Resolution is to long and will be in the first Round.

Introduction: Obama's Afghanistan Plan will help stop the constant terrorist threat from Al Qaeda, and will finally help towards capturing Osama Bin Laden. For this reason, my partner and I stand in firm affirmation for the resolution which states, President Obama's plan for increasing troops in Afghanistan is in the United States' best interest. Definitions: United states' – The current and future citizens of the United States of America, as well as the USA's government infrastructure. Best interest - Here, best interest is defined to be: better than the negation of the resolution. Contention 1: Al Qaeda is still in existence, active and operating, and gaining more members and allies According to Obama's National Security Adviser James Jones, "...there are still Al Qaeda operations being planned and executed from the Pakistani, Afghan tribal region." He later continues and states that addressing that is "...probably the single most important thing we can do to change the fortunes on the Afghan side of the border." He says that Al Qaeda has less than 100 operatives in Afghanistan, and that this is a good thing. One of our goals is to leave an Afghanistan that doesn't allow for the return of those radical groups to be able to organize, train, and equip themselves and launch other attacks against us and our allies any time in the future. He later asserts that Al Qaeda has allies now, and that they are combining with the Taliban. Al Qaeda is responsible for 9/11, and most recently, the bombing attempt on Christmas of last year. That is just more evidence that Al Qaeda isn't something to not take seriously. Eliminating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan will be a huge step towards making the US and its allies a safer place. My partner and I believe that that is in the best interest of the United States of America. Contention 2: Osama Bin Laden is still in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region In the past, there have been many incidences where a person such as Osama Bin Laden could have been eliminated by the USA, but wasn't and it turned into a greater trouble. For example, after Germany surrendered in WWII on May 8th 1945, the renowned General George S. Patton quickly asserted his belief that the Soviet Union would soon cease to be an allied force. The Soviets liberated 25,000 US POW's in WWII, but none of them returned to the US. He strongly recommended and urged his superiors to continue on into the Soviet Union and take out Joseph Stalin, while the Soviets were weak, under supplied, and vulnerable. The president did not take his advice, and as a result, Stalin was able to kill, according to Robert Conquest a British historian, approximately 20 million people. Anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of those people could have been saved if the US had eliminated him. Another example is that shortly following the Korean War, 5 star General Douglas MacArthur expressed a desire to go into China and take out Mao Tse Tung, but President Truman did not want to do this. If the US had gone in and eliminated him, we would have saved more than 20 million lives, and China would not be the extremely dangerous force that it is today. Yet another example is: After operation Desert Storm in Iraq, General Norman Schwarzkopf wanted to continue into Baghdad and kill Saddam Hussein, but George Bush Senior did not want to do that. Resultingly, the US had to go back into Iraq later and capture him. This Iraq war has cost US tax payers a total of 694 billion dollars. 694 billion dollars that could have gone else where if the US had taken out Saddam Hussein the first time. History has repeated itself many times, and it's time that we realize our past mistakes and prevent any future mistakes. Obama's plan is a huge step forward in stopping this repeating pattern of mistakes by capturing Osama Bin Laden. If we do not capture him, then who knows what kind of consequences will ensue.