Resolved: NATO presence improved the lives of Afghan citizens.

R1: Political StabilityI'm sorry, I seem to be confused as to what resolution we were debating. I was under the impression that it was 'NATO presence improved the lives of Afghan citizens'. Instead my opponent seems to think the resolution is 'Communism may be worse than Capitalism for Afghan citizens'. I was the impression that we were to debate what actually happened in history, not what could have been. I could of course list the failures of the Capitalist system, but that wouldn't be the resolution, now would it? Point of the matter is that the NATO involvement indeed led to the Taliban control as my opponent conceded. This is what happened, NOT what could have been. Furthermore my opponent then states that America did not directly fund the Taliban. I would agree here. American instead funded insurgent groups that would LATER become the Taliban, as noted in my previous sources. MY opponent THEN concedes the fact that "the war-torn region created many refugees" and the United States enacted policies that improve the lives of those displaced. That is fine and dandy, but this is not a case of Afghan lives improving, rather, a case of trying to get Afghan lives back to the way they were BEFORE the war happened. In paragraph six, it appears as if my opponent is again balancing out the evils of war with economic growth. I will get to this later, but let me move on for now. Using my opponent's own logic, I will assert that his claim that 47% of current economic growth pertains to a completely different tempered (which can be seen as anywhere from 1492 to the 1700s) and different places "therefore not being applicable to Afghanistan and is consequently invalid" My opponent also does not mention any involvement of how American invasions have benefited societies today so please extend through my argument concerning the downfalls of American invasion.R2: Consequences of WarMy opponent brushed off my statistics concerning rape in wartime; I thank my opponent as it allowed me to find a new, more damning piece of evidence from a 2010 study: "It said the British-based group Womankind had determined that 87 percent of Afghan women complained of being victims of violence, half of it sexual. It said more than half of marriages involve girls under 16."[1] This is of course a conservative estimate, as many reports of sexual violence in Afghanistan go unreported. This is something that NATO presence has not stopped, and in fact numbers are this high due to the prolonged war NATO has forced Afghanistan into, as sexual violence is FAR more common in war torn countries. As the Afghan population is 31 million, and a safe estimate would be that 50% of those are women, we can estimate that a total of 7.75 million women in Afghanistan were victims of sexual violence. Now, using the same population, let us see how many would have undergone this traumatic experience if we use the estimate that 1/5 women in America (which does not currently have a war being fought on its soil) undergo sexual violence in their lifetime: 3.1 million. That is a difference of 3.65 million women. Now let me repeat that rape is more common in wartime, and that this number does not include the number of men who were raped.This is still a conservative estimate when we remember that many rapes are not reported in Afghanistan. This is due to a strange and horrifying belief that if a women loses her virginity before marriage (even if she was raped) she is impure, ineligible for marriage, and a dark stain on the family she belongs to.[2] This belief leads to hundreds of 'honor killings' of rape victims in Afghanistan.[3] In instances where there is no honor killing involved, a rape victim may be jailed for adultery or even forced to marry the rape victim. This is not even beginning to mention the multitude of women and children murdered and raped by American soldiers; there are hundred of pictures online depicting the crimes.[2] But in my opponent's eyes, there may be rape in Afghanistan, but at least they have cell phones and Internet.But let us move onto my opponent's assertion that terrorism has decreased in Afghanistan. I will simply state that this is false and show you this graph depicting the number of terrorist incidents. Mind you, if you were to look at the source, you'll see that terrorist activity has increased around the globe.[4] Now does that look like a decrease to you? It doesn't matter if they occurred in rural or urban areas, the fact of the matter is that NATO has not stopped it, and thus has not made the lived better.My opponent then curiously tries to justify the fact that child soldiers are still being recruited by the Taliban by asserting 'at least numbers of Taliban members fell'. True, at least they fell... for some time. But even in those years numbers fell, children were STILL being conscripted forcibly, being taken advantage of sexually, and still being forced to kill. And although NATO presence decreased recently, we must take a look at the number of troops still deployed. About 10000 American forces alone are still to be situated in Afghanistan with 1000 more as a part of a counter terrorism group. This is not including the several thousand non-American NATO members to be left there. The number of troops after NATO leaves (they have not left yet, so presence continues) is to be similar to that in the first few years of the war, before the Obama administration sent a surge of troops over to Afghanistan. So let me repeat, presence will continue, and unlike my opponent's assertion, it will not be minimal, rather, simply lessened than the rush Obama has sent to Afghanistan. As for the new rise of the Taliban, it just shows that NATO was unsuccessful in trying to stop them and that their presence in the country indeed will not improve the lives of citizens.Let me remind you of the resolution. NATO presence improved the lives of Afghan citizens. Well, it seems to me that NATO presence is still going on, and will still continue, even if it has diminished. Is my opponent going to assume that diminished presence means NO presence? Is he to assume that the resolution calls for increased NATO presence? No, it simply states NATO presence. Now, as for my opponent's last two statements, he asserts the number of cases of violence of women are going down and that women's right are increasing. That is in many ways, false. First I would like to mention that in an Afghanistan, a 2009 law was passed condoning spousal rape amongst the Shia population.[5] The law requires wives to submit to their husbands sexual demands whether they themselves consent or not. Many women were in fact arrested for the 'moral crime' of resisting this law. So as for women's rights it seems like Afghanistan has taken one step forward and two steps back. Crime against women in fact increased 28% according to the UN, including "Cutting the nose, lips and ears. [and] Committing public rape,"[6]Which leads me back to paragraph six. Under NATO, GDP has indeed increased. Now let us put this into perspective. There is more Internet, cell phones, and roads. But this was all built upon a mountain of bodies and years of endless war, death, rape, and increasing terrorist activity. Two questions remain. "Was it worth it?" and "Do the scales balance out?" What good does wealth do you if you are suffering from PTSD after being raped, or forced to kill or after your family was murdered? Are you truly better off?Sources:[1] http://ca.reuters.com...[2] (ABSOULTELY NSFW+Trigger Warning) http://www.rawa.org...[3] http://www.khaama.com...[4] http://www.washingtonsblog.com...[5] http://www.girlsgonewise.com...[6] http://america.aljazeera.com...