Resolved: NATO presence improves the lives of Afghan citizens

Refutation: Firstly, my opponent declares the low death per capita statement which doesn't help his case as comparing this war to other wars doesn't mean that people's lives are improving in Afghanistan. Even if this figure is low, people are still dying, and if people are still dying, how is that improvement to their lives? Next my opponent declares a number of things that he says improves the lives of the citizens, however he doesn't realize (I will elaborate on this more later) that people are still dying, and if people are dying these benefits are nullified. In fact, to contradict your statements even further, on a survey from bbc [1] 54% of Afghan citizens said no health clinic was rebuilt, reopened, nor built in the last five years. Next, my opponent talks about how a NATO Afghanistan is better than a Taliban Afghanistan, however they don't realize a couple things. NATO is supposed to "promote a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan" [2] not takeover. Regardless, however, my opponent states a number of human rights abuses which he doesn't equip with any recourses, so I can't believe that until I know it is credible. To continue, my opponent states the number of people killed by NATO and the Taliban and says there is improvement. A couple of things are wrong with this, though. Firstly, as long as NATO is still killing Afghans, they're not improving their lives because the Afghans are still worried for the safety of their lives plus the fact that NATO is not even supposed to be killing civilians. Additionally, the Taliban is still in Afghanistan, even if they're not ruling [3] which contributes the extra deaths. Finally, my opponent says there are less terrorism attacks, however, like my first contention elaborates even further on this, insurgents continue to rise because of NATO and their countless attacks on civilians. Contentions: Next, I have three compelling contentions that prove NATO presence does not improve the lives of Afghan citizens. Civilian lives are put into danger, NATO is destroying the economy of Afghanistan, and the Afghan citizens don't want NATO. NATO has been responsible for the killing of several innocent Afghan citizens that is not acceptable. According to an article on reuters [4], a NATO-led force acknowledged it had killed five Afghan civilians. Not only that but according to an article on latimes [5], the president of Afghanistan said how up to 52 civilians were killed by NATO rocket fire in southern Afghanistan. Finally, in article on cbsnews [6], it was reported that a NATO airstrike killed at least 27 civilians. These numbers are adding up. These killings are not improving the lives of Afghan citizens but merely worsening them by putting them in constant danger. Additionally, according to an article on huffingtonpost [7], "each time U. S. or NATO forces accidently kill Afghan citizens, insurgents and their sympathizers typically retaliate with six additional assaults on foreign forces over the next six weeks. " This means that more and more civilian deaths, more insurgents will rise. Additionally, NATO forces have been responsible for eating away a major part of the Afghan economy. According to an article called ‘U. S. Navy Public Relations Officer Interviews Afghan Farmers' by Chris LeCron from associatedcontent [8], the eradication of farmer poppy fields and the encouragement of wheat farming has been started because of NATO. Also from this article, it says how this strategy has made several farmers angry as this is their only source of income. From an article on msnbc [9], Afghanistan supplies 93% of the world's opium. All this supply of opium could be gone and that could severely damage the Afghanistan economy if their main export is gone. Finally, from an article on tvnz, it explained how there have been violent protests from poppy farmers who refuse to have their fields destroyed. It went on to say that eight people were killed in the southern province of Helmand during this protests. Not only has NATO damaged the Afghan economy because of they destroyed several poppy fields, but farmers have shown resistance to this act causing the deaths of several individuals. With deaths and a blow to the Afghan economy, this further proves NATO is not improving the lives of Afghan citizens. Finally, my last contention points to how the Afghan citizens don't want NATO. Based on a poll conducted from 2005 to 2009 on that same bbc survey[1], several questions were asked to Afghan citizens. One of these questions asked each year was whether the citizens thought the things in Afghanistan today were going in the right direction or wrong direction. The percent that thought it was going in the right direction decreased from 64% to 40% from 2004 to 2009 while the percent for those believing it was going in the wrong direction increased from 11% to 38% from 2004 to 2009. The rest of the civilians questioned were either mixed or had no opinion. Keep in mind, these were five of the years NATO was in Afghanistan. To continue, another question was how confident the Afghan citizens were of NATO forces and 56% were either not very confident or not at all confident. All in all, the Afghan citizens are not pleased with what NATO has done and that they are not improving their quality of life. To conclude, it is obvious that NATO needs to pull out of Afghanistan for the three contentions presented. NATO is causing too many civilian casualties, NATO forces have been responsible for destroying a large part of the Afghanistan economy, and the Afghan civilians don't want NATO in Afghanistan. This is leading to no improvement to the lives of Afghan citizens and it is from the arguments and evidence shown that it would be better for these Afghan citizens if NATO pulled out. References: [1] . http://news.bbc.co.uk... [2] . http://www.fas.org... [3] . http://www.cfr.org... [4] . http://www.reuters.com... [5] . http://articles.latimes.com... [6] . http://www.cbsnews.com... [7] . http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [8] . http://www.associatedcontent.com...