Tournament: UMKC | Round: 4 | Opponent: Gonzaga BJ | Judge: Andres Gannon
ASU HR Round 4 Cards
1NC
1
CP Text: The Executive branch of the United States should limit targeted killings to individuals who U.S. officials claim are being targeted, provide a public accounting of how it meets the principles of distinction and proportionality that the Obama administration claims, review its current policy whereby the executive authority for drone strikes is split between the CIA and JSOC, provide information to the public, Congress and UN special rapporteurs on what procedures exist to prevent harm to civilians, ban the use of signature strikes and never conduct non battlefield targeted killings without an accountable human being authorizing the strike.
Self-Restraint solves
YOUR AUTHOR Zenko 13 (Micah, Dr. Zenko is a Douglas Dillon fellow in the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), he worked for five years at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and in Washington, DC, at the Brookings Institution, Congressional Research Service, and State Department's Office of Policy Planning, Council Special Report No.65, January 2013, Reforming US Drone Strike Policies, i.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Drones_CSR65.pdf)
The president of the United States should¶ ?? limit targeted killings to individuals who U.S. officials claim are being targeted—the leadership of al-Qaeda and affiliated forces or individ- uals with a direct operational role in past or ongoing terrorist plots against the United States and its allies—and bring drone strike prac- tices in line with stated policies;¶ ?? either end the practice of signature strikes or provide a public account- ing of how it meets the principles of distinction and proportionality that the Obama administration claims;¶ ?? review its current policy whereby the executive authority for drone strikes is split between the CIA and JSOC, as each has vastly different legal authorities, degrees of permissible transparency, and oversight;¶ ?? provide information to the public, Congress, and UN special rapporteurs—without disclosing classified information—on what proce- dures exist to prevent harm to civilians, including collateral damage mitigation, investigations into collateral damage, corrective actions based on those investigations, and amends for civilian losses; and¶ ?? never conduct nonbattlefield targeted killings without an account- able human being authorizing the strike (while retaining the poten- tial necessity of autonomous decisions to use lethal force in warfare in response to ground-based antiaircraft fire or aerial combat).
Backlash against Obama on executive actions won’t gain traction
Ramsey 12
(MICHAEL D. RAMSEY, is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, “THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY NATIONAL LAWYERS CONVENTION--2011: MEET THE NEW BOSS: CONTINUITY IN PRESIDENTIAL WAR POWERS?” Summer, 2012, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, LexisNexis, KB)
Thus there has been an escalation in the use of unconstitutional executive war power under President Obama, yet there has not been an outcry against him resembling the outcry against the Bush Administration, which was routinely attacked for exceeding the limits of executive power. n29 Although some voices have been raised against President Obama's claims of executive power, n30 they have been marginalized. They have not *871 been taken up by the mainstream in the manner of similar criticisms of President Bush. My speculation is that there is an identification by legal and media elites with the establishment Democratic Party that makes it difficult for these criticisms to gain traction in the way they did in the Bush Administration.¶ I think this makes it easier for Democratic presidents than for Republican presidents to unconstitutionally extend executive power. Thus Obama's policies, which are much more deserving of constitutional criticism, do not generate the popular pushback that we saw, perhaps unjustifiably, against President Bush. In any event, what is most striking about executive war power under President Obama is not the commonly recognized continuity as compared to the prior administration, but rather the increased disregard of constitutional limits.
2
Tea Party influence is taking a nosedive – recent polls
Sareen 2013
ANJALI SAREEN, Editor at The Huffington Post, “Tea Party Popularity Falls To Record Low, Rasmussen Reports” January 7th, 2013, http://www.mediaite.com/online/tea-party-popularity-falls-to-record-low-rasmussen-reports/
According to a new Rasmussen poll released Monday, the Tea Party is less popular than it has ever been, with only 30 of likely voters saying they hold favorable views of the group. Nearly half (49) have unfavorable views.¶ HuffPost reports that the Tea Party’s favorability rating has taken a substantial nosedive since 2009, when a majority of likely voters approved.¶ Besides just voter favorability ratings, the Tea Party movement as a whole is seen to be declining, as evidenced by the poll. Over half of likely voters (56) said the Tea Party has become less influential in the past year and only 8 said they identified as a part of the group.¶ They might be right: just this morning, the Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward noted that having Speaker John Boehner in the House wasn’t that bad compared to what kind of damage a Tea Party speaker could do. Woodward called Boehner a “pragmatic moderate” and said that a Tea Party speaker “would just lay down and, you know, let the country burn.”¶ Woodward isn’t alone in his criticism: conservative radio host Michael Savage cited a lack of
Limiting drones is a win for the tea party.
Yonkman, 13
(David, Newsmax Washington Correspondent, "ACLU, Tea Party Align Aainst Drone Program", Feb 13, www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/aclu-drone-policy-counterterrorism/2013/02/13/id/490246 NL)
The American Civil Liberties Union is joining tea party activists in opposing the use of armed drones and other counterterrorism operations to kill suspected terrorists, even American citizens. A recently surfaced Justice Department memo revealed that drones can strike against a wider range of threats, with less evidence, than previously believed. Both the ACLU and tea party groups cite the Fifth Amendment, which says that Americans are guaranteed due process of law under the Constitution, and that the classified program circumvents that right. “Everyone has a right to know what the rules are, and that’s what’s been hidden from the American public and even Congress,” ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders tells Newsmax. He joins Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who gave the official tea party rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. Paul said: “We will not tolerate secret lists of American citizens who can be killed without trial.” Obama told Congress in the annual joint session that he “will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and systems of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.” The remarks did little to satisfy the ACLU or tea party activists. “It’s good to have a commitment to that, but there’s no specificity to it,” the ACLU’s Anders said. “We’re not a nation of secret laws.” Eleven senators — eight Democrats and three Republicans — asked Obama earlier this month to justify the use of the drone program to lawmakers. The bipartisan group warned it might stall the nominations of John Brennan as head of the Central Intelligence Agency and former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska as Defense Secretary should Obama not provide the classified information. Currently, both the CIA and the military are authorized to remotely pilot unmanned, missile-carrying drones against terror suspects.
Tea Party wins snowball--- saves their influence in Congress
Cillizza 2012 (Chris Cillizza, December 4, 2012, “Is the tea party dead? Or just resting?,” Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/12/04/whither-the-tea-party/)
And Jon Lerner, a Republican consultant who works closely with the Club For Growth, insisted that the tea party remains a major force in GOP primaries — and, as such, is something establishment Republicans should be very wary of ignoring. ”Tea Party voters represent a huge portion of all Republican voters, so while the GOP establishment sometimes finds the Tea Party inconvenient, they are much better off making peace with it than making war with it,” said Lerner.¶ True enough. But, it still seems clear that the tea party is in the midst of a sort of soul searching. For a movement that burst onto the national scene with a force almost never seen in modern American politics, there’s no obvious second act. The movement needs a next fight or, short of that, to make a decision as to whether it can live within the Republican coalition or not.¶ (That latter choice is complicated by the fact that the tea party was built as a leaderless enterprise and so the idea of such a major philosophic decision being made for the entire movement is anathema to, well, the entire movement. Rick Reed, a Republican media consultant, suggested that “there may be a couple of folks whom 10 percent of Republicans would loosely and correctly associate with the tea party movement, but probably no more.”)¶ One senior Republican party strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the future of the tea party movement, expressed concern that while the tea party was at a “low point” today, the coming legislative fights in Congress could lead to a renaissance in the movement.?
Strong Tea Party wrecks budget compromises
Politico 7/19 (Mitch McConnell's fractured Senate GOP caucus , Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/senate-republicans-splintering-94451.html#ixzz2amsQ0772)
These Senate GOP factions aren’t set in stone, and some Republicans float from one group to another depending on the issue.¶ But the GOP tension is playing out on the Senate floor as members of the leadership have consistently voted “no” on tricky issues that could cause them political headaches — while rank-and-file Republicans are voting “yes.”¶ McConnell’s leadership team — including Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Jerry Moran of Kansas — has taken the safe route by opposing these bipartisan proposals. That leaves a group of roughly a dozen GOP senators to swallow the tough and unpopular votes — ranging from opening debate on gun legislation to passing an immigration bill to confirming Richard Cordray to head the GOP-despised Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.¶ (Also on POLITICO: McCain stalls Dempsey nomination)¶ The entire leadership team opposed the immigration bill, for instance, which passed with the support of 14 Republican senators, and the leaders voted to filibuster a bipartisan border security deal drafted by Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota. The leadership opposed beginning debate on gun legislation, even though 16 of their GOP colleagues voted to bring the measure to the floor. Most voted to continue filibustering Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, even as 71 senators from both parties voted to allow a vote on confirmation.¶ Some think the leadership is ducking the tough votes and allowing the rank-and-file to shoulder the burden.¶ “This leadership team has adopted the Obama ‘lead-from-behind’ approach to governing,” said a senior Senate Republican source, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. “It hasn’t worked for the president and it doesn’t appear to be working here either.”¶ Republican leaders defend their approach, arguing that they typically are siding with a majority of the conference on a number of divisive issues, not with the smaller number of Republicans voting with Democrats, Cornyn argued.¶ “I think the majority of the conference votes the same way I do,” Cornyn said. “In some of these issues, we’re not united. It’s really as simple as that.”¶ The GOP factionalism could become even more significant this fall when it’s time to cut deals with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House on boosting the debt ceiling and keeping the government operating past September. McCain, Corker and other members of the “Supper Club” — a group of Republicans who have been discussing budget issues with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough — met with McConnell on Thursday afternoon, seeking strategies for those looming fiscal showdowns, which will really kick off in September.¶ McCain wants to see Senate Republicans negotiate with Democrats on these critical matters, but there are a number of GOP conservatives — especially in the House — who are prepared to shut down the government or default on the debt unless Obama caves to their spending demands.
Destroys the economy--- consumer confidence, dollar strength, credit rating
Brown 13 (Abram, 1/4, "GOP's Threat to Shutdown the Government is a Dangerous Strategy," www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/01/04/the-gop-is-already-threatneing-to-shutdown-the-government-to-win-spending-cuts/)
That Republicans are already warning the country that they will turn off the lights in D.C. is an alarming situation. Depending on what happens in the debt ceiling debate, the Treasury Department might just have trouble paying the bills on time…or the whole apparatus could cease to function. Past that, there’s a risk that the credit-rating agencies could downgrade the United States, raising the country’s borrowing costs (and making that newly approved debt more costly).¶ Not to mention the damage to the broader economy. The last debt ceiling fiasco in August 2011 dashed consumer confidence. Why shop anywhere else than bargain-centers like Wal-Mart and or a dollar store when the nation seems to be falling apart? Shortly before the nation went past the deadline in 2011, the CEOs of Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs sent a letter to The White House that urged for a quick resolution:¶ A default on our nation’s obligations, or a downgrade of America’s credit rating, would be a tremendous blow to business and investor confidence — raising interest rates for everyone who borrows, undermining the value of the dollar, and roiling stock and bond markets — and, therefore, dramatically worsening our nation’s already difficult economic circumstances.¶ Granted, the economy is in slightly better shape today than it was in August 2011. Not so strong, though, that the consequences of a shutdown would be much different.
Economic collapse causes nuclear conflicts
Burrows and Harris 2009 Mathew J. Burrows counselor in the National Intelligence Council and Jennifer Harris a member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” The Washington Quarterly 32:2 https://csis.org/files/publication/twq09aprilburrowsharris.pdf
Increased Potential for Global Conflict¶ Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the¶ future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking¶ forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity.¶ Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to¶ believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be¶ drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and¶ multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on¶ the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the¶ same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the¶ twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in¶ which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more¶ apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change¶ would be steadier.¶ In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and¶ nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the¶ international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth¶ continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those¶ terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of¶ technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most¶ dangerous capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a¶ combination of descendants of long established groupsinheriting¶ organizational structures, command and control processes, and training¶ procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacksand newly emergent¶ collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized,¶ particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower¶ in an economic downturn.¶ The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S.¶ military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s¶ acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed¶ Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with¶ external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own¶ nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship¶ that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge¶ naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity¶ conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an¶ unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states¶ involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals¶ combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile¶ dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in¶ achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack. The¶ lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile¶ flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on¶ preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises.Types of conflict that the world continues¶ to experience, such as over resources, could¶ reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and¶ there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices.¶ Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive¶ countries to take actions to assure their future¶ access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this¶ could result in interstate conflicts if government¶ leaders deem assured access to energy resources,¶ for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of¶ their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical¶ implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval¶ buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of¶ blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed¶ turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of¶ regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and¶ counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational¶ cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in¶ Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is¶ likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more¶ dog-eat-dog world.¶
3
The 1AC injects the discourse of security into the present through the imagination of some catastrophic future
Dillon 7
Dillon, Department of Politics and International Relations University of Lancaster, in ‘07
Michael, “Governing Terror”: The State of Emergency of Biopolitical Emergence”
While uncertainty has long posed an obstacle for statesmen, its understanding has been far from static throughout history. Its understanding as fate, or more precisely Machiavelli’s fortuna, was radically altered in the wake of Pascal’s discovery of probability which allowed chance to be quantified and measured (Hacking, 2006). Risk, in turn, commodified chance, allowing it to be bought, sold and thereby distributed through market-mechanisms in the form of insurance. As such, risk is much more than a particular disposition towards an unknown future; it is a social technology for rendering the future knowable and actionable, through the accumulation of actuarial statistics (Aradau et al., 2008: 150). Far from existing prior to the rationalities and technologies that reify it, risk is constructed through the practices which attempt to tame the uncertainty of the future by making it knowable. As such, risk is not something objective, something that exists prior to the discourses that render it understandable, but exists within the myriad of rationalities and technologies that mobilise it as a problematic to be governed. In light of the developments in biopolitical security practices the question is raised as to how risk is mobilised as an instrument of biopolitical governance for societies increasingly conceptualised in terms of their contingency? The large scale, catastrophic and highly contingent risks faced by the “network society” and dealt with by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat are extremely difficult to calculate because of their size and low frequency, exhausting the actuarial tools usually relied upon to calculate risk which require high iterations of an event. Instead, that which is beyond the limit of calculability must be approached though imagination, of what could possibly happen. As the simulations conducted by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat exemplify, imagination is increasingly being relied upon, as opposed to statistics, in order to reify the future and render it operable. In the process risk becomes virtual. Not in the sense that it is not real, but in the Deleuzian sense of the: potentiality that is immanent in every object and every situation. Unlike “the possible” which is opposed to t\he real, the virtual is real, which is to say that it exists as concretely in the present…a future to come that is already with us, but which remains ungraspable (Braun, 2007). The way the future is thought, including what is acknowledged and prioritised, has real effects on the present. The way the future is thought can therefore lend considerable force towards a particular future that could have been otherwise. Imagining some futures and not others has political implications (De Goede, 2008). While the risks dealt with by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat are approached through the imagination of what could possibly happen, these risks in turn structure the political imagination, enabling and constraining decisionmaking in the present. It is the imagination, not of a predicted future, but of a possible future, that structures and moulds the techniques and rationalities that comprise the contemporary security environment. As these imaginaries proceed to get increasingly darker, in order to exhaust the potential for “surprise” encountered within an actual crisis, the virtual level of threat, which is folded back into the present, increases exponentially, creating a persistent feeling of threat in advanced liberal societies. Rather than being harmful, however, the persistent articulation of threat is productive insofar as it has encouraged the operation of neo-liberal forms of governance as articulated by Foucault in his 1979 lecture series The Birth of Biopolitics (Foucault, 2004).
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The result is an Orthodox liberal IR that securitizes and militarizes policy responses---it’s the root cause of every impact, guarantees policy failure and means only the alt solves
Ahmed 12 Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD), an independent think tank focused on the study of violent conflict, he has taught at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex "The international relations of crisis and the crisis of international relations: from the securitisation of scarcity to the militarisation of society" Global Change, Peace and Security Volume 23, Issue 3, 2011 Taylor Francis
The twenty-first century heralds the unprecedented acceleration and convergence of multiple, interconnected global crises – climate change, energy depletion, food scarcity, and economic instability. While the structure of global economic activity is driving the unsustainable depletion of hydrocarbon and other natural resources, this is simultaneously escalating greenhouse gas emissions resulting in global warming. Both global warming and energy shocks are impacting detrimentally on global industrial food production, as well as on global financial and economic instability. Conventional policy responses toward the intensification of these crises have been decidedly inadequate because scholars and practitioners largely view them as separate processes. Yet increasing evidence shows they are deeply interwoven manifestations of a global political economy that has breached the limits of the wider environmental and natural resource systems in which it is embedded. In this context, orthodox IR's flawed diagnoses of global crises lead inexorably to their ‘securitisation’, reifying the militarisation of policy responses, and naturalising the proliferation of violent conflicts. Global ecological, energy and economic crises are thus directly linked to the ‘Otherisation’ of social groups and problematisation of strategic regions considered pivotal for the global political economy. Yet this relationship between global crises and conflict is not necessary or essential, but a function of a wider epistemological failure to holistically interrogate their structural and systemic causes.¶ In 2009, the UK government's chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington warned that without mitigating and preventive action 'drivers' of global crisis like demographic expansion, environmental degradation and energy depletion could lead to a 'perfect storm' of simultaneous food, water and energy crises by around 2030.1 Yet, for the most part, conventional policy responses from national governments and international institutions have been decidedly inadequate. Part of the problem is the way in which these crises are conceptualised in relation to security. Traditional disciplinary divisions in the social and natural sciences, compounded by bureaucratic compartmentalisation in policy-planning and decision-making, has meant these crises are frequently approached as largely separate processes with their own internal dynamics.¶ While it is increasingly acknowledged that cross-disciplinary approaches are necessary, these have largely failed to recognise just how inherently interconnected these crises are. As Brauch points out, 'most studies in the environmental security debate since 1990 have ignored or failed to integrate the contributions of the global environmental change community in the natural sciences. To a large extent the latter has also failed to integrate the results of this debate.*" Underlying this problem is the lack of a holistic systems approach to thinking about not only global crises, but their causal origins in the social, political, economic, ideological and value structures of the contemporary international system. Indeed, it is often assumed that these contemporary structures are largely what need to be 'secured* and protected from the dangerous impacts of global crises, rather than transformed precisely to ameliorate these crises in the first place. Consequently, policy-makers frequently overlook existing systemic and structural obstacles to the implementation of desired reforms.¶ In a modest effort to contribute to the lacuna identified by Brauch, this paper begins with an empiric ally-oriented, interdisciplinary exploration of the best available data on four major global crises — climate change, energy depletion, food scarcity and global financial instability — illustrating the systemic interconnections between different crises, and revealing that their causal origins are not accidental but inherent to the structural failings and vulnerabilities of existing global political, economic and cultural institutions. This empirical evaluation leads to a critical appraisal of orthodox realist and liberal approaches to global crises in international theory and policy. This critique argues principally that orthodox IR reifies a highly fragmented, de-historicised ontology of the international system which underlies a reductionist, technocratic and compartmentalised conceptual and methodological approach to global crises. Consequently, rather than global crises being understood causally and holistically in the systemic context of the structure of the international system, they are 'securitised* as amplifiers of traditional security threats, requiring counter-productive militarised responses and/or futile inter-state negotiations. While the systemic causal context of global crisis convergence and acceleration is thus elided, this simultaneously exacerbates the danger of reactionary violence, the problematisation of populations in regions impacted by these crises and the naturalisation of the consequent proliferation of wars and humanitarian disasters. This moves us away from the debate over whether resource 'shortages* or 'abundance* causes conflicts, to the question of how either can generate crises which undermine conventional socio-political orders and confound conventional IR discourses, in turn radicalising the processes of social polarisation that can culminate in violent conflict.
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Vote negative to reject the affirmatives securitized logic to open up space for true political engagement
Neocleous, 2008 (Mark Neocleous, professor of the Critique of Political Economy, Head of Department of Politics and History, Brunel University, “Critique of Security” p. 185-186)
The only way out of such a dilemma, to escape the fetish, is perhaps to eschew the logic of security altogether - to reject it as so ideologically loaded in favour of the state that any real political thought other than the authoritarian and reactionary should be pressed to give it up. That is clearly something that cannot be achieved within the limits of bourgeois thought and thus could never even begin to be imagined by the security intellectual. It is also something that the constant iteration of the refrain 'this is an insecure world' and reiteration of one fear, anxiety and insecurity after another will also make it hard to do. But it is something that the critique of security suggests we may have to consider if we want a political way out of the impasse of security. This impasse exists bec ause security has now become so all-encompassing that it marginalises all else, most notably the constructive conflicts, debates and discussions that animate political life. The constant prioritising of a mythical security as a political end - as the political end constitutes a rejection of politics in any meaningful sense of the term. That is, as a mode of action in which differences can be articulated, in which the conflicts and struggles that arise from such differences can be fought for and negotiated, in which people might come to believe that another world is possible - that they might transform the world and in turn be transformed. Security politics simply removes this; worse, it removes it while purportedly addressing it. In so doing it suppresses all issues of power and turns political questions into debates about the most efficient way to achieve 'security', despite the fact that we are never quite told - never could be told - what might count as having achieved it. Security politics is, in this sense, an anti-politics,"' dominating political discourse in much the same manner as the security state tries to dominate human beings, reinforcing security fetishism and the monopolistic character of security on the political imagination. We therefore need to get beyond security politics, not add yet more 'sectors' to it in a way that simply expands the scope of the state and legitimises state intervention in yet more and more areas of our lives. Simon Dalby reports a personal communication with Michael Williams, co-editor of the important text Critical Security Studies, in which the latter asks: if you take away security, what do you put in the hole that's left behind? But I'm inclined to agree with Dalby: maybe there is no hole."' The mistake has been to think that there is a hole and that this hole needs to be filled with a new vision or revision of security in which it is re-mapped or civilised or gendered or humanised or expanded or whatever. All of these ultimately remain within the statist political imaginary, and consequently end up reaffirming the state as the terrain of modern politics, the grounds of security. The real task is not to fill the supposed hole with yet another vision of security, but to fight for an alternative political language which takes us beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois security and which therefore does not constantly throw us into the arms of the state. That's the point of critical politics: to develop a new political language more adequate to the kind of society we want. Thus while much of what I have said here has been of a negative order, part of the tradition of critical theory is that the negative may be as significant as the positive in setting thought on new paths. For if security really is the supreme concept of bourgeois society and the fundamental thematic of liberalism, then to keep harping on about insecurity and to keep demanding 'more security' (while meekly hoping that this increased security doesn't damage our liberty) is to blind ourselves to the possibility of building real alternatives to the authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics. To situate ourselves against security politics would allow us to circumvent the debilitating effect achieved through the constant securitising of social and political issues, debilitating in the sense that 'security' helps consolidate the power of the existing forms of social domination and justifies the short-circuiting of even the most democratic forms. It would also allow us to forge another kind of politics centred on a different conception of the good. We need a new way of thinking and talking about social being and politics that moves us beyond security. This would perhaps be emancipatory in the true sense of the word. What this might mean, precisely, must be open to debate. But it certainly requires recognising that security is an illusion that has forgotten it is an illusion; it requires recognising that security is not the same as solidarity; it requires accepting that insecurity is part of the human condition, and thus giving up the search for the certainty of security and instead learning to tolerate the uncertainties, ambiguities and 'insecurities' that come with being human; it requires accepting that 'securitizing' an issue does not mean dealing with it politically, but bracketing it out and handing it to the state; it requires us to be brave enough to return the gift."'
Solvency
Oops your plan is not inherent - new guidelines significantly reduce signature strikes and casualties
Herb 13 (Jeremy, Fewer drone strikes likely result of new Obama policy, analysts say, The Hill, 27 May 2013, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/301965-fewer-drone-strikes-the-likely-result-of-new-obama-policy-analysts-say, da 9-6-13) PC
President Obama’s new guidelines on drone strikes abroad are likely to curtail the number of attacks the United States carries out, according to defense experts.¶ The White House’s codified policy signed by the president this week requires a “continuing, imminent” threat before terrorists are targeted. The directive also requires “near-certainty” that civilians will not be harmed in the strike.¶ Defense analysts say that the emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties will reduce — or perhaps eliminate altogether — the use of “signature” strikes, where unidentified people are targeted on the basis of suspicious activities.¶ “The announcement that they’ll avoid civilian casualties to the greatest extent possible — what that says is no more signature attacks,” said James Lewis, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The signature attacks are probably the source of a lot of the civilian casualties.”
No internal link between your solvency evidence and your internal link evidence to your advantages. Internal link to advantage is just about signature strikes being bad. No reason why executive transparency won’t solve.
The executive will bypass your plan – empirics prove.
Schwarz, senior counsel, and Huq, associate counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2007 Frederick A.O., Jr., partner at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, chief counsel to the Church Committee, and Aziz Z, former clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror, p. 153
Familiar failings from the Cold War era and earlier history returned to haunt the nation in the wake of 9/11. But this time abuses were compounded by a new and dangerous idea. To justify illicit invasions of liberty and privacy, the executive branch's lawyers argued that the president has unlimited power to violate federal statutes. President Bush agreed. Specifically, he asserted under the Constitution a novel authority in the name of "national security" or "military necessity" to disregard permanently any law enacted by Congress. The Administration used this power to justify set-asides of long-standing federal statutes barring torture, indefinite detention, and warrantless spying. In the Cold War, the FBI and the CIA violated the law but hid or denied their actions. After 9/11, government overreaching claimed a legal basis through theories about "executive power." Abuse became official policy and practice of the United States. No sitting president before President Bush asserted or used power under the Constitution to set aside laws wholesale. Such power means a president can ignore statutes passed by Congress whenever he claims that "national security" or "military necessity" is at issue. This claim finds precedent in the seventeenth-century British kings' royal "prerogative" power to "suspend" or "dispense" with laws enacted by Parliament.' But that power, grounded in ideas about the "divine" right of kings, did not survive the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which ended the Stuart dynasty. Certainly, it did not find its way into our founding documents, the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1787.
AQAP
The executive branch is currently operating on unrestrained authority
Waxman et al 13
(Matthew, Robert Chesney, Jack Goldsmith, Benjamin Wittes, All Members of the Task Force on National Security and Law for the hoover institute, “Is the War on Terror Lawful?” Hoover Institute, February 25, 2013, http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/141091 accessed 8/16/13) ZLH
Since September 18, 2001, a joint resolution of Congress known as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) has served as the primary legal foundation for the “war on terror.” In this essay we explain why the AUMF is increasingly obsolete, why the nation will probably need a new legal foundation for next-generation terrorist threats, what the options are for this new legal foundation, and which option we think is best. The AUMF authorizes the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, . . . .” The authorization of “force” in the AUMF is the main legal basis for the president’s power to detain and target members of al Qaeda and The Taliban. In addition, since September 11, Congress, two presidential administrations, and the lower federal courts have interpreted the “force” authorized by the AUMF to extend to members or substantial supporters of the Taliban and al Qaeda, and associated forces. The main reason the AUMF is becoming obsolete is that the conflict it describes – which on its face is one against the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks and those who harbor them – is growing less salient as U.S. and allied actions degrade the core of Al Qaeda and the U.S. military draws down its forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the same time that the original objects of the AUMF are dying off, newer terrorist groups that threaten the United States and its interests are emerging around the globe. Some of the terrorist groups have substantial ties to al Qaeda and thus can be brought within the AUMF by interpretation. For example, the President has been able to use force against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (“AQAP”), a terrorist organization in Yemen, because it is a supporter or associated force of al Qaeda. But this interpretive move is increasingly difficult as newer threatening groups emerge with dimmer ties, if any, to al Qaeda. As a result, we are reaching the end point of statutory authority for the President to meet terrorist threats.
Statutory restrictions hurt war fighting effectiveness--- strong executive key
Yoo 2012 (John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, February 1, 2012, “War Powers Belong to the President,” ABA Journal, http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/war_powers_belong_to_the_president)
Congress’ track record when it has opposed presidential leadership has not been a happy one. Perhaps the most telling example was the Senate’s rejection of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. Congress’ isolationist urge kept the United States out of Europe at a time when democracies fell and fascism grew in their place. Even as Europe and Asia plunged into war, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts designed to keep the United States out of the conflict. President Franklin Roosevelt violated those laws to help the Allies and draw the nation into war against the Axis. While pro-Congress critics worry about a president’s foreign adventurism, the real threat to our national security may come from inaction and isolationism. Many point to the Vietnam War as an example of the faults of the “imperial presidency.” Vietnam, however, could not have continued without the consistent support of Congress in raising a large military and paying for hostilities. And Vietnam ushered in a period of congressional dominance that witnessed American setbacks in the Cold War and the passage of the ineffectual War Powers Resolution. Congress passed the resolution in 1973 over President Richard Nixon’s veto, and no president, Republican or Democrat, George W. Bush or Obama, has ever accepted the constitutionality of its 60-day limit on the use of troops abroad. No federal court has ever upheld the resolution. Even Congress has never enforced it. Despite the record of practice and the Constitution’s institutional design, critics nevertheless argue for a radical remaking of the American way of war. They typically base their claim on Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to “declare war.” But these observers read the 18th century constitutional text through a modern lens by interpreting “declare war” to mean “start war.” When the Constitution was written, however, a declaration of war served diplomatic notice about a change in legal relations between nations. It had little to do with launching hostilities. In the century before the Constitution, for example, Great Britain—where the framers got the idea of the declare-war power—fought numerous major conflicts but declared war only once beforehand. Our Constitution sets out specific procedures for passing laws, appointing officers and making treaties. There are none for waging war because the framers expected the president and Congress to struggle over war through the national political process. In fact, other parts of the Constitution, properly read, support this reading. Article I, Section 10, for example, declares that the states shall not “engage” in war “without the consent of Congress” unless “actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.” This provision creates exactly the limits desired by anti-war critics, complete with an exception for self-defense. If the framers had wanted to require congressional permission before the president could wage war, they simply could have repeated this provision and applied it to the executive. Presidents, of course, do not have complete freedom to take the nation to war. Congress has ample powers to control presidential policy, if it wants to. Only Congress can raise the military, which gives it the power to block, delay or modify war plans. Before 1945, for example, the United States had such a small peacetime military that presidents who started a war would have to go hat in hand to Congress to build an army to fight it. Since World War II, it has been Congress that has authorized and funded our large standing military, one primarily designed to conduct offensive, not defensive, operations (as we learned all too tragically on 9/11) and to swiftly project power worldwide. If Congress wanted to discourage presidential initiative in war, it could build a smaller, less offensive-minded military. Congress’ check on the presidency lies not just in the long-term raising of the military. It can also block any immediate armed conflict through the power of the purse. If Congress feels it has been misled in authorizing war, or it disagrees with the president’s decisions, all it need do is cut off funds, either all at once or gradually. It can reduce the size of the military, shrink or eliminate units, or freeze supplies. Using the power of the purse does not even require affirmative congressional action. Congress can just sit on its hands and refuse to pass a law funding the latest presidential adventure, and the war will end quickly. Even the Kosovo war, which lasted little more than two months and involved no ground troops, required special funding legislation. The framers expected Congress’ power of the purse to serve as the primary check on presidential war. During the 1788 Virginia ratifying convention, Patrick Henry attacked the Constitution for failing to limit executive militarism. James Madison responded: “The sword is in the hands of the British king; the purse is in the hands of the Parliament. It is so in America, as far as any analogy can exist.” Congress ended America’s involvement in Vietnam by cutting off all funds for the war. Our Constitution has succeeded because it favors swift presidential action in war, later checked by Congress’ funding power. If a president continues to wage war without congressional authorization, as in Libya, Kosovo or Korea, it is only because Congress has chosen not to exercise its easy check. We should not confuse a desire to escape political responsibility for a defect in the Constitution. A radical change in the system for making war might appease critics of presidential power. But it could also seriously threaten American national security. In order to forestall another 9/11 attack, or to take advantage of a window of opportunity to strike terrorists or rogue nations, the executive branch needs flexibility. It is not hard to think of situations where congressional consent cannot be obtained in time to act. Time for congressional deliberation, which leads only to passivity and isolation and not smarter decisions, will come at the price of speed and secrecy. The Constitution creates a presidency that can respond forcefully to prevent serious threats to our national security. Presidents can take the initiative and Congress can use its funding power to check them. Instead of demanding a legalistic process to begin war, the framers left war to politics. As we confront the new challenges of terrorism, rogue nations and WMD proliferation, now is not the time to introduce sweeping, untested changes in the way we make war.
Specifically oversight sucks – prevents a speedy response to the terrorist threat.
Etzioni, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, ‘13
Amitai, “The Great Drone Debate”, Military Review, March-April 2013, RSR
Indeed, others have argued that such an ¶ approach jeopardizes counterterrorism efforts ¶ and that oversight would be best located within ¶ the executive branch. Former solicitor general ¶ Neal Kaytal, for example, has argued that federal ¶ judges lack expertise and could delay counterterrorist operations, as they are unused to operating on ¶ fast timetables or making the sort of pre-emptive ¶ judgments that would be required of a court that ¶ oversees drones.36 Rather, he argues that a better ¶ review process would be one that takes place within ¶ the executive branch, with the most senior national ¶ security advisors adjudicating cases argued by ¶ expert lawyers.37
Strong executive war powers key to fighting terrorists
Royal 2011 (John Paul Royal, Institute of World Politics, “War Powers and the Age of Terrorism,” Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress The Fellows Review, http://www.thepresidency.org/storage/Fellows2011/Royal-_Final_Paper.pdf)
Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially nuclear weapons, into the hands of these terrorists is the most dangerous threat to the United States. We know from the 9/11 Commission Report that Al Qaeda has attempted to make and obtain nuclear weapons for at least the past fifteen years. Al Qaeda considers the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction to be a religious obligation while “more than two dozen other terrorist groups are pursing CBRN chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials” (National Commission 2004, 397). Considering these statements, rogue regimes that are openly hostile to the United States and have or seek to develop nuclear weapons capability such as North Korea and Iran, or extremely unstable nuclear countries such as Pakistan, pose a special threat to American national security interests. These nations were not necessarily a direct threat to the United States in the past. Now, however, due to proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technology, they can inflict damage at considerably higher levels and magnitudes than in the past. In addition, these regimes may pursue proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technology to other nations and to allied terrorist organizations. The United States must pursue condign punishment and appropriate, rapid action against hostile terrorist organizations, rogue nation states, and nuclear weapons proliferation threats in order to protect American interests both at home and abroad. Combating these threats are the “top national security priority for the United States…with the full support of Congress, both major political parties, the media, and the American people” (National Commission 2004, 361). Operations may take the form of pre-emptive and sustained action against those who have expressed hostility or declared war on the United States. Only the executive branch can effectively execute this mission, authorized by the 2001 AUMF. If the national consensus or the nature of the threat changes, Congress possesses the intrinsic power to rescind and limit these powers.
Al Qaeda is weak now but could recover if the US allows them the opportunity
McLaughlin 13 (John McLaughlin was a CIA officer for 32 years and served as deputy director and acting director from 2000-2004. He currently teaches at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, 06:00 AM ET Terrorism at a moment of transition7/12, http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/12/terrorism-at-a-moment-of-transition/)
A third major trend has to do with the debate underway among terrorists over tactics, targets, and ways to correct past errors. On targets, jihadists are now pulled in many directions. Many experts contend they are less capable of a major attack on the U.S. homeland. But given the steady stream of surprises they’ve sprung – ranging from the 2009 “underwear bomber” to the more recent idea of a surgically implanted explosive – it is hard to believe they’ve given up trying to surprise us with innovations designed to penetrate our defenses. We especially should remain alert that some of the smaller groups could surprise us by pointing an attacker toward the United States, as Pakistan’s Tehrik e Taliban did in preparing Faizal Shazad for his attempted bombing of Times Square in 2010. At the same time, many of the groups are becoming intrigued by the possibility of scoring gains against regional governments that are now struggling to gain or keep their balance – opportunities that did not exist at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Equally important, jihadists are now learning from their mistakes, especially the reasons for their past rejection by populations where they temporarily gained sway. Documents from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, discovered after French forces chased them from Mali, reveal awareness that they were too harsh on local inhabitants, especially women. They also recognized that they need to move more gradually and provide tangible services to populations – a practice that has contributed to the success of Hezbollah in Lebanon. We are now seeing a similar awareness among jihadists in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen. If these “lessons learned” take hold and spread, it will become harder to separate terrorists from populations and root them out. Taken together, these three trends are a cautionary tale for those seeking to gauge the future of the terrorist threat. Al Qaeda today may be weakened, but its wounds are far from fatal. It is at a moment of transition, immersed in circumstances that could sow confusion and division in the movement or, more likely, extend its life and impart new momentum. So if we are ever tempted to lower our guard in debating whether and when this war might end, we should take heed of these trends and of the wisdom J. R. R. Tolkien has Eowyn speak in “Lord of the Rings”: "It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two ..."
