TT2 Expert Final: U.S. militia groups pose a greater threat to our national security than do FTOs

One last thanks to bsh1 for a fantastic debate. I, too, will be changing the order to reorganize the issues and provide a set of weights and measures by which voters can determine who won this debate. It is because I agree with Pro that this debate should be evaluated holistically that I see three basic components to identifying the threat posed by FTOs and USMGs: 1) How likely are they to engage in security-threatening attacks? 2) How much damage are they capable of inflicting? 3) How frequently will they inflict damage? I will go back through the major arguments, link them directly to one or more of these issues, and evaluate their outcomes. A. History Both of us argue that trends may establish an increased likelihood, albeit we disagree which trends. Pro says that I dropped his argument, but simply saying historic trends may not agree with current realities is insufficient, especially as I've defended this one on multiple levels: a) that the history extends far further than he assumed, containing decades of data that can't be dismissed as random, b) that a trend like that doesn't come to a sudden halt without reason, which he hasn't provided, c) that it's more reliable than any source he's given regarding trends, recent or not, and d) that histories like this are the sole way to evaluate any likely outcome without tremendous speculation. Pro tries to use my source against me here, but falsely claims that domestic attacks are waxing when they've also waned between 2001 and 2009.[1] The numbers for international terrorism are also still larger than those for domestic by 2009. Worse yet, Pro has still not addressed my other study, which shows that organized terror on a domestic level incites organized international terror, but not vice versa, further showing a higher likelihood. B. Ideology This is mainly regarding frequency and likelihood, since ideology is the basis for recruitment, and recruitment is essential to both. Note the terms Pro uses: “many of its members advocate”. He never counters my points on overall ideology, never shows that these members make up a significant percentage of USMGs, and doesn't show that they recruit from violent populations. As such, he fails to show that USMGs as a whole have a predisposition for violence. Lacking that, violence appears to be an aberrant, uncommon outcome of their cause. Expansion doesn't factor if Pro can't make a solid link to increased violence. Pro claims that the likelihood that they'll attack us is higher because they're all here, but a capacity is not equivalent to a desire, so this still fails to prove any level of likelihood. I've shown, without rebuttal, that the SCM is far more prone to committing fraud than violence.[10] I've also shown how FTOs are built on committing acts of violence, how their ideology leads them to draw from those violent populations, and therefore how every member is an enhanced threat of violence in my case.[11, 12] This establishes a link between membership and violence that is absent from Pro's case. C. Resources This chiefly involves the capacity to inflict damage. I've shown how only FTOs are sponsored by states, how that sponsorship is insensitive to sanctions, and how they therefore have access to missiles, and weaponized NBCs. All of Pro's responses miss that point, and in fact only do harm to his own, as USMGs are the only ones that would be required to make these weapons themselves, and therefore have the resultant difficulties he's mentioned. The damage resulting from usage of any of these weapons far outweighs anything else available. D. Numbers This is an assessment of frequency and likelihood; numbers influence the amount and probability of instances of terrorism. 1. Members Pro has yet to provide a sufficient link between increased membership and increased attacks. He says they're highly active and have a large network, but without the violent ideology, these don't equate to more violence. He says they have a large geographical reach, but the international reach I've cited for FTOs far outdistances it. 2. Groups Pro is incorrect, I did provide evidence of infighting, and it was even at the Bundy ranch.[24] In fact, infighting and violence has driven a decline in the number of active USMGs since 2010.[30] Pro is correct that there's infighting between FTOs as well. However, his own argument works against him here. There are far more USMGs than FTOs, all clustered together in the same country trying to accomplish similar, yet distinct, goals. They get many more opportunities to come to blows, and therefore have a far higher likelihood of sabotaging each others' efforts. E. Targets This involves levels of damage through strategic choices. Whether physical or psychological, terror attacks have demonstrable impacts to our security. Targeting bsinesses remains a big problem, and I've already shown how threats against diplomatic targets have continued in large waves even while there have been fewer successful attacks. In each case, they deeply affect the psyche. Pro tries to delineate between deaths of U.S. troops abroad and national security, but that's unreasonable when their deaths abroad directly affect our ability to defend ourselves at home, and since they are committed by FTOs, their incidence fits the resolution. I've also shown how attacks like 9/11 induced incidents of PTSD that go well beyond the site of impact. I've shown that threat levels and media trends, which Pro has admitted are both far more prominent for FTOs than USMGs, can cause psychological trauma, even when threats are decreasing. I've shown how that resultant fear has led to even less security in the U.S. as a result of efforts to engage in misguided vigilante justice. These are unique harms Pro cannot garner. F. Detection/Prevention/Response This involves likelihood of committing a given act of terror and being able to do so again at some later date. 1. Lone wolf Pro remains unresponsive to my point that lone wolf terrorism resultant from FTOs is all too common, which both shows his point is non-unique and also functions as a response to Pro's point that FTOs are apt to go big, as each example shows. His only response is that they're tracked better, but he provides no evidence that this is the case. The ability to utilize warrantless wiretaps hardly matters when the targets are so much more difficult to locate. Moreover, warrants are easily available when the members of USMGs are engaging in illegal behavior, which is part and parcel of their mission statements. Pro similarly drops all of my analysis as to why a lone wolf terrorist is actually less dangerous, most notably my link regarding the short term nature of their threat and accidental deaths, something he falsely claims is a fallacious.[17] So even if this is more common among USMGs, that weakens his case. 2. Monitoring Extend my argument that scope makes it practically impossible to track FTO member. Also, extend my point that the U.S. still has to physically intervene to remove a threat, requiring exact knowledge of their locations, and putting us at further risk. Lastly, extend my point that USMGs are monitored constantly by outside groups like the SPLC. Pro's response that they can't then be monitored by the FBI is countered by his own statement that many of these groups gather large caches of illegal guns and the fact that they flaunt many of their illegal activities to showcase their disdain for U.S. legal structures, both of which provide probable cause. 3. Thwarting This is non-unique. Thwarted terror attempts are par for the course among USMGs as well [28, 29], and Pro's major example, the Bundy ranch, is an instance where cooler heads prevailed. The failure of U.S. public diplomacy means cooler heads don't prevail in confrontations with FTOs. That means they must be physically stopped every time, as other means don't exist, increasing the likelihood of attack. The fact that there hasn't been another 9/11 means as much as the fact that there hasn't been another Oklahoma City bombing – it doesn't establish a counterterrorism success, only the absence of a failure. That's not to mention that counterterrorism efforts abroad, while they have splintered certain groups, have also given them space “'to situate themselves' to operate autonomously,” making them more difficult to track and affording them anonymity.[31] 4. Response I've shown how the necessary responses to FTOs consistently threaten our national security. Pro says that our responses to USMGs can also bolster them, but at best, this just washes with my argument that the same responses abroad embolden FTOs. All of my other points about how they can cause backlash from sovereign nations and place many numbers of lives on the line go dropped. These are substantial threats to our national security unique to FTOs. G. Conclusion I've established that FTOs represent the greater threat using all three components. Much of Pro's case has been built on appeals to authority, showcasing opinions that don't advance his case while dropping my criticisms of them. His case lacks logical consistency, creating contradictory impacts in an effort to win every component and weakening his clearest impacts in the process. At most, Pro has established that USMGs have the capacity to engage in more frequent attacks due to their proximity, but lacking any link to likelihood and any similar measure to FTOs of their capacity to do damage, Pro's case simply doesn't hold up his weighty assertions. Vote Con. 28. http://www.inquisitr.com... 29. http://www.splcenter.org... 30. http://bisbee.net... 31. http://www.theguardian.com...