The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts.

Resolutional Actor Con has misread my first post, claiming that I referred to the U.S. as the "United States Federal Government." However, this term appears once in my opening post -- under my value criterion. The value criterion is not the res. actor but rather the means by which the res. actor protects the value. The USFG cannot be both res. actor and criterion. Con also seems to have ignored my second contention, sub point B where I argue that the people of the United States (not the government) possess the obligation. The immediate impact is that Con's impact from his first paragraph is unfounded. We should continue this round with the understanding that the United States is the aggregation of people united under the USFG. This further impacts to Con's negative case, which rests on two assumptions: first, that the resolutional actor is the USFG, and second that governments have moral obligations. I've already refuted the first. Con conceded the second in his last post. Thus, Con's entire case is unsupported. Welfare of Americans Con made two rebutting arguments. First, Con claimed that I never demonstrated that U.S. intervention was necessary to protect U.S. political and economic interests during the Russo-Japanese War. I admit to the fault and will explain. In the Russo-Japanese War, conflict was hurting the trade between the U.S. and China. Japanese expansion also threatened U.S. presence in China. Thus, by diplomatic mitigation, the U.S. protected its political and economic interests. Con next claimed that I committed the fallacy of induction. ,My response is U.S. global influence. This was the essence of my argument, supported by the example and dropped by Con. U.S. political and economic influence in all parts of the globe means that every international conflict will harm the U.S. in some way. The Russo-Japanese War is one example of this. I'll supply more if Con likes. According to the Department of Defense, "Staying economically engaged with Africa is in America's interest. ... Economic growth and expended U.S. activity, though, will require that stability take hold." (http://www.defense.gov....) The large number if international conflicts in Africa (20 in the past 15 years [https://acd.iiss.org...]) hinders U.S. interests in Africa. Mitigation of conflicts is thus necessary to promote U.S. interests in the area. Mitigation does benefit Con's value of American welfare. Even without the above argument, Con's value should be disregarded. Con's value-arguments assume the USFG as resolutional actor. Since this is not the case, Con's value has no impact or linkage to the resolution and thus should not be considered. Now to Con's refutation. Innocent Life Con disagreed that my value is intrinsically good. I have two responses: First, I'm not arguing that it's valuable to lead an innocent life but rather that it is valuable to protect innocent life. Second, intrinsic values are self-evident. Con seems confused over intrinsic values. The notion of intrinsic value demands that the value be valuable in and of itself. Thus, innocent life is valuable because it is innocent life. Con claims that this is an empty assertion (and will probably accuse me of circular reasoning), but the argument is valid. Innocent life does not derive its only worth from what it achieves. The life of a baby -- a life that has achieved nothing -- is still valuable. The life of a dying man -- though it has no chance of achieving anything more -- is still valuable. Unless Con is suggesting that innocent life is not valuable at all, or that its only worth is derived from what it achieves, then Con must concede that innocent life is intrinsically valuable. Con also argued that intrinsic value does not mandate protection. This argument ignores my first contention, sub point A. If innocent life is valuable in and of itself, this means that it always retains its worth. Thus, it is always right to protect this value. I presented a working definition of moral obligation that Con never challenged based on J. P. Demarco's definition: "categorical commands that we ought to follow simply because doing so is the right thing." (www.lawandbioethics.com/demo/Main/.../Kantian_deontology.htm) Protection of innocent life is morally right. Because innocent life is intrinsically valuable, its protection is always right and therefore categorical. Thus, all aspects of a moral obligation are met in the protection of innocent life. The protection of innocent life is a moral obligation. Con next gave three quotes showing that "mitigation" can sometimes have bad results. I have two responses. First, Con's argument has no impact. Con has ignored sub point C from my first contention where I argued that failure in our obligations or a bad result does not mean that the obligation doesn't exist. Though giving the Heimlich to a drowning man does not have good results that does not remove the obligation to save him -- it means that I'm using the wrong means to save him. In the same way, though one form of mitigation has a bad result this does not remove the obligation to mitigate. It shows that we should utilize a different form of mitigation. Con's first quote only showed that R2P failed once. It describes a failed mitigation attempt. This has no impact on the round. It either shows that R2P was not properly implemented (as the article Con cites seems to imply: "R2P is a tool to raise awareness to the obligation we all have when it comes to protection. It should have the support of everyone here."[http://www.brookings.edu...]) or it shows that R2P doesn"t work. Even if the latter, this doesn't impact to a negation of the resolution any more than my claiming that the Heimlich doesn't save drowning people impacts to a conclusion that we don't have an obligation to save them. You can cross-apply a similar response to his next two quotes. They do not indicate that mitigation (the reduction of the severity of conflicts) is in itself a bad thing. All they show is that military intervention doesn't work as a form of mitigation. The arguments have no impact and should be rejected. The question of which policy works best is not what we are debating here. If it were, I would've presented harms, mandates, and solvency. This is a values debate. We're not looking at whether all forms of mitigation are moral because that has no impact on the existence of the obligation to mitigate. Stealing may be an immoral form of paying debts, but this does not remove the obligation to pay them. Con's argument is inherently flawed. The United States has a moral obligation to protect innocent life. Conflicts take innocent life. Therefore, the United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts.