another huge contention of mine was promoting diplomacy -- of course Pro never responded. I mentioned bribery; Pro never responded. I pointed out that even without troops, our presence in the Middle East (violent, as Pro suggests) would still perpetuate conflict and take away from other pressing issues in the region. Pro never responded. I concluded by pointing out that the terrorists are likely to just move to another country, and surprisingly Pro agreed even highlighting that in her final round. However, this is certainly in my favor -- If the terrorists are likely gone already, then I see no reason to perpetuate war in Afghanistan. Instead, our aims there should be non-violent, and if we are using violence or other military means, it should be in the place where the bad guys actually are and not where they were. *** In short, Pro dropped every single one of my arguments and plagiarized hers. Vote CON. [1] http://www.unc.edu...