The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts

Response to Intervention is mitigation My point I was making was not that mitigation did not have to be militarily. My point that I was making was mitigation had to be making less severe. I raised this point because many of my opponent's applications did not actually make the conflict less severe, thus do not fall under the resolution. Just for the fun of it, North Korean conflict in fall of 2013 was an example where diplomacy made a conflict less severe. Conclusion: Mitigation MUST be making less severe, thus my opponent's examples she has brought up are not all valid. Conclusion 2: Whether its militarily or diplomatically it does not matter, as long as we made the conflict less severe. Response to "Resolution is absolute" I agree that a moral obligation can morally obligate you to one thing many times. HOWEVER, my opponent dropped the part of the argument that said "because international conflicts is plural, and plural means two or more, therefore the obligation is to TWO OR MORE conflicts." This was an important part of the argument. Sure we may be morally obligated to mitigate in more than two circumstances, but the minimum is two. the fact is a singular obligation, if not specified, requires that you act in all circumstances. However, because it does specify, using the term international conflicts, we can see it is two or more conflicts that we must be morally obligated to. Conclusion: My burden of proof just as I stated in my last speech is to prove the US has a moral obligation to mitigate two or more international conflicts. Response to my opponent's extensions I have already said that there are only some conflicts that threaten our national security. There are more than you may think, but I do agree that not all of them are potential breaches of national security. Because the resolution is not absolute, not all conflicts need to threaten national security. I don't believe I ever said, cost doesn't matter, although pardon me if I did. The point I was trying to make is that, when in conflict, national security should be valued above economic stability. Conflicts that are potential breaches of national security are mitigated to uphold our national security and to keep our citizens safe, even if it costs along the way. Keep in mind the resolution says "The US has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts" IT DOES NOT SAY "The US should mitigate international conflicts." There is a fine line between the two. Just because we have a moral obligation does not mean we should do it. This is the whole, End justifies the means, factor. If we want to achieve national security, that's one thing, but we must make sure if we mitigate, other immoral consequences won't occur. HOWEVER, that does not stop us from having a moral obligation to it. I have a moral obligation to stop a drug cartel from killing a baby, but if it will get me killed in the process, I most likely won't do it. It's the same sort of idea with the resolution. Response to my opponent's extension to Contention 2 (1) Our military can be in two places at once...it is right now. For instance, we have troops in Afghanistan, and also in Iraq. Certain squads went to Afghanistan, others went to Iraq. To only fight one enemy at a time is rather old-school, back when armies were smaller. The US now has a pretty large army that can split up and go multiple places at the same time. This fact is helpful to us because if there are two simultaneous conflicts going on that are harmful to our national security (As in the case of the N. Korean conflict I brought up earlier) then we can mitigate them both at the same time. (2) While in some cases, it breeds resentment, it still protects our national security. It seems that my opponent is under the inclination that not entering the first gulf war would have saved lives and time. However, it most definitely would have not. If the caliphate was formed, than a war would have broken out between Europe and the middle east. Eventually, the US probably would have gotten involved, but even if they had not, it would still have been a world war. By mitigating the gulf war, we prevented a third world war. Second, it was not because we mitigated the gulf war the 9/11 occurred. In fact, representative Ron Paul called this notion "absurd." In fact, in the opening paragraph of Osama Bin Laden's letter to the American people says it was for RELIGIOUS PURPOSES ONLY. Read for yourself, ""What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you? The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam...It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme." Of course, "reigning supreme" means an international, worldwide caliphate where Sharia is forced upon all resisting non-Muslim nations." It was the spread of Islam that resulted in 9/11, not us entering the Gulf War. So while it may lead to resentment in some cases, most conflicts that we choose to mitigate still protect our national security. So Intervention DOES NOT undermine our national security. Response to my opponent's extension of Contention 3 Neighbors should mitigate if it does not involve our national security. For instance with Syria, we should not mitigate, because our national security is not being compromised. However, if Iran wants to mitigate, they have better reason, because they are close by. However, again, this resolution is not absolute, it needs not be proven that The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate every international conflicts. ON THAT NOTE, If you'll recall I stated national security was value and standard in my first speech. Because of that, it automatically means that the United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts when national security is threatened. Remember, the affirmative has the burden of interpretation, and are allowed to provide a standard, or a bright line. Seeing how it did not come up in my opponent's first speech, I thought that she understood and accepted. However now that she is making arguments that say "not all conflicts are potential breaches of national security" I must restate the point. My opponent is probably going to argue, pro can't do that, that is not allowed, or something along those lines. HOWEVER, seeing how we are following regular Lincoln-Douglas debate format, the affirmative has the power to interpret a standard, a value, and a criterion. NONETHELESS, my opponent still can argue my standard, but has to break down my standard before she can make arguments claiming I have lost because not all conflicts will harm our national security. Response to my opponent's Global Response I would like to correct my opponent on one topic. Voting Pro does NOT mean we are obligated to intervene whenever the circumstances of a war between two nations arise. It means we are MORALLY obligated. A regular obligation can be LEGAL OR MORAL. Legal obligations are something that we MUST do. Moral obligations are something that we morally inclined to do but may choose not to do, such as the example with the drug cartel. So voting for Pro preserves our national security, and reminds the government that if needed, we should mitigate to keep you and me safe. At the same time, voting for Con will give us a government that doesn't place national security first. Voting for Con will give you a possibly safer economy, but at the end of the day, our national security will have been breached many times. How would you like to live through a pearl harbor attack every month? If we value cost before national security, or if we value our military more than national security, than that is what will happen in the long run. Lets real quick look at the TSA. If we would have valued privacy above national security, than we would have ended up with a terrorist attack at the latest super bowl, former President George Bush would have been killed in January of 2014 in a pentagon attack, among other unknown circumstances. So for that reason, we valued national security above privacy, and now we have stopped over 12 terrorist attacks and protected the United States and her citizens. Response to the rebuttals of my case. My opponent completely dropped my Social Contract argument, proving we have a moral obligation to uphold national security. By dropping this, my opponent has agreed to it and therefore should no longer be an object in todays debate. She also dropped the claim I made with support of John Locke and the Constitution that stated national security is paramount, so again, that should no longer be an object in today's debate. Debate has occurred on this topic in this round, but seeing how she dropped my proof for the supremacy of national security, than she has "agreed" to my argument. I encourage the readers to go into my last speech and find where I addressed these three applications. In truth, I did not drop these applications. With the Gulf war, my opponent is committing the pro hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Just because the Gulf War came right before Iran's nuclear program, does not mean it CAUSE Iran's nuclear program. In fact, the Gulf War helped discourage the nuclear program. If we would have not mitigated, than the caliphate would have been formed, leading to a non-opposed nuclear program in Iran. Because we did mitigate, Iran's nuclear program was decreased due to effective nuclear raids. Just in case the readers or my opponent is still in doubt of the fact that the mitigation leads to national security, I will offer 14 more applications. 1. War in Afghanistan 2. Conflict in Phillippines 3. Conflict in Horn of Africa 4. Trans-Sahara operation 5.War in Yemen 6. War in Pakistan 7.War in Kashmir 8.The Moro insurgency. In summary, because of dropped arguments, it stands that national security is paramount and morally obligatory, so please vote for security, that yes, the US has a moral obligation to mitigate int. conflict. Thanks!