Calling Out Libertarians on Foreign Policy

First of all I would like to point out that I have not dropped the framework. The framework is the underlying structure of the debate, and I accepted it as such. I would like to point out that my opponent is clearly trying to manipulate the arguments I have made. A non interventionist foreign policy refers to the use of military power abroad. There is no doubt that we have economic connections with other countries. We are supposed to. This is also one of Ron Paul's major arguments, since he believes we should trade with other countries but not get involved into their internal affairs. You belief that non-interventionism means military and economic isolationism is of course false and a misinterpretation of Ron Paul's views. Nobody is making the argument that other nations will definitely leave us alone if we assume a noninterventionist policy. This point is not have been made by either me nor Ron Paul and its solely your creation, or perhaps your expectation of what non-interventionism means. However, we believe that having a non interventionist foreign policy will benefit first and foremost us. We had a non-interventionist stand before WWII and ended up winning that war without any serious threat of a foreign invasion on our soil. Furthermore, my opponent's "decision calculus" theory is a a priori argument, which is completely theoretical and he has not shown how a non interventionist foreign policy would fail. My opponent is also wrong in stating that Ron Paul has not given a framework on when self-defense can be activated. Ron Paul is not against war per-se, he voted to authorize the use of force in Afghanistan to take out the persons responsible for 9/11 for example, he is however against going to war without a declaration of war as it is stipulated by the constitution. And by the way, I do believe that we should not attack other countries unless attacked first, or unless there is an imminent threat. To the point of troops stationed in foreign countries, you make the assumption that we need a global scale of readiness as to be able to defend ourselves. This is of course a fallacy. The US spends already the same amount of money on defense than the rest of the world combined, and the second largest air power in the world after the US Air Force is the US Navy. We have already military capabilities that are unmatched by the rest of the world and have the only Navy that is able of power projection in any region of the planet. Troops stationed abroad are a relict of the cold war and not suitable for today's military environment. We are providing self defense capabilities for the South Koreans without getting paid for it, as well as for several European countries. There are around 50,000 US Soldiers station in Germany today. My opponent claims that "South Korea is an advantageous area to have troops since it deters Nrth Korea aggression and helps stop the weapons blackmarket. "Well from a globalist and imperialist point of view, this is definitely true. However this point is clearly anti-american and also dangerous for our society. We are running the risk of over-stretching, and are spending an incredible amount of money abroad which we could better use at home. Following my opponent's ideology we should sent troops to Kamtschatka and the Straight of Ormuz as well because those are "advantageous areas". My opponent criticizes the fact that I have provided "no link" to show the bad side of our foreign interventionism and "therforeit doesnt prove interventionism bad". I assume that we need to provide links for arguments that might be controversial. I believe that 50,000 dead US soldiers in Vietnam for example are beyond any doubt the bad result of an interventionist foreign policy. He also writes "Second, all of this is retrosepctive. At the time it was seen by policy-makers as beneficial especially in light of the communist threat. "Well of course all of this is retrospective, because usually one is able to make a better assessment in retrospective. The communist invading south Vietnam was not a threat to the United States, and our intervention there did not even stop it from happening. We have wasted Billions of Dollars, thousands of US lives and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in a war that was not ours to fight. My opponent also asserts that "promoting democracy is the best remedy for hot spots. 1) It encourages economic development, through investmment, free trade and free market. "This is of course true if we do it by leading the way and showing the world that democracy allows people to live better lives, and we do this at home, not by going into foreign countries and bombing them, overthrowing their regimes and building permanent bases in there. This way we just look like occupiers and create anti-american sentiments around the world. People need to want democracy, we cannot impose it on them. Especially in several middle eastern countries, a majority of people does not want a democratic rule but is culturally bounded to have a theocratic form of government and for as long as they don't demand change themselves bombing their cities will not help us creating democracies around the world. Even when we look at the good things that came out from Afghanistan, such as the rising numbers of children who can now go to school, it is not our job to go around the world to find "injustices" and try to fix them by dropping missiles. My opponent believes that I only listed a "few examples". Well, there is way more. Osama bin Laden got his training and money from the CIA, if you can't see how this helped him against us, I can't help you. Saddam HusseinYes, "it seemed", because we didn't think he would then turn around and attack Kuwait. This is exactly why we shouldn't give weapons to anybody, because we can't always control what they are going to do with them. If we hadn't provided Hussein with weapons, he would have not attacked Kuwait and we would have not needed to intervene to secure the oil supply. Saudi ArabiaThere is no doubt that there is a correlation between our intervention and Saudi Arabia. The point that my opponent makes writing "Rubin tells us that if this were true, terrorism would have decreased when US involvement decreased as well. However, Rubin shows that the inverse is actually true - when the US started to withdraw, terrorism against the US increased, e. g. bombing of the embassies. " is a half truth. Bin Laden and other extremists, most of which are Saudis, considered the presence of what they think being a christian army on muslim lands blasphemous. Muslim lands are not only Saudi lands, but Palestine, the gold region and several different countries as well. Ron Paul does not say that we are responsible for terrorism, he says that we should listen to what they say are the reasons they attack us because it is probably true. IranSo basically what my opponent is saying is that since a theocratic government was coming anyway, it made sense for us to overthrow a foreign leader and put in the Shah. How this act of intervention in foreign affairs is for benefit for the US is beyond my understanding. There are several other examples of interventionism going bad, for example having Noriega on the CIA payroll and then of course having to Invade when he went rogue. I have not dropped any of the points that you have made ( IV ), because they are the same point. It is not in our interest to bomb people and countries around the world. We are losing soldiers, spending money that could be used at home all while making enemies across the world. If somebody attacks us, we should retaliate, instead we attacked a country that had nothing to do with 911, are still there doing nation building while our economy at home is getting worse every day, and have spent 10 years fighting insurgency while we should have just looked for Osama Bin Laden instead of trying to create new nations around the globe. My opponent assumes we need to be an Empire. Ron Paul does not.