The US should make new funds for the Water For The Poor Act to solve for the African water crisis.

Alright, I would first like to make a few distinctions and requests. First off, please don't bring in personal experiences. Granted I'm sure you aren't lieing, but you have conflicting interests in today's debate. Regardless of the pedagogical nature of debate, it is empirically proven that people may fudge on the facts a little bit. Because you have vested intrests in winning todays debate, your "personal experiences" regardless of the truth in them, should hold not weight here. It be much to the same effect as me saying "Africa has no water problem because i lived there I know". Completely ridiculous, but also impossible to attack upon. So therein lies my conundrum. I ask that you do not bring up personal experiences unless they are of non-biased officials, as it puts me at a unfair disadvantage. Furthermore, when I ask for evidence, I would like to get cold hard facts. And lastly, please organize your points. Your writing is very fluent, yet it is hard to follow because it is un-organized. You will find that this will help you if a debate becomes messy. Moving on to your points. Just to summarize what you said: Point 1 - US doesn't have moral and legal obligation to help everyone because obviously we don't. Point 2 - 190 million isn't chump change. It will increase debt. Point 3 - Corruption, and Aid being inneffective will stop the WFTPA Subpoint A - African Food Examples Point 4 - Military protection is needed Point 5 - Plan has no benefits Point 6 - Plan would take too much work, didn't work first time Point 7 - Extended U.S. People suffering point Point 8 - Ethnic Conflicts General attacks: 1. First off, throughout this entire debate, you have provided no credible, un-biased, literature. You have made several claims I beleive to be untrue, and when asked to explain, you gave experiences that may or may not be true. If you want to make such claims, get literature. If your claims are true, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to find a link that agrees. 2. Food examples aren't water examples. If you want to give examples, thats fine and dandy, but give rlevent ones please! There are several differences between food and water. 1 - Food can be co-opted by ruling elites, water purification facilities cannot. 2 - The situations regarding them are different. Food is a problem stemming from issues that don't even affect water. 3. Most of your points came thru, and I don't mean offense here, ignorance or misunderstanding my points. What this means is that alot of your arguments do not affect today's debate. First off, money is not actually sent to Africa. We go over there and build the neccesary facilities, provide infrastructure (in the broader, non-road, sense of the word), and leave. Point 1 - Your attack was that the U.S. has no such moral and legal obligation to help people. Will thats correct. Just helping people would be way too broad. However, you apparently didn't read what I stated. I stated that the U.S. has a moral and legal obligation to give clean water to those who need it. Therefore, your attack doesn't apply. Point 2 - Again, another attack that would apply to many plans, but not the WFTPA. The funding for the WFTPA is thru the Senate Apropriations Committee, as it is foreign aid. The budget for the Senate Apropriations Committee is pre-set. The plan doesn't increase the amount of money being spent, it just takes what is available. The money will inevitably be spent, the question is... where? It is my belief that we should spend it on the WFTPA. I have provided several points supporting it. Moving on. Point 3 - Corruption Response - I beleive I may have mentioned this earlier, but maybe not. Basically, corruption isn't a factor in the WFTPA. The plan mandates that corrupt governments have no jobs to do in the plan whatsoever. Not only that, but USAID (the actor of the plan) mandates adequate infrastructure and good governance. So therefore any corrupt government would be forced to act in the best interests of its people, in the presense of this plan. Aid Innefective - First, I ask for a definition of Aid. Now I'm sure whatever definition you find, the WFTPA will fall under it. However, the WFTPA, strictly speaking, isn't really aid. It is aid, in the sense that it aids people, but it isn't aid in the sense that it is actual physical aid. Now, you may misunderstand what I'm getting at, so I'l elaborate. The WFTPA doesn't ever send money to Africa. Basically, our people go over, build the neccesary facilities, provide infrastructure (once again, in the non-roads sense of the word), and get out. The Aid you are talking about being ineffective is money. Well I agree. Just sending money over won't solve. Thats why the WFTPA is so vital. Point 4 - Why would Africans attack something that is providing them water? Get some evidence please! This point (that military protection is needed) is one that I find ridiculous. Please find some literature. Point 5 - You say I have no benefits, yet I refute all your points, and you have yet to attack the 3 advantages of Disease, Conflict, and Soft Power. Obviously there are advantages that are reached because the WFTPA is solvent. Point 6 - First off, let me clarify why the WFTPA "didn't work". It never actually failed. It just wasn't funded. This was because it had the misfortune of being enacted around the time of Iraq and Afghanistan which, at the time, were more important. Therefore, it never failed, it just was never funded. Also, you say that it would need to much work. Oh no! Work! I know its awful, but the benefits speak for themselves. Also worth noting is that we actual get an economic return of 3-34$ for every 1$ invested in water (http://www.voanews.com...). Simply put, this point isn't relevant, and bases off of other, previously negated, points. Point 7 - You extended the U.S. people suffering point, but you never responded. Basically, people in Africa are suffering in higher quantity and quality. I have provided literature saying that we have obligations to help them, and your response is "I think we should help America first". Also, the question of: "Why can't we help Africa AND America?" went unanswered. Silence is compliance, and therefore you agree that we should help Africa and America. However since today's debate is on Africa, we shant talk about the logistics in helping America Point 8 - How are ethnic conflicts a barrier that stops the WFTPA from solving. Not only that, but ethnic conflicts have a tendency to be between certain ethnicities. I would love to see evidence saying that our people, if they went over there, would be killed. Otherwise, the point is ridiculous. Clarification: "You did not win the debate because your points are not valid enough to convince congress, presidents, or the American people from pursuing it fully when it was presented the FIRST time." I wasn't there when it was being presented for the first time, and so therefore I don't get the point. I digress though. Basically, this is again another ignorant attack on the WFTPA. The Water For The Poor Act is made up of several sections, and 500 million was to go to the entire thing. Of that, 200 million was to go to Sub-Saharan Africa. However, due to the broad wording of a specific clause in the act, the money was put towards "water initiatives" in the middle east. That happened because the middle east truely did have a water crisis. However it has been averted, and now the money is guarenteed to go to Africa, where it is needed most. Reasons I Win: You first testified that the US isn't the only actor that can solve, yet than said we are the only one doing things, which is a contradiction. I negated the first statement, and the latter is untrue. Just google it. You also never said why roads are a neccesity for water. In addition, I have negated all your points.