Barack Obama is not qualified to be the next president of the US.

Hi. I hope we have a good time debating. In the interest of alleviating bias I will reveal that I am an ardent Obama supporter, though I do like Mccain a lot. Firstly, which isn't a word (I know), I would like to ask if we can stick to topics and not just many broad talking points. Your points about pakistan and about Iraq are overextended. For example, in regrds to Pakistan, Obama wants to bomb parts of Pakistan that houses terrorists. I'll expand on this and Iraq later. 1. Talking to other people A few days ago I posted an ad on craigslist under the politics section in Dallas Fort Worth asking people to email me why it was bad to talk to Cuba's or Iran's leaders. What I got were moral responses and a few responses that claimed utility. I will only address utility. The argument went that if we talk to these nations now, we can't use "talking to them in the future" as leverage for them to shape up now. I cannot think of one instance where refusing to talk to someone, whether its a dictator or a child molester, or someone at debate.org, solved a problem on its own. If you can think of an example please enlighten me. What I see are we refuse to engage leaders on a rational basis and they either shape up or we go to war with them. This go to war option is not hindered by talking to the other side so I see no net benefit from refusing to talk to leaders. Assuming this is a cost, what benefit would we get from talking to people. There are the normal "we can understand their viewpoint" argument and the "diplomacy is better than war" argument. As stated above, if we refuse to talk to people, our only option is war or ignoring them. Thats a pretty huge cost. Also, if we refuse to talk to leaders we not only piss them off, but we show to the world and our own people that the country in question is bad. This gives more support for war. 2/3 of Americans thought Iraq should have been invaded at one point. I think that number has decreased in hindsight. Maybe if we had talked to Saddam on a level playing field then the Iraq war wouldn't have had so much support/congressional approval to begin with. My point here is, what is gained from refusing to talk with nations? What is lost? I think we lose more than we gain as imo there are no real gains and there are very real losses. Obama is the ONLY candidate who will talk to these leaders which sets him apart. 2. Iraq Though I think Barack changed his website since the Ohio debate, his plan with Iraq changes if Al Quaeda has a significant presence there. His website states if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda. There are terrorists in Iraq now but there are terrorists in New York too. Just because there is a presence somewhere doesn't mean it is significant enough to leave the whole army there. It also doesn't mean it is significant enough to be addresses in normal Iraq policy debates. Barack wants to bring our troops home. There will of course be some troops left to do what needs to be done, but by bringing our troops home he does not mean "I will bring every soldier back from Iraq and they can never go in again". We will have a residual force there and the plan will change according to how Iraq changes. His actual plan is "He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats" The Al quaeda threat is taken care of and our troops are no longer needlessly sacrificed. With the surge, Obama disagrees with it because the surge was meant not to kill terrorists. The surge was meant to provide a time with less terrorist attacks for Iraq to end its civil war and make laws. In that time the war has not ended, turkey has invaded Iraq, and no unifying govt has occurred. If we judge the surge by how many terrorists were killed, then it was successful. Just liek Vietnam was successful. If we judge the surge by its ability to make Iraq better off and to end the civil war, IT WAS A FAILURE. 3. Pakistan Obama wants to remain allies w/ Pakistan but like every leader, including Mccain, he wants to attack terrorists there if Pakistan refuses to (or can't). He is in no way different than Hillary or Mccain here. Except Obama openly says he will go into another sovereign nation to kill terrorists if that nation will not do it. This is the same reasoning we used to go into Afghanistan and I think we can both agree that that war was justified. 4. Experience. Obama worked in the Illinois state senate before becoming Illinois' senator. Illinois' political system is based on the federal system so Obama has experience within the system. He also has done much during his two years in the senate, including many humanitarian missions. He sat on the veteran affairs committee, met w/ nations on terrorism, getting the gov'ts ENTIRE budget put online, etcc. If we judge his experience by time, Obama lacks. If we judge it by what he accomplished he is on par with others, and surpasses JFK. 5. He is ready To show that he is ready I will talk about some things though there are plenty more things to talk about. A. Healthcare Unlike Hillary who wants to punish those who do not buy healthcare, Obama wants to only punish those who do not buy healthcare for there kids. He also wants to focus on prevention moreso than Mccain or Hillary. This is important to fiscal conservatives even as if we spend a dollar on preventative care it often leads to $100 in less money spent later. We save money later by spending it now. Currently less than 4% of healthcare costs are spent on prevention. He has his plan laid out in detail on his website but the main point of it is that no price discrimination can occur. "Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions." His plan is basically to lower the market cost of insurance to those who cannot afford it, and to let the market take care of the problem. He does somethings like offers subsidies and mandates children are covered, and other things but Obama realizes that healthcare is a market problem and the way to solve this is to lower demand (preventative care) and increase supply (make insurance more affordable). He makes it more afforable to the companies by helping them switch to electronic systems. Now everything is paper and accounts for up to 15% of the bill. B. Immigration I decided to put Immigration in as his plan is very succinct and developed. He wants to focus mainly on securing the borders, removing incentives to come in illegally, and to work with mexico. Again this is a market based problem and Obama tries to fix it through market mechanisms. Decrease supply of labor(borders) decrease demand (improving the system so we can get these workers working legally) and talking w/ mexico to see what it can do to help. They have their own illegal problem from central america btw due to the mexican workforce coming here. I hope to have shown that Obama is experienced enough to lead. He also has great healthcare and Immigration plans based on market mechanisms (which is what the conservatives should want). He also has an adequate if not great Iraq policy and foreign affairs policy. He also is willing to talk to other leaders which is a plus, not a minus.