Drone transparency leads to terrorism – hurts intelligence gathering and kills counter terrorism cooperation.
Junod, Journalist for Esquire, ‘12
Tom, “SECRETS AND WORLD TIES: OBAMA'S KILLER CONTRADICTION”, 7-12-12, Esquire,
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-drone-strikes-10558354, RSR
And then he proceeded to explain why transparency was a goal difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, even when a simple acknowledgment would go a long way toward expiating the sin of killing an innocent American teenager in the course of a counterterrorism strike.¶ State secrecy, the man on the phone said, exists for a reason, and it's generally not the reason that the Glenn Greenwalds of the world think it is — it's not to cover up wrongdoing. It's to protect two essential things: the sources and methods of the intelligence community, and something called "the requirement of non-acknowledgement."¶ I'd heard the sources-and-methods argument before, of course — it's the argument brought to bear every time the CIA is called upon to reveal its workings. He said that the action that killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, if such an action ever took place, would have been predicated on sources and methods that have to remain secret. It might involve human or electronic sourcing that can never be revealed.¶ But nobody's asking the Administration to reveal sources and methods here, I said. Nobody's asking for anything but the ability to hold the administration accountable when it kills an American citizen, in a manner that is absent of due process, especially when the killing is apparently a mistake, as it was in the case of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. Surely, there's a way to challenge the inevitable sense of license that attends an administration carrying out killings in secret without revealing intelligence sources and methods.¶ But that's the thing, he said: Secrecy isn't always the main driver here. Sometimes diplomacy is. "The requirement of non-acknowledgement" is. It's very common for cooperation and consent to be drawn from other countries only if you don't acknowledge something. They say, You can do this, but you can never acknowledge that you're involved.¶ So there are deals — deals that have already been made. And part of the deal is that you don't acknowledge the deal. If you do, then the country you made the deal with is obligated to do react, because now there's been a violation of sovereignty. The problem is that there are a lot of these kinds of deals, because they are so easy to make. They're a little like allowing a source to go off the record in journalism. If the source asks, Can I go off the record?, you'll say, Of course you can, because you want the source to talk. It's the same in statecraft. You make the deal because you want there to be a deal....¶ It might sound trivial, he said. It might sound as though large principles are being sacrificed to the sensitivities of small nations. But everyone in the political branches considers non-acknowledgement to be the lifeblood of diplomacy. People in Congress have it drummed into their heads. Calls for transparency? They won't even acknowledge calls for transparency that don't acknowledge the reality of non-acknowledgement. They'll brush them off. And so before Congress passes a law that would require a greater level of transparency for the killing of American citizens, it would have to contend with the requirement of non-acknowledgement. We'd have to see what would happen if we told a country we were looking to engage in a relationship that we couldn't promise non-acknowledgement. The truth is, we don't know what would happen.
Detention is an alt cause to resentment.
Roberts, Associate Professor of Philosophy at East Carolina University, ‘11
Rodney, “Utilitarianism and the Morality of Indefinite Detention”, Criminal Justice Ethics, Vol. 30, No. 1, RSR
Finally, ‘‘there is no evidence that preventive detention works. Comparative studies of terrorism stretching back more than 20 years have concluded that draconian measures* such as prolonged detention without trial*are not proven to reduce violence, and can actually be counterproductive.’’ 30 Since it may contribute to the ‘‘underlying factors that are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement,’’ namely, ‘‘injustice and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness,’’ there is a sense in which indefinite detention can be selfdefeating*it may increase the likelihood of future attacks.31
That’s an alt cause to on the ground cooperation too.
Hathaway, et al, ‘13
Oona (Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, Yale Law School); Samuel Adelsberg (J.D. candidate at Yale Law School); Spencer Amdur (J.D. candidate at Yale Law School); Freya Pitts (J.D. candidate at Yale Law School); Philip Levitz (J.D. from Yale Law School); and Sirine Shebaya (J.D. from Yale Law School), “The Power To Detain: Detention of Terrorism Suspects After 9/11”, The Yale Journal of International Law, Vol. 38, 2013, RSR
Legitimacy of the trial process is important not only to the individuals charged but also to the fight against terrorism. As several successful habeas corpus petitions have demonstrated, insufficient procedural protections create a real danger of erroneous imprisonment for extend periods. 249 Such efforts can generate resentment and distrust of the United States that undermine the effectiveness of counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, evidence suggests that populations are more likely to cooperate in policing when they believe they have been treated fairly.250 The understanding that a more legitimate detention regime will be a more effective one is reflected in recent statements from the Department of Defense and the White House.251
Drones have minimal civilian casualties
Byman 2013 (Daniel L., Research Director of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, “Why Drones Work: The Case for Washington's Weapon of Choice”, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/06/17-drones-obama-weapon-choice-us-counterterrorism-byman)
But even the most unfavorable estimates of drone casualties reveal that the ratio of civilian to militant deaths—about one to three, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism—is lower than it would be for other forms of strikes. Bombings by F-16s or Tomahawk cruise missile salvos, for example, pack a much more deadly payload. In December 2009, the United States fired Tomahawks at a suspected terrorist training camp in Yemen, and over 30 people were killed in the blast, most of them women and children. At the time, the Yemeni regime refused to allow the use of drones, but had this not been the case, a drone’s real-time surveillance would probably have spotted the large number of women and children, and the attack would have been aborted. Even if the strike had gone forward for some reason, the drone’s far smaller warhead would have killed fewer innocents. Civilian deaths are tragic and pose political problems. But the data show that drones are more discriminate than other types of force.
AQAP is only 100 and their operations are all low tech and fail.
Boone, Former Managing Editor of Yemen Times, ‘11
Jeb, 5-7-11, “Yemen: the new front line in the war for Obama’s second term”,
http://jebboone.com/2011/05/07/yemen-the-new-front-line-in-the-war-for-obamas-second-term/
However, contrary to popular belief, AQAP is most likely comprised of around 100 religious fanatics somewhere in Shabwa. The operational strength and resources of AQAP is highly overestimated by western governments and analysts. If we look back on AQAP’s three biggest operations since the organization’s founding in January of 2009, we can clearly see that not only are they executed fairly cheaply (AQAP even bragged about this in an issue of inspire) but they really don’t take much skill to pull off. Not to mention, all the following operations ended in failure.
No possibility for nuke terror.
Gerges, Director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics, ‘11
Fawaz, September, “End of the Road”, Boston Review,
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/fawaz_a_gerges_al_qaeda_end_of_the_road.php
Only Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has shown any determination to plot attacks within U.S. borders. In addition to the foiled ink-bomb plot, AQAP co-opted and armed a self-radicalized freelancer—the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—allowing bin Laden to claim responsibility for his aborted attempt. Senior officials of the Obama administration have also accused the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (the Pakistani Taliban) of joining forces with al Qaeda—some of whose senior leaders it may be hiding—and of facilitating, directing, and probably financing the failed car bombing in Times Square. Local factions give a false impression that al Qaeda possesses the reach and capability to wage a global war. In Yemen, Somalia, and the Maghreb, these factions seem to have given the organization a new life, yet they are pitted in a fierce local struggle for survival against the near enemy and are unable to coordinate their actions with the parent organization. One al Qaeda field lieutenant, in a message intercepted by U.S. intelligence before the raid on bin Laden’s compound, pleaded with bin Laden to come to the group’s rescue. Bin Laden chose hiding over organizational survival. Even a small number of fighters could be dangerous if they possessed a nuclear weapon. But the only conceivable scenario by which al Qaeda could obtain a nuclear device is if it built one for itself, and it lacks both the financial and technical capacity. John Mueller, a political scientist who has written extensively about al Qaeda’s possible pursuit of a nuclear weapon, notes that even if al Qaeda somehow obtained the materials needed to construct a bomb, it would face at least twenty significant technical obstacles in the process of building and deploying one, obstacles that challenge even a country such as Iran.
No impact to terror – their ev is fear mongering.
Mueller and Stewart 12 John Mueller is Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science, both at Ohio State University, and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Mark G. Stewart is Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Professor and Director at the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle in Australia, “The Terrorism Delusion”, International Security, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Summer 2012), pp. 81–110, Chetan
It seems increasingly likely that the official and popular reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has been substantially deluded—massively disproportionate to the threat that al-Qaida has ever actually presented either as an international menace or as an inspiration or model to homegrown amateurs. Applying the extensive datasets on terrorism that have been generated over the last decades, we conclude that the chances of an American perishing at the hands of a terrorist at present rates is one in 3.5 million per year—well within the range of what risk analysts hold to be “acceptable risk.”40 Yet, despite the importance of responsibly communicating risk and despite the costs of irresponsible fearmongering, just about the only official who has ever openly put the threat presented by terrorism in some sort of context is New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who in 2007 pointed out that people should “get a life” and that they have a greater chance of being hit by lightning than of being a victim of terrorism—an observation that may be a bit off the mark but is roughly accurate.41 (It might be noted that, despite this unorthodox outburst, Bloomberg still managed to be re-elected two years later.) Indeed, much of the reaction to the September 11 attacks calls to mind Hans Christian Andersen’s fable of delusion, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in which con artists convince the emperor’s court that they can weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns from the delicate silk and purest gold thread they are given. These stuffs, they further convincingly explain, have the property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unusually stupid or unfit for office. The emperor finds this quite appealing because not only will he have splendid new clothes, but he will be able to discover which of his officials are unfit for their posts—or in today’s terms, have lost their effectiveness. His courtiers, then, have great professional incentive to proclaim the stuffs on the loom to be absolutely magnificent even while mentally justifying this conclusion with the equivalent of “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Unlike the emperor’s new clothes, terrorism does of course exist. Much of the reaction to the threat, however, has a distinctly delusionary quality. In Carle’s view, for example, the CIA has been “spinning in self-referential circles” in which “our premises were flawed, our facts used to fit our premises, our premises determined, and our fears justified our operational actions, in a self-contained process that arrived at a conclusion dramatically at odds with the facts.” The process “projected evil actions where there was, more often, muddled indirect and unavoidable complicity, or not much at all.” These “delusional ratiocinations,” he further observes, “were all sincerely, ardently held to have constituted a rigorous, rational process to identify terrorist threats” in which “the avalanche of reporting confirms its validity by its quantity,” in which there is a tendency to “reject incongruous or contradictory facts as erroneous, because they do not conform to accepted reality,” and in which potential dissenters are not-so-subtly reminded of career dangers: “Say what you want at meetings. It’s your decision. But you are doing yourself no favors.”42 Consider in this context the alarming and profoundly imaginary estimates of U.S. intelligence agencies in the year after the September 11 attacks that the number of trained al-Qaida operatives in the United States was between 2,000 and 5,000.43 Terrorist cells, they told reporters, were “embedded in most U.S. cities with sizable Islamic communities,” usually in the “run-down sections,” and were “up and active” because electronic intercepts had found some of them to be “talking to each other.”44 Another account relayed the view of “experts” that Osama bin Laden was ready to unleash an “11,000 strong terrorist army” operating in more than sixty countries “controlled by a Mr. Big who is based in Europe,” but that intelligence had “no idea where thousands of these men are.”45 Similarly, FBI Director Robert Mueller assured the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 11, 2003, that, although his agency had yet to identify even one al-Qaida cell in the United States, “I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing,” a sentence rendered in bold lettering in his prepared text. Moreover, he claimed that such unidentified entities presented “the greatest threat,” had “developed a support infrastructure” in the country, and had achieved both the “ability” and the “intent” to inflict “signi ficant casualties in the US with little warning.”46 Over the course of time, such essentially delusionary thinking has been internalized and institutionalized in a great many ways. For example, an extrapolation of delusionary proportions is evident in the common observation that, because terrorists were able, mostly by thuggish means, to crash airplanes into buildings, they might therefore be able to construct a nuclear bomb. Brian Jenkins has run an internet search to discover how often variants of the term “al-Qaida” appeared within ten words of “nuclear.” There were only seven hits in 1999 and eleven in 2000, but the number soared to 1,742 in 2001 and to 2,931 in 2002.47 By 2008, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was assuring a congressional committee that what keeps every senior government leader awake at night is “the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear.”48 Few of the sleepless, it seems, found much solace in the fact that an al-Qaida computer seized in Afghanistan in 2001 indicated that the group’s budget for research on weapons of mass destruction (almost all of it focused on primitive chemical weapons work) was $2,000 to $4,000.49 In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, officials now have many more al-Qaida computers, and nothing in their content appears to suggest that the group had the time or inclination, let alone the money, to set up and staff a uranium-seizing operation, as well as a fancy, super-high-technology facility to fabricate a bomb. This is a process that requires trusting corrupted foreign collaborators and other criminals, obtaining and transporting highly guarded material, setting up a machine shop staffed with top scientists and technicians, and rolling the heavy, cumbersome, and untested finished product into position to be detonated by a skilled crew—all while attracting no attention from outsiders.50 If the miscreants in the American cases have been unable to create and set off even the simplest conventional bombs, it stands to reason that none of them were very close to creating, or having anything to do with, nuclear weapons—or for that matter biological, radiological, or chemical ones. In fact, with perhaps one exception, none seems to have even dreamed of the prospect; and the exception is José Padilla (case 2), who apparently mused at one point about creating a dirty bomb—a device that would disperse radiation—or even possibly an atomic one. His idea about isotope separation was to put uranium into a pail and then to make himself into a human centrifuge by swinging the pail around in great arcs.51 Even if a weapon were made abroad and then brought into the United States, its detonation would require individuals in-country with the capacity to receive and handle the complicated weapons and then to set them off. Thus far, the talent pool appears, to put mildly, very thin.
