This house supports the use of drones by the military

What are we talking about? The statement "This house supports X" means "X should be policy", or "X is justified". So when we debate "The use of drones by the military is justified", we are debating the resolution. A reasonable interpretation of the resolution is "The military's use of drones is justified", or how "this house supports how the drones by the military are used". One can easily interpret the resolution to be more general to mean the military being able to use drones, however it is clear the implication is not to debate whether the military should be allowed to use RC Racers, or other hypotheticals which don't pertain to reality. So I agree with my opponent that we are debating both in military strikes and in non-combat purposes - if we have reason to believe the military's use of drones is unjustified, then we have reason to reject the resolution. Of course, this is within reason: picking faults at mistakes does not underpin, nor should it underpin, my case. I pick fault with the philosophy of the use of military drones. If the case for the military use of drones does not fulfil its burden, then we clearly have no reason to accept the motion. I'll spend this round rebutting my opponent's case. I'll focus on his primary two arguments first. Regarding case on whether drones reduce non-target casualties, I've already responded to this in my formation of argument - drone warfare classifies civilians as targets - yet my opponent does not respond. Regarding drones' ability to obtain data, this is massively overstated. As already stated, their ability to recognise targets is abysmal, excluding the Raven (which, as it is used when in sight, does not classify as a UAV[1]). The quality of all visuals is useless[2] as we can observe for ourselves. The advantage of real-time information is irrelevant: modern comms systems means we are constantly in contact with troops if needs be, for less cost. Is the proposition seriously going to contend that we should construct cumbersome morally dubious-at-best drones when we can use talksets instead? Onto my own arguments:Clash Point One - Drones are as bad as planes or missiles. I feel the first thing, and in fact only thing to say here is that all my opponent shows is that my case includes an opposition to using just planes and aerial vehicles to wage wars. My points apply to air-only fighting as well. I accept this as a fiat, though it certainly is not a criticism that needs rebutting. My opponent's rebuttal to the distinguishing problem is wholly assuming I support the use of planes-only when waging war, which my case does not. Further, my opponent's rebuttal to the international law problem is the same: I accept that my plan does not like the use of jetplanes to bomb civilian targets. And my opponent's point on the assassination of civilains by missiles is equally abhorrent: my case rejects both. As such, my cases of the assassination by drone argument, the international law argument and the bystander problem argument remain intact. Clash Point Two - Drones push us into warsMy opponent first says he "will not take a position on any particular military policy regarding where to employ drones, because it is not part of this debate". However, this was my major contention. The ability to use cheap drones to fight makes drones popularly used in other nations to fight and attack targets, without declaring war. This is a direct result of the ability to use drones to fight. There have been no such "tacit approvals" in neither Yemen nor Somalia, and Pakistan on numerous occasions have publicly denounced the use of drones in their country - the article, found in the opinion section of the newpaper, derives its facts solely from an interpretation of a man walking away from a meeting with the US smiling - the phrase "making mountains out of molehills" does not do justice. My argument is this: drones, by their intrinsic nature of being able to be used by a government, make wars spring up around and in our nations without the approval of the people. Their nature causes undemocratically elected wars to arise (and the fact that only a few hundred families are ruined by the arbitrary death of a member of the family is no defence) and subvert the right of the people to choose what wars the government fight in. The evidence is clear: not only have I given three cases of many where drones are used, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, (notice Yemen is not addressed by my opponent, the key example of my case) to cull human beings, but the rational reason for the cause. Focusing purely on evidence is short-sighted: we cannot allow something to go on because it hasn't been shown to be false - we have to show it to be beneficial in theory first. And, both in practice and in theory, drones cause wars. My opponents other defence, however, is to say we are not at war with Yemen and Afghanistan. My opponent certainly has a strange idea of war: if we send our military equipment in their nation to attack members of their population without consent of their government, I am pretty sure this is war. Let's admit it: The United States is at war with Yemen[3]. Clash Point Three: Pacifism is preferableI am not sure if my opponent addressed these issues, so I will restate them here. Pacifism is preferable for a cumulative case: for one, the short term costs of war are astronomically high. For another, the long term effects are extremely uncertain, and can cause massive problems that we don't foresee - for example, a view of America intervening repeatedly can easily feasibly create an image of "world police" and cause people to rebel against the nation's grasp. Or the war can be lost through being overstretched and a serious economic problem emerges. Or China takes action against the US due to the new government. The long-term effects are unknowable. War itself becomes massively costly for no certain rewards. With these two things in account, a pacifist policy is most reasonable for large nations like the US. ConclusionThough in this round I have split the case in three sections, there are numerous argues at work against the current philosophy regarding the use of drones by the military. The military entity has numerous flaws in its case, and I believed I have shown them. Drones circumvent international law and morality, they are used to assassinate civilians and targets without discrimination, and cause bystanders to be killed with no difficulty. Drones are impractical, causing resentment among foreign powers for infringing on their national sovereignty and the individual sovereingty of its people, as well as breed resentment among the populace of a nation using them, for nations use them to wage secret wars without approval or even discussion with the people, circumventing democracy. Drones are used to fight nations who cannot protect themself from their power, forcing nations to sacrifice their national sovereignty and ruin the countries. Finally, the entire war mentality is nonsensical and unjustified. With this in mind, I hand the debate back over to PRO for his concluding remarks. Thank you.1 - . http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...2 - . http://tinyurl.com...;3 - . http://www.wired.com...;