Reduce U.S. military and/or police presence in South Korea Japan Afghanistan Kuwait Iraq or Turkey

Well, essentially my opponent has forfeited this debate. He didn't post an opening round, he forfeited the second, and he cannot make any new arguments in the last... so he's given us nothing to work with. That said, I'll expand a little bit on some of the points I made in the previous round, in case Con comes back to respond. A) The rest of the world looks unfavorably upon America as a bully or dictator for using our military to police the globe [1]. B) Studies show that things haven't improved all that much in Afghanistan since America sent their troops in. There has been a surge of rape, murder, violence, corruption, drug trafficking, women and children's rights are still being stifled, etc. [2]. Meanwhile their country is being plagued by war between the U.S. armed forces and terrorist groups, which citizens say isn't making things better but worse because of all the innocents dying as a result, and the never-ending environment of war. C) Policing the globe hurts our image and foreign relations, as well as can present come conflicts between the U.S. and the U.N. and/or the U.S. and other countries (like France for example) [3]. Indeed the U.S. has scuffled with some of our allies who disagreed with the wars and refused to help us participate. This divisive issue has been very straining. D) Is our presence in other countries actually useful or necessary? Consider, for instance, U.S. goals in places like Afghanistan. One of the main ones were finding Osama bin Ladin, and removing al Qaeda from power there. However new reports suggest Bin Ladin may not even be in Afghanistan, but probably Pakistan if alive at all. Moreover al Qaeda has not been in Afghanistan since 2001, with Gen. Jim Jones, the president's national security adviser, saying that there were less than 100 al Qaeda remaining there [4]. This begs the question... what are we still doing there? E/F) Policing the globe is expensive. We've spent over 368 billion dollars in Afghanistan ALONE [5]. Adding in other countries (Iraq, Kuwait, Japan, South Korea, etc.) and the number increases to trillions. This doesn't seem to be worth it on a cost-benefit analysis; we're seeing the value of the dollar significant decrease, the economy is coming crashing down on us as we know it; many states cannot remotely afford to pay their debt; etc. yet we're still pumping money into OTHER people's economies. Indeed there was a far better (moral) and less expensive way to combat terrorism - perhaps through increasing intelligence and certain strategic military operations instead of occupation. As a result of this massive expense, our deficit has increased to the point where we've had the worst recession since The Great Depression. Our government should be using tax dollars to help Americans, and be far more frugal in terms of spending. We should only have troops where they are NEEDED, and so far, my opponent hasn't done anything to prove that they're NEEDED to protect the interest of Americans in any of these countries. G) The country is sharply divided in this issue. A CNN Poll taken in February 2010, 9 months ago, had 65% of people OPPOSING the wars [6]. We can assume that numbers of non-support have only increased since then, considering we've lost more money, more American lives, and have gained nothing substantial - certainly not on a cost/benefit analysis. With nearly 2/3 of the nation being vehemently opposed to such an endeavor, this is obviously something that needs deeper consideration and examination. Why are we REALLY there? Again Con hasn't given us any reason of why we should or need to be in any of these places thus far. H) Refer to Point B. Many Afghans are being hurt by American presence there, such as the infamous story of American soldiers who killed Afghan citizens for sport, and collected their fingers as trophies [7]. Clearly the Taliban are not the only ones committing human rights violations there. Alright, well, this was a short analysis... Let's see if my opponent comes back for the final round. Good luck! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.enotes.com... [3] http://www.slate.com... [4] http://www.nypost.com... [5] http://www.costofwar.com... [6] http://www.pollingreport.com... [7] http://www.allvoices.com...