Government planners concede zero chance of retal.
Schmitt 11 BY ERIC SCHMITT, THOMAS SHANKER | SEPTEMBER 6, 2011 Eric Schmitt is a terrorism and national security correspondent for the New York Times. Thomas Shanker is a Pentagon and national security correspondent for the Times.
3. The Threat to Bomb Mecca As fears of a second attack mounted following the 9/11 strikes, U.S. government planners frantically cast about for strategies to protect the country. Even the most far-fetched ideas had a hearing, however briefly. In one case, some government planners proposed that if al Qaeda appeared ready to attack America again, the United States should publicly threaten to bomb the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the holiest site in all of Islam, in retaliation. "Just nuts!" one Pentagon aide wrote to himself when he heard the proposal. The idea was quickly and permanently shelved.
No Indo-Pak war – multiple factors prevent.
Mutti 9 (James, Master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Washington, Has over a decade of expertise covering South Asia geopolitics, “Mumbai Misperceptions: War is Not Imminent”, Demockracy
http://demockracy.com/four-reasons-why-the-mumbai-attacks-wont-result-in-a-nuclear-war/
Fearful of imminent war, the media has indulged in frantic hand wringing about Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals and renewed fears about the Indian subcontinent being “the most dangerous place on earth.” As an observer of the subcontinent for over a decade, I am optimistic that war will not be the end result of this event. As horrifying as the Mumbai attacks were, they are not likely to drive India and Pakistan into an armed international conflict. The media frenzy over an imminent nuclear war seems the result of the media being superficially knowledgeable § Marked 17:55 § about the history of Indian-Pakistani relations, of feeling compelled to follow the most sensationalistic story, and being recently brainwashed into thinking that the only way to respond to a major terrorist attack was the American way – a war. Here are four reasons why the Mumbai attacks will not result in a war: 1. For both countries, a war would be a disaster. India has been successfully building stronger relations with the rest of the world over the last decade. It has occasionally engaged in military muscle-flexing (abetted by a Bush administration eager to promote India as a counterweight to China and Pakistan), but it has much more aggressively promoted itself as an emerging economic powerhouse and a moral, democratic alternative to less savory authoritarian regimes. Attacking a fledgling democratic Pakistan would not improve India’s reputation in anybody’s eyes. The restraint Manmohan Singh’s government has exercised following the attacks indicates a desire to avoid rash and potentially regrettable actions. It is also perhaps a recognition that military attacks will never end terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly win a war against India, and Pakistan’s military defeat would surely lead to the downfall of the new democratic government. The military would regain control, and Islamic militants would surely make a grab for power – an outcome neither India nor Pakistan want. Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has shown that this is not the path he wants his country to go down. He has forcefully spoken out against terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and has ordered military attacks against LeT camps. Key members of LeT and other terrorist groups have been arrested. One can hope that this is only the beginning, despite the unenviable military and political difficulties in doing so. 2. Since the last major India-Pakistan clash in 1999, both countries have made concrete efforts to create people-to-people connections and to improve economic relations. Bus and train services between the countries have resumed for the first time in decades along with an easing of the issuing of visas to cross the border. India-Pakistan cricket matches have resumed, and India has granted Pakistan “most favored nation” trading status. The Mumbai attacks will undoubtedly strain relations, yet it is hard to believe that both sides would throw away this recent progress. With the removal of Pervez Musharraf and the election of a democratic government (though a shaky, relatively weak one), both the Indian government and the Pakistani government have political motivations to ease tensions and to proceed with efforts to improve relations. There are also growing efforts to recognize and build upon the many cultural ties between the populations of India and Pakistan and a decreasing sense of animosity between the countries. 3. Both countries also face difficult internal problems that present more of a threat to their stability and security than does the opposite country. If they are wise, the governments of both countries will work more towards addressing these internal threats than the less dangerous external ones. The most significant problems facing Pakistan today do not revolve around the unresolved situation in Kashmir or a military threat posed by India. The more significant threat to Pakistan comes from within. While LeT has focused its firepower on India instead of the Pakistani state, other militant Islamic outfits have not. Groups based in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have orchestrated frequent deadly suicide bombings and clashes with the Pakistani military, including the attack that killed ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. The battle that the Pakistani government faces now is not against its traditional enemy India, but against militants bent on destroying the Pakistani state and creating a Taliban-style regime in Pakistan. In order to deal with this threat, it must strengthen the structures of a democratic, inclusive political system that can also address domestic problems and inequalities. On the other hand, the threat of Pakistani based terrorists to India is significant. However, suicide bombings and attacks are also carried out by Indian Islamic militants, and vast swaths of rural India are under the de facto control of the Maoist guerrillas known as the Naxalites. Hindu fundamentalists pose a serious threat to the safety of many Muslim and Christian Indians and to the idea of India as a diverse, secular, democratic society. Separatist insurgencies in Kashmir and in parts of the northeast have dragged on for years. And like Pakistan, India faces significant challenges in addressing sharp social and economic inequalities. Additionally, Indian political parties, especially the ruling Congress Party and others that rely on the support of India’s massive Muslim population to win elections, are certainly wary about inflaming public opinion against Pakistan (and Muslims). This fear could lead the investigation into the Mumbai attacks to fizzle out with no resolution, as many other such inquiries have. 4. The international attention to this attack – somewhat difficult to explain in my opinion given the general complacency and utter apathy in much of the western world about previous terrorist attacks in places like India, Pakistan, and Indonesia – is a final obstacle to an armed conflict. Not only does it put both countries under a microscope in terms of how they respond to the terrible events, it also means that they will feel international pressure to resolve the situation without resorting to war. India and Pakistan have been warned by the US, Russia, and others not to let the situation end in war. India has been actively recruiting Pakistan’s closest allies – China and Saudi Arabia – to pressure Pakistan to act against militants, and the US has been in the forefront of pressing Pakistan for action. Iran too has expressed solidarity with India in the face of the attacks and is using its regional influence to bring more diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.
Modeling
Restricting the use of drones is impossible – unrestrained use is inevitable.
Steigerwald ‘13 (Lucy, “The Inevitability of Drones in the US and Abroad”, Anti War, 4-29-13, http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/04/29/the-inevitability-of-drones-in-the-u-s-and-abroad/, RSR)
The proliferation of drones will not long be an American issue alone. “The number of countries that have acquired or developed drones expanded to more than 75, up from about 40 in 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress,” USA Today reported in January.¶ In spite of some heartening legislative attempts to rein in drones here at home, as well as protests over their international use, they cannot be fully put back into the box. That’s why endlessly rehashing the concerns that are fundamentally tied in with this technology is a good thing to do, even if it brings up a sense of Deja Vu for anyone even halfway paying attention. The RCP article contains no breaking news about drones, but the moment that such articles disappear, we’re in real trouble. That’s when drones have been fully accepted as the most efficient killing machines abroad, and the ideal mechanisms for surveillance at home.
China won’t use drones to resolve territorial disputes – fears international backlash and creating a precedent for U.S. strikes in the area
Erickson, associate professor at the Naval War College and Associate in Research at Harvard University's Fairbank Centre, and Strange, researcher at the Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute and graduate student at Zhejiang University, 5-29-13 (Andrew and Austin, China has drones. Now how will it use them? Foreign Affairs, McClatchy-Tribune, 29 May 2013, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/China-has-drones-Now-how-will-it-use-them-30207095.html, da 8-3-13) PC
Drones, able to dispatch death remotely, without human eyes on their targets or a pilot's life at stake, make people uncomfortable - even when they belong to democratic governments that presumably have some limits on using them for ill. (On May 23, in a major speech, US President Barack Obama laid out what some of those limits are.) An even more alarming prospect is that unmanned aircraft will be acquired and deployed by authoritarian regimes, with fewer checks on their use of lethal force.¶ Those worried about exactly that tend to point their fingers at China. In March, after details emerged that China had considered taking out a drug trafficker in Myanmar with a drone strike, a CNN blog post warned, "Today, it's Myanmar. Tomorrow, it could very well be some other place in Asia or beyond." Around the same time, a National Journal article entitled "When the Whole World Has Drones" teased out some of the consequences of Beijing's drone programme, asking, "What happens if China arms one of its remote-piloted planes and strikes Philippine or Indian trawlers in the South China Sea?"¶ Indeed, the time to fret about when China and other authoritarian countries will acquire drones is over: they have them. The question now is when and how they will use them. But as with its other, less exotic military capabilities, Beijing has cleared only a technological hurdle - and its behaviour will continue to be constrained by politics.¶ China has been developing a drone capacity for over half a century, starting with its reverse engineering of Soviet Lavochkin La-17C target drones that it had received from Moscow in the late 1950s. Today, Beijing's opacity makes it difficult to gauge the exact scale of the programme, but according to Ian Easton, an analyst at the Project 2049 Institute, an American think-tank devoted to Asia-Pacific security matters, by 2011 China's air force alone had over 280 combat drones. In other words, its fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles is already bigger and more sophisticated than all but the United States'; in this relatively new field Beijing is less of a newcomer and more of a fast follower. And the force will only become more effective: the Lijian ("sharp sword" in Chinese), a combat drone in the final stages of development, will make China one of the very few states that have or are building a stealth drone capacity.¶ This impressive arsenal may tempt China to pull the trigger. The fact that a Chinese official acknowledged that Beijing had considered using drones to eliminate the Myanmar drug trafficker, Naw Kham, makes clear that it would not be out of the question for China to launch a drone strike in a security operation against a non-state actor. Meanwhile, as China's territorial disputes with its neighbours have escalated, there is a chance that Beijing would introduce unmanned aircraft, especially since India, the Philippines and Vietnam distantly trail China in drone funding and capacity, and would find it difficult to compete. Beijing is already using drones to photograph the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands it disputes with Japan, as the retired Chinese major-general Peng Guangqian revealed earlier this year, and to keep an eye on movements near the North Korean border.¶ Beijing, however, is unlikely to use its drones lightly. It already faces tremendous criticism from much of the international community for its perceived brazenness in continental and maritime sovereignty disputes. With its leaders attempting to allay notions that China's rise poses a threat to the region, injecting drones conspicuously into these disputes would prove counterproductive. China also fears setting a precedent for the use of drones in East Asian hotspots that the United States could eventually exploit. For now, Beijing is showing that it understands these risks, and to date it has limited its use of drones in these areas to surveillance, according to recent public statements from China's Defence Ministry.
No Senkaku or Asian conflict- empirically denied, economic interdependence checks, and China avoids nationalism.
Carlson ’13 (Allen Carlson is an Associate Professor in Cornell University’s Government Department. He was granted his PhD from Yale University’s Political Science Department. His undergraduate degree is from Colby College. In 2005 his Unifying China, Integrating with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era was published by Stanford University Press. He has also written articles that appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Affairs, Asia Policy, and Nations and Nationalism. In addition, he has published monographs for the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the East-West Center Washington. Carlson was a Fulbright-Hays scholar at Peking University during the 2004-2005 academic year. In 2005 he was chosen to participate in the National Committee’s Public Intellectuals Program, and he currently serves as an adviser to Cornell’s China Asia Pacific Studies program and its East Asia Program. Carlson is currently working on a project exploring the issue of nontraditional security in China’s emerging relationship with the rest of the international system. His most recent publications are the co-edited Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods and Field Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and New Frontiers in China’s Foreign Relations (Lexington, 2011). China Keeps the Peace at Sea China Keeps the Peace at Sea Why the Dragon Doesn't Want War Allen Carlson February 21, 2013
At times in the past few months, China and Japan have appeared almost ready to do battle over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands --which are administered by Tokyo but claimed by both countries -- and to ignite a war that could be bigger than any since World War II. Although Tokyo and Beijing have been shadowboxing over the territory for years, the standoff reached a new low in the fall, when the Japanese government nationalized some of the islands by purchasing them from a private owner. The decision set off a wave of violent anti-Japanese demonstrations across China. In the wake of these events, the conflict quickly reached what political scientists call a state of equivalent retaliation -- a situation in which both countries believe that it is imperative to respond in kind to any and all perceived slights. As a result, it may have seemed that armed engagement was imminent. Yet, months later, nothing has happened. And despite their aggressive posturing in the disputed territory, both sides now show glimmers of willingness to dial down hostilities and to reestablish stability. Some analysts have cited North Korea's recent nuclear test as a factor in the countries' reluctance to engage in military conflict. They argue that the detonation, and Kim Jong Un's belligerence, brought China and Japan together, unsettling them and placing their differences in a scarier context. Rory Medcalf, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained that "the nuclear test gives the leadership in both Beijing and Tokyo a chance to focus on a foreign and security policy challenge where their interests are not diametrically at odds." The nuclear test, though, is a red herring in terms of the conflict over the disputed islands. In truth, the roots of the conflict -- and the reasons it has not yet exploded -- are much deeper. Put simply, China cannot afford military conflict with any of its Asian neighbors. It is not that China believes it would lose such a spat; the country increasingly enjoys strategic superiority over the entire region, and it is difficult to imagine that its forces would be beaten in a direct engagement over the islands, in the South China Sea or in the disputed regions along the Sino-Indian border. However, Chinese officials see that even the most pronounced victory would be outweighed by the collateral damage § Marked 17:54 § that such a use of force would cause to Beijing's two most fundamental national interests -- economic growth and preventing the escalation of radical nationalist sentiment at home. These constraints, rather than any external deterrent, will keep Xi Jinping, China's new leader, from authorizing the use of deadly force in the Diaoyu Islands theater. For over three decades, Beijing has promoted peace and stability in Asia to facilitate conditions amenable to China's economic development. The origins of the policy can be traced back to the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping repeatedly contended that to move beyond the economically debilitating Maoist period, China would have to seek a common ground with its neighbors. Promoting cooperation in the region would allow China to spend less on military preparedness, focus on making the country a more welcoming destination for foreign investment, and foster better trade relations. All of this would strengthen the Chinese economy. Deng was right. Today, China's economy is second only to that of the United States. The fundamentals of Deng's grand economic strategy are still revered in Beijing. But any war in the region would erode the hard-won, and precariously held, political capital that China has gained in the last several decades. It would also disrupt trade relations, complicate efforts to promote the yuan as an international currency, and send shock waves through the country's economic system at a time when it can ill afford them. There is thus little reason to think that China is readying for war with Japan. At the same time, the specter of rising Chinese nationalism, although often seen as a promoter of conflict, further limits the prospects for armed engagement. This is because Beijing will try to discourage nationalism if it fears it may lose control or be forced by popular sentiment to take an action it deems unwise. Ever since the Tiananmen Square massacre put questions about the Chinese Communist Party's right to govern before the population, successive generations of Chinese leaders have carefully negotiated a balance between promoting nationalist sentiment and preventing it from boiling over. In the process, they cemented the legitimacy of their rule. A war with Japan could easily upset that balance by inflaming nationalism that could blow back against China's leaders. Consider a hypothetical scenario in which a uniformed Chinese military member is killed during a firefight with Japanese soldiers. Regardless of the specific circumstances, the casualty would create a new martyr in China and, almost as quickly, catalyze popular protests against Japan. Demonstrators would call for blood, and if the government (fearing economic instability) did not extract enough, citizens would agitate against Beijing itself. Those in Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing, would find themselves between a rock and a hard place. It is possible that Xi lost track of these basic facts during the fanfare of his rise to power and in the face of renewed Japanese assertiveness. It is also possible that the Chinese state is more rotten at the core than is understood. That is, party elites believe that a diversionary war is the only way to hold on to power -- damn the economic and social consequences. But Xi does not seem blind to the principles that have served Beijing so well over the last few decades. Indeed, although he recently warned unnamed others about infringing upon China's "national core interests" during a foreign policy speech to members of the Politburo, he also underscored China's commitment to "never pursue development at the cost of sacrificing other country's interests" and to never "benefit ourselves at others' expense or do harm to any neighbor." Of course, wars do happen -- and still could in the East China Sea. Should either side draw first blood through accident or an unexpected move, Sino-Japanese relations would be pushed into terrain that has not been charted since the middle of the last century. However, understanding that war would be a no-win situation, China has avoided rushing over the brink. This relative restraint seems to have surprised everyone. But it shouldn't. Beijing will continue to disagree with Tokyo over the sovereign status of the islands, and will not budge in its negotiating position over disputed territory. However, it cannot take the risk of going to war over a few rocks in the sea. On the contrary, in the coming months it will quietly seek a way to shelve the dispute in return for securing regional stability, facilitating economic development, and keeping a lid on the Pandora's box of rising nationalist sentiment. The ensuing peace, while unlikely to be deep, or especially conducive to improving Sino-Japanese relations, will be enduring.
2NC
Solvency
Changing the NDAA does nothing – you have to repeal the AUMF.
Morse, Contributor, ‘12
Carroll, “The Issue is Not the NDAA, it's the AUMF”, Anchor Rising, 3-22-12,
http://www.anchorrising.com/barnacles/014076.html, RSR
For people concerned about how aggressively pursuing enemies foreign potentially increases Presidential power at the expense of domestic liberty, in the end, the issue of importance isn’t what the 2012 NDAA affirms, building on the grant of authority in the AUMF. The issue is the AUMF itself. The NDAA’s reaffirmation of the AUMF doesn't impact much of anything, and a legislative victory that changed the NDAA but ignored the AUMF wouldn't diminish the increased war-powers that have been granted to the President by Congress. At some point, Congress is going to have to grapple with the issue of whether conditions that justify the AUMF remaining in force still exist, or whether it needs to be repealed or superseded by new legislation.
Your authors are wrong – the broadness of the AUMF ensures that your aff doesn’t solve.
Doane, Contributor, ‘11
Seneca, “Greenwald's "3 NDAA myths" is moony and wrong”, The Daily KOS, 12-20-11,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/20/1047407/-Greenwald-s-3-NDAA-myths-is-moony-and-wrong, RSR
I agree with Glenn Greenwald's analysis most of the time, but sometimes he's just wrong. He's wrong in his article from last Friday, "Three myths about the detention bill." Granted, Sections 1021 and 1022 are rotten -- but his statutory analysis is weak. He'd have us believe that the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Against Terrorism ("AUMFAT") -- not to be confused with its sibling the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq ("AUMFAI") -- is a modest measure that had benign language that was wrongly expanded by the courts is here being substantially expanded. As he puts it: "That’s why the NDAA can state that nothing is intended to expand the 2001 AUMF while achieving exactly that: because the Executive and judicial interpretation being given to the 2001 AUMF is already so much broader than its language provides."¶ And that's just wrong. The language of the 2001 AUMF was horribly broad. Greenwald minimizes it by narrowing his focus to a few segments that, were they they only things in the bill, wouldn't be such an enormity. But view the bill as a statutory scheme and it was so awful that the argument that this NDAA doesn't significantly expand it actually has force. I still oppose it, I still think that Obama needs to issue a hellacious signing statement to rein it in -- but I'm not convinced that a huge step like vetoing an NDAA is absolutely required. This is exactly the sort of circumstance where a signing statement is appropriate.
DA
Economic decline triggers every impact imaginable
Brzezinski, 12
(Zbigniew, National Security Advisor under President Carter, “After America How does the world look in an age of U.S. decline? Dangerously unstable,” Jan/Feb 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/after_america?page=0,0)
While a sudden, massive crisis of the American system -- for instance, another financial crisis -- would produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global political and economic disorder, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay or endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, an effective global successor. No single power will be readyby then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, expected the United States to play:the leader of a new, globally cooperative world order. More probable would be a protracted phase of rather inconclusive realignments of both global and regional power, with no grand winners and many more losers, in a setting of international uncertainty and even of potentially fatal risks to global well-being. Rather than a world where dreams of democracy flourish, a Hobbesian world of enhanced national security based on varying fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion could ensue. The leaders of the world's second-rank powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries, are already assessing the potential impact of U.S. decline on their respective national interests. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the Asian mainland, may be thinking of closer links with Europe. Leaders in India and Japan may be considering closer political and even military cooperation in case America falters and China rises. Russia, while perhaps engaging in wishful thinking (even schadenfreude) about America's uncertain prospects, will almost certainly have its eye on the independent states of the former Soviet Union. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be: Germany and Italy toward Russia because of commercial interests, France and insecure Central Europe in favor of a politically tighter European Union, and Britain toward manipulating a balance within the EU while preserving its special relationship with a declining United States. Others may move more rapidly to carve out their own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old Ottoman Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth. None of these countries, however, will have the requisite combination of economic, financial, technological, and military power even to consider inheriting America's leading role. China, invariably mentioned as America's prospective successor, has an impressive imperial lineage and a strategic tradition of carefully calibrated patience, both of which have been critical to its overwhelmingly successful, several-thousand-year-long history. China thus prudently accepts the existing international system, even if it does not view the prevailing hierarchy as permanent. It recognizes that success depends not on the system's dramatic collapse but on its evolution toward a gradual redistribution of power. Moreover, the basic reality is that China is not yet ready to assume in full America's role in the world. Beijing's leaders themselves have repeatedly emphasized that on every important measure of development, wealth, and power, China will still be a modernizing and developing state several decades from now, significantly behind not only the United States but also Europe and Japan in the major per capita indices of modernity and national power. Accordingly, Chinese leaders have been restrained in laying any overt claims to global leadership. At some stage, however, a more assertive Chinese nationalism could arise and damage China's international interests. A swaggering, nationalistic Beijing would unintentionally mobilize a powerful regional coalition against itself. None of China's key neighbors -- India, Japan, and Russia -- is ready to acknowledge China's entitlement to America's place on the global totem pole. They might even seek support from a waning America to offset an overly assertive China. The resulting regional scramble could become intense, especially given the similar nationalistic tendencies among China's neighbors. A phase of acute international tension in Asia could ensue. Asia of the 21st century could then begin to resemble Europe of the 20th century -- violent and bloodthirsty. At the same time, the security of a number of weaker states located geographically next to major regional powers also depends on the international status quo reinforced by America's global preeminence -- and would be made significantly more vulnerable in proportion to America's decline. The states in that exposed position -- including Georgia, Taiwan, South Korea, Belarus, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, and the greater Middle East -- are today's geopolitical equivalents of nature's most endangered species. Their fates are closely tied to the nature of the international environment left behind by a waning America, be it ordered and restrained or, much more likely, self-serving and expansionist. A faltering United States could also find its strategic partnership with Mexico in jeopardy. America's economic resilience and political stability have so far mitigated many of the challenges posed by such sensitive neighborhood issues as economic dependence, immigration, and the narcotics trade. A decline in American power, however, would likely undermine the health and good judgment of the U.S. economic and political systems. A waning United States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about its national identity, more paranoid about its homeland security, and less willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others' development. The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents. Another consequence of American decline could be a corrosion of the generally cooperative management of the global commons -- shared interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment, whose protection is imperative to the long-term growth of the global economy and the continuation of basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the potential absence of a constructive and influential U.S. role would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the superiority and ubiquity of American power creates order where there would normally be conflict.
