Resolved: President Obama's plan for increasing troops in Afghanistan is in the US best interest."

I think I will be able to demonstrate that while it would be desirable to increase stability in Afghanistan and reduce global terror, the strategy that is being proposed by the Obama administration will not achieve these ends. C1: That the instability in Afghanistan is one of the reasons why al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists have been able to flourish in this area. There are two main flaws in this argument. One is that stability is necessarily harmful to the efforts of terrorist organizations. Stability or instability is not intrinsically correlated with the success or failure of terrorist organizations. The term stability is frequently used by the First World media with a connotation of Western control, but this is hardly what stability really means. Afghanistan was quite stable under the rule of the Taliban despite the fact that this was extremely undesirable for both the United States and the majority of the population of Afghanistan. This stability was highly conducive to conducting terrorism. Thus, it is not just stability that must be achieved but a form of stability that is detrimental to terrorism. As it stands the domestic Afghan government is extremely corrupt and can hardly be expected to prevent terror without external supervision. The second problem here is the assumption that the Obama strategy will make Afghanistan more stable. Deploying additional troops to Afghanistan can hardly be expected to reduce the amount of violence or the tension of the situation. The amount of violence that has occurred as a result of the war can only be expected to ultimately reduce the long term stability of the region. Furthermore, by creating an environment of violence and tension, the US encourages terrorism because that is exactly the sort of environment in which terrorism thrives. The troops that are deployed to Afghanistan will only cause more instability and violence which can be blamed on the US and ultimately used as propaganda by al Qaeda. Any short term stability achieved through brute force will not outweigh this. C2: That increasing stability in Afghanistan would put us (by this I assume you mean the United States) in a better position to counter terrorism. I will again state that by stability you mean control by Western powers since not all forms of stability are favorable. Technically speaking, I agree with this contention. Increasing stability (control) in Afghanistan would reduce terror. However, this is based on the assumption that the Obama strategy will actually achieve this, which is very unlikely. US forces cannot remain in Afghanistan indefinitely and the withdrawal schedule proposed by the Obama administration would certainly not allow for all the existed problems to be solved. The Afghan government, as I stated before, is corrupt and inept. The Afghan army is pathetic in comparison to the US forces that are currently being used for security and it shows so signs of improving in the near future. C3: That majority of the American population is in support of this plan. The assumption here is that because US public opinion favors something, it is therefore in the best interest of the US. It is a complete logical irrationality that just because a large number of people think something, it must be a good idea. Disregarding that, US public opinion on issues like this tends to fluctuate a lot. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, a large number of Americans supported it. If you asked those same people today I doubt they would view the war as favorably. The fact that the Obama administration has been actively supporting this strategy skews public opinion even further. Conclusion: Though the end goal of reducing terrorism may be desirable, the strategy supported by my opponent will not achieve this. Furthermore, the points he offers in support of it will do not withstand scrutiny. They assume that because the goals of the plan are desirable, the plan itself is desirable. However, if the plan will not work in a practical sense than the desirability of its goals is not relevant. Sources: . http://en.wikipedia.org... - This Wikipedia article demonstrates how US public opinion on an issue such as war can drastically change. . http://en.wikipedia.org...(2001%E2%80%93present) - This discusses the overall War in Afghanistan, including general details of Barack Obama's current strategy.