Government shutdown prevents investment in climate change – causes runaway warming and instability in developing world
Lefton and Vogel 9/4 (Rebecca, Senior Policy Analyst focusing on international climate change and sustainable development at the Center for American Progress; Jesse, former intern with the Center’s Energy and Environment team, “Budget Gridlock Risks International Climate and Clean Energy Investments,” Center for American Progress, 2013, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/09/04/73374/budget-gridlock-risks-international-climate-and-clean-energy-investments/.)
As Congress continues to operate without a budget and faces the prospect of a government shutdown on October 1, appropriations for crucial investments in international climate change mitigation and adaptation hang in the balance. While the Senate Appropriations Committee passed the fiscal year 2014 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill, which maintains spending consistent with last year’s climate investments, the House Appropriations Committee voted to eliminate or significantly cut $10 billion for foreign-affairs programs. This vast difference means that international climate and clean energy investments—and their high rewards—are in danger. Investments are crucial for climate, development, and international security The effects of international climate change—which include more droughts, floods, and tropical storms—threaten to undo tremendous progress toward increased prosperity in the developing world. In areas of the world that already have complex and delicate geopolitical situations, climate change could displace populations and further destabilize governments. The formation of alliances and partnerships on environmental and climate initiatives with major emerging economies such as India, Indonesia, China, and Brazil that will help us meet other foreign policy objectives is at risk—and so too is international security. Because the warming impacts of greenhouse gas emissions know no national borders, increased emissions abroad continue to threaten U.S. communities. Rising sea levels are on course to submerge more than 1,000 municipalities along our shores by the end of the century, and extreme weather linked to global warming continues to cost lives and dollars in towns from Arizona to New Jersey.
Warming is real and human caused
Rahmstorf 8 (Stefan, paleoclimatologist, Professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, "Anthropogenic Climate Change: Revisiting the Facts," Potsdam Institute, 2008, http://www.pik potsdam.de/stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf)
This paper discussed the evidence for the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the effect of CO2 on climate, finding that this anthropogenic increase is proven beyond reasonable doubt and that a mass of evidence points to a CO2 effect on climate of 3°C ± 1.5°C global warming for a doubling of concentration. (This is the classic IPCC range; my personal assessment is that, in the light of new studies since the IPCC Third Assessment Report, the uncertainty range can now be narrowed somewhat to 3°C ± 1°C.) This is based on consistent results from theory, models, and data analysis, and, even in the absence of any computer models, the same result would still hold based on physics and on data from climate history alone. Considering the plethora of consistent evidence, the chance that these conclusions are wrong has to be considered minute. If the preceding is accepted, then it follows logically and incontrovertibly that a further increase in CO2 concentration will lead to further warming. The magnitude of our emissions depends on human behavior, but the climatic response to various emissions scenarios can be computed from the information presented here. The result is the famous range of future global temperature scenarios shown in figure 3-6. Two additional steps are involved in these computations: the consideration of anthropogenic forcings other than CO2 (for example, other greenhouse gases and aerosols) and the computation of concentrations from the emissions. Other gases are not discussed here, although they are important to get quantitatively accurate results. CO2 is the largest and most important forcing. Concerning concentrations, the scenarios shown basically assume that ocean and biosphere take up a similar share of our emitted CO2 as in the past. This could turn out to be an optimistic assumption; some models indicate the possibility of a positive feedback, with the biosphere turning into a carbon source rather than a sink under growing climatic stress. It is clear that even in the more optimistic of the shown (non-mitigation) scenarios, global temperature would rise by 2–3°C above its preindustrial level by the end of this century. Even for a paleo- climatologist like myself, this is an extraordinarily high temperature, which is very likely unprecedented in at least the past 100,000 years. As far as the data show, we would have to go back about 3 million years, to the Pliocene, for comparable temperatures. The rate of this warming (which is important for the ability of ecosystems to cope) is also highly unusual and unprecedented probably for an even longer time. The last major global warming trend occurred when the last great Ice Age ended between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago: this was a warming of about 5°C over 5,000 years, that is, a rate of only 0.1°C per century. The expected magnitude and rate of planetary warming is highly likely to come with major risks and impacts in terms of sea level rise (Pliocene sea level was 25–35 meters higher than now due to smaller Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets), extreme events (for example, hurricane activity is expected to increase in a warmer climate), and ecosystem loss. The second part of this paper examined the evidence for the current warming of the planet and discussed what is known about its causes. This part showed that global warming is already a measured and well-established fact, not a theory. Many different lines of evidence consistently show that most of the observed warming of the past fifty years was caused by human activity. Above all, this warming is exactly what would be expected given the anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases, and no viable alternative explanation for this warming has been proposed in the scientific literature. Taken together, the very strong evidence, accumulated from thousands of independent studies, has over the past decades convinced virtually every climatologist around the world (many of whom were initially quite skeptical, including myself) that anthropogenic global warming is a reality with which we need to deal.
Warming is the largest risk of extinction
Deibel 7 (Terry L., professor of IR at National War College, “Conclusion: American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today Anthropogenic – caused by CO2,” Foreign Affairs Strategy, 2007)
Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty. Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts “brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet over the next century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a decade ago”; “rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes”; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year” as disease spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is that “humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian roulette with the earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York University, “we’re just going to burn everything up; we’re going to heat the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers from terrorism and traditional military challenges to shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially to the continued existence of life on this planet.
Tea Party influence on the brink
International Business Times 13 “The Republican Civil War: Who Wins -- The Tea Party, Rand Paul And Rush Limbaugh, The Mainstream And Karl Rove, Or The Social Conservatives Like Mike Huckabee?” March 29 2013, http://www.ibtimes.com/republican-civil-war-who-wins-tea-party-rand-paul-rush-limbaugh-mainstream-karl-rove-or-social, DOA: 8-2-13, y2k
Remember the Tea Party? Even its members appear to have forgotten themselves. Just three years after it burned through a huge swath of the U.S. political landscape, retaking the House of Representatives for the Republicans in the 2010 off-year elections, the Tea Party seems to be fading as a national political phenomenon. Need evidence? How about this: the Tea Party caucus in the House hasn't met since last summer and its its webpage is defunct. Moreover, anybody with real GOP influence, from the architect Karl Rove to party head Reince Preibus, has implicitly or explicitly blamed the Tea Party for nominating Senate candidates whose unorthodox views about rape and other sensitive issues led to defeats against vulnerable Democrats in Indiana and Missouri. But perhaps the Tea Party’s relative public reserve these days is less a sign of the group’s growing irrelevance and more an indication that its attention is demanded elsewhere -- in the middle of an all-out battle for who gets to be the face (and heart) of the Republican Party now and in the foreseeable future. “It’s a civil war within the Republican Party,” said Edward Hudgins, director of advocacy at the libertarian-leaning Atlas Society. The participants can be broken down into three categories. The first group consists of heavily religious Republicans, in large part evangelical Christians, who care about social issues, from abortion to same-sex marriage: They loathe both, but their numbers are dwindling, and society is moving away from them. Their standard-bearer could be Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher, then Arkansas governor, then failed presidential candidate, then Fox News Channel personality. The second group encompasses establishment conservatives, old-school Republicans with a power base in Washington, who still believe in compromise, but are increasingly pressed by the party's right wing into taking all-or-nothing stances. Think John Boehner, the House majority leader who often looks like he would be ready to cut a deal with President Barack Obama, but can't do it because that would provoke a revolt by a large minority of his caucus -- mostly Tea Party-influenced members elected in 2010. And the third group is made up of those on the right flank, feisty and vocal: They are limited-government Republicans who want to shrink the federal government and cut public spending to the bone. That's where Tea Party-backed politicians largely reside. They famously don't have a leader, but if one figure spoke for them, it would be Rush Limbaugh, the intransigent, take-no-prisoners radio provocateur who has become the voice of the American right. So who's winning? Not social conservatives, according to Hudgins. Worrying about what goes on in people’s bedrooms is “guaranteed to lose them elections,” he said. The youth vote, consisting of those from 18 to 29 years old, is growing and represents about 19 percent of the votes cast in the presidential election last year. Obama was backed by 60 percent of that demographic group, while Mitt Romney was supported by 37 percent, according to a Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement report on Edison Research's National Election Exit Polls. These young voters have no interest in social conservatism at all. “That’s a major problem in the Republican Party,” Hudgins said, recalling how young Ron Paul supporters were given no credence and shown no respect during the primaries. “This group is going to be a growing proportion of the electorate. The Republican Party is going to be relegated to the dustbin of history” if it doesn't embrace them, he said.
Tea party influence down, Palin exit from Fox News proves
Lawrence 1/26 (Jill Lawrence, national correspondent, National Journal, “Sarah Palin and the End of an Era”, http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/sarah-palin-and-the-end-of-an-era-20130126 - TCA)
The news that Sarah Palin will no longer be a paid contributor to Fox News puts an exclamation point on the end of an era, or at least a chapter, in U.S. political history. She could land somewhere else, and she still has her Facebook friends, but it’s hard to imagine she’ll find a more visible or influential platform than Fox.¶ The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee has been fading from the scene for some time, as she inadvertently highlighted when she complained on Facebook during the Republican convention in August that the network had canceled her scheduled interviews that night. Her brother, Chuck Heath Jr., told Alan Colmes last week on Fox Radio that his sister is “kind of laying low right now,” though he wouldn’t or couldn’t say when asked why.¶ Once the face of an energetic and politically potent Tea Party movement, Palin is leaving Fox at a time when polls show the Tea Party at an all-time low in both membership and favorability. Her departure also coincides with calls by some leading Republicans for their party to stop saying things that erode the GOP brand and turn off voters in droves.
Mainstream GOP receiving funding instead of Tea Party, lack of discipline
Williams 2/3 (Matt Williams, Matt Williams is the weekend editor of the Guardian US. He is the former North America correspondent for the Press Association and a regular contributor to the Scotsman The Guardian, “Moderate Republicans push back against Tea Party with campaign fund”, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/03/republicans-push-tea-party-campaign-fund - TCA)
Republican donors are setting up a multimillion-dollar war chest to help protect electable party candidates from primary challenges from "undisciplined" candidates from the fringe right.¶ The Conservative Victory Project, set up by the Karl Rove-backed Super Pac American Crossroads, seeks to become a bulwark against the kind of extreme views that have seen the party lose Senate seats in recent contests.¶ The people behind the idea said it is a push against indiscipline rather than any particular ideology. But it comes as the Republican party seeks to define itself after November's presidential defeat amid an apparent battle for the heart of the party.¶ It is also being framed by some as a push against the influence of the Tea party, the likes of which have seen the GOP dragged to the right in recent years.¶ Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for American Crossroads, said it was rooted more in the pragmatism William F Buckley rule, which has it that you should put forward the most conservative candidate that is capable of winning.¶ "I wouldn't classify this effort as being conservative versus moderate. It is about being the most conservative candidate that can win. If a candidate is undisciplined or unable to raise sufficient resources, it should be recognised," Collegio told the Guardian.¶ He added: "Our party has lost six Senate seats over the last two election cycles not because of our ideas but because of undisciplined candidates running weak campaigns."¶ The new push comes just months after the Republicans lost two high-profile Senate battles in which their candidate had expressed deeply conservative – and to most people's minds, offensive – views on social issues.
Syria doesn’t affect Obama’s agenda – GOP internal division and decision-calculus are the key internal links
Sargent 9-12 (Greg, Syria won’t make GOP’s immigration problem go “poof” and disappear, Washington Post, 12 September 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/09/12/syria-wont-make-gops-immigration-problem-go-poof-and-disappear/, da 9-13-13) PC
I noted this morning that the overarching factor that will shape this fall’s fiscal fights is the deep schism within the GOP over how aggressively to wage war on Obamacare. For all the talk about how Obama’s mishandling of Syria diminishes or weakens him for coming confrontations, all of that is largely irrelevant to the central question: Can Republicans resolve their own internal differences?¶ It’s worth noting that a similar dynamic is present on immigration. Whatever Obama’s “standing” in relation to Congress, it won’t change the GOP’s predicament on immigration one iota.¶ Jorge Ramos, the widely influential Univision anchor who has been called the “Walter Cronkite of Hispanic media,” today published a column that illustrates this nicely. Republicans and neutral commentators say the Syria debate probably means immigration reform will be delayed indefinitely. This is, of course, a cop out, and Ramos says so rather bluntly. Here’s the translation, courtesy of America’s Voice:¶ Syria has turned into the biggest excuse to delay, and even eliminate, the chance for immigration reform this year. The enormous international consequences of an attack on Syria are giving the most conservative Republicans the pretext they were looking for not to give a path to citizenship to the undocumented.¶ I’m not trying to downplay the significance of Syria…but Hispanics and immigrants in the United States deserve better. The last time immigration reform happened was in 1986, and in 2007 a (weak) immigration bill died of starvation in Congress. How much longer do we have to wait? ...¶ Delaying the debate over immigration reform because of the conflict in Syria is simply an unacceptable excuse. Truly important things should not be delayed. Syria and immigration can, and should, both be discussed and resolved before the year ends.¶ As Ramos has previously noted, if immigration reform dies, the Hispanic media — and Latinos generally — will hold House Republicans, and House Republicans alone, responsible for it. Ramos’ message above is that if Republicans try to use Syria as an excuse for inaction, Latinos will see right through that, too.¶ The debate in Washington right now is heavily focused on whether Obama’s handling of Syria — in particular, Congress’ apparent rejection of his request for authorization — has badly weakened his ability to realize the rest of his agenda. Immigration reform, of course, is a major item on that agenda.¶ But when it comes to immigration — as with this fall’s fiscal fights — that question is largely irrelevant. Obama’s “standing” or “strength” with regard to Congress won’t play any significant role in determining whether immigration reform happens. That, too, is a question that turns only on whether Republicans resolve their differences over it.¶ Immigration reform’s fate, at bottom, rests solely on whether Republicans decide it needs to pass for the long term good of the party. Either they will decide killing reform is too risky, because it will lock in anti-GOP hostility among Latinos for a generation or more. Or they will decide passing reform won’t do enough to win over Latinos, given their disagreement with the GOP on other issues, and that the downsides of alienating the base aren’t worth the potential upsides. Neither the fact that Congress is distracted by Syria, nor Obama’s short term dip in popularity or standing or whatever you want to call it, will have anything whatsoever to do with that decision. Nor will Latino reaction to the GOP’s eventual decision. Does anyone imagine that if Republicans kill reform, Latinos will somehow see the Syria debate — or, even more ludicrously, Beltway-generated ideas about Obama’s “standing” — as mitigating factors?¶ When looked at through the prism of specific issues — such as immigration reform or the budget arguments to come — the notion that the Syria mess somehow diminishes the chances for key items on Obama’s agenda, or somehow changes the calculus for Republicans with regard to how to approach them, is plainly absurd on its face.
Syria won’t affect the domestic agenda – it wasn’t along party lines, and domestic issues will dominate the midterm elections
Lerer 9-12 (Lisa, Obama Syria Reversal Sets Stage for Fights With Congress, Bloomberg, 12 September 2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-12/obama-syria-reversal-sets-stage-for-fights-with-congress.html, da 9-13-13) PC
The White House and its allies argue that the debate over Syria won’t hurt Obama on other issues, simply because the fight didn’t break along traditional party lines and is unlikely to resonate in the 2014 congressional elections. A coalition of small-government Republicans wary of U.S. involvement overseas and Democrats who warned of the risk of entering another Middle Eastern war lined up against Obama’s Syria plan, likely killing its chances of passage if there had been a vote in the House.¶ Those Democrats, Obama supporters say, will stick with the president on economic issues, while many of those Republicans will always be lined up against him.¶ Representative Steve Israel of New York, head of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the ability of the party’s candidates to sell the benefits of the health-care law and outline their economic proposals will be far more important in their races than talking about Syria.¶ “2014 is not going to be a referendum on Syria,” Israel told reporters on Sept. 10 at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “I cannot imagine voters waking up in one year and two months saying they are going to cast their vote on Syria.”¶ The White House declined to comment on notifying Boehner and Cantor about Obama’s decision to hold off on congressional votes on Syria.
Counter-interpretation---the aff must defend the political ramifications of passing the plan---that’s vital to holistic cost benefit analysis.
Politics disads are good:
- Key to current events education that’s useful immediately and promotes political engagement
- They’re a vital neg generic on this topic because there’s no limiting word in the resolution
- Most real world---politicians must always assess political consequences of advocating any bill---the real inherent barrier to the plan is political opposition
Paul’s filibuster proves
Beauchamp and Brown, 13
(Zack Beauchamp and Hayes Brown, writers for Think Progress, "Rand Paul Launches Talking Filibuster: Demands Assurance Obama Won’t Use Drones Against Americans In U.S.", March 6, thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/06/1683851/rand-paul-launches-talking-filibuster-demands-assurance-obama-wont-use-drones-against-americans-in-us/ NL)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has long demanded a national conversation about President Obama’s claimed power to kill American citizens. On Wednesday, he took a big step towards starting one, using a rare “talking filibuster” to hold up the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA and deliver an extended critique of the targeted killing of Americans on American soil.¶ Brennan played a critical role in the development and codification of the Obama Administration’s targeted killing program, so his nomination has become a flashpoint for Paul and others worried about the scope of the powers claimed in it. Publicly released documents, particularly the infamous CIA white paperoutlining the legal thinking behind the strike on American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, have not provided specific guidance on the territorial limits of the Presidential power to kill citizens. A more recent document, submitted to Congress by Attorney General Eric Holder, suggested that under “extraordinary” circumstances, such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the president could kill an American citizen on American soil. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Holder specifically admitted that killing an American in the United States would be inappropriate and unconstitutional if the individual did not pose an imminent threat.¶ Throughout his filibuster, Paul repeatedly said that he would be willing to move to a vote on Brennan’s nomination if the Obama administration translated Holder’s reply into a written response and stated that it did not believe that the executive branch could target and kill Americans on American soil in most instances.¶ Paul acknowledged that it was unlikely that Obama would launch a drone strike against someone sleeping in their bed, but demanded clarification of what criteria the administration had for conducting targeted killing. While he initially questioned the principles behind so-called “signature strikes” against suspected terrorists not currently fighting,” Paul later shifted his focus to whether tactics used overseas could be transferred to American citizens within the U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who referred to himself and Paul (both whom have strong records on civil liberties issues) as the “checks and balances caucus,” also joined the questioning. He emphasized the need for public disclosure of classified documents about the legal authorization of targeted killings, arguing that “every American has the right to know when their government believes it is allowed to kill them.” “I’ve had four sessions now with the classified documents and I still have questions,” Wyden said, concluding that “there’s a very strong case for being able to declassify” said documents.¶ Wyden parted with Paul only on the forthrightness of Administration officials, suggesting that Brennan’s testimony that the “the CIA does not have the authority to conduct those operations targeted killings” was an adequate answer to Paul’s questions about the scope of the targeted killing power. Wyden also suggested that “the Attorney General has moved in the direction of what we’d like to hear.” Paul responded by claiming that the Administration’s responses did not rule out targeted killings inside the U.S. and suggested that the administration should clarify its position.¶ The senators did not address the broader issues surrounding the targeted killing program, such as whether, under the Administration’s current understanding of law, the authority to conducted targeted killings against all suspected terrorists will ever expire.
Limiting war powers is a tea party rallying point--- also builds support from GOP establishment
Antle 2013 (W. James Antle III, Editor, The Daily Caller News Foundation, March 7, 2013, “Rand Paul speaks as parties change places on executive power,” Daily Caller, http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/07/rand-paul-speaks-as-parties-change-places-on-executive-power/)
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul has finally stopped talking, but the conversation about presidential war powers and extrajudicial killings sparked by his filibuster continues.¶ On Thursday morning, pro-Paul hashtags like #StandWithRand remain among the top trending topics on Twitter. Nearly ever major news outlet has covered Paul’s filibuster, which delayed the confirmation of President Obama’s CIA nominee John Brennan.¶ Flying death robots may be a popular concept in movies, but the issues raised by the U.S. drone program had been confined to the fringes of political debate. Paul and Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee had been working with some of the Senate’s most liberal Democrats on civil liberties for months, starting with last year’s congressional votes on the National Defense Authorization Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments.¶ National security reporter Eli Lake dubbed Paul and Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden the “drone odd-couple,” noting that they called themselves the “Checks and Balances Caucus.”¶ “For some time now, Wyden and Paul—along with two other senators, Republican Mike Lee of Utah and Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado—have been working together to try to curb the broad authorities the Obama administration has asserted in the war on terror,” Lake wrote.¶ There was a strange bedfellows element to Paul’s drones filibuster as well. It attracted the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and Code Pink, in addition to tea party groups like FreedomWorks. Wyden’s participation made it a bipartisan affair.¶ But the biggest development was the support from Republican senators. In addition to Lee and fellow tea partier Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson all joined with Paul.¶ Few of those senators had ever expressed much interest in the drone program before, and several of them voted against Paul on recent high-profile civil liberties votes, such as the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act. By the end of the filibuster, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had aligned himself with Paul.¶ “Frankly, it should have been answered a long time ago,” McConnell said of Paul’s question to the Obama administration about drone strikes in the United States.¶ Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus urged all GOP senators to go to the floor to help Paul. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a fundraising effort based on Paul’s filibuster.¶ Former South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint also sent out a supportive tweet. DeMint is now president-elect of the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has frequently supported a strong executive in wartime.¶ It is likely that an outpouring of support for Paul from conservatives on social media motivated some Republicans to get involved, as criticism of executive power during the war on terror was unpopular in the party under President George W. Bush. But since Obama has been commander-in-chief, there has been a bit of a partisan role reversal.
Tea Party favors restricting the presidential war powers
Rebekah Metzler 13 is a political writer for U.S. News and World Report. “Marco Rubio, Rand Paul Strike Out to Re-Brand Their Party: Fresh takes on foreign, domestic policies aim to shake up GOP,” February 6, 2013, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/06/marco-rubio-rand-paul-strike-out-to-re-brand-their-party, DOA: 8-1-13, y2k
Paul, delivering a foreign policy speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation Wednesday, struck a balance between George W. Bush era neo-conservativism and support for nation building, and his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul's, unique brand of isolationism. The Kentucky senator criticized the traditional GOP stance that money should be no object when it comes to the U.S. military and its mission, and said that America should rethink its role in the world while recognizing the cost to U.S. blood and treasure. "I'd argue that a more restrained foreign policy is the true conservative foreign policy, as it includes two basic tenets of true conservatism: respect for the constitution and fiscal discipline," Paul said, reflecting libertarian ideals held by both Tea Partiers and some progressives. Congress also must be more assertive when it comes to its role in providing checks and balances to the president's war powers, he said. "We did not declare war or authorize force to begin war with Libya," Paul said. "This is a dangerous precedent. In our foreign policy, Congress has become not even a rubber stamp but an irrelevancy." A senator who at times finds himself the only member on a certain side of things—whether it's a willingness to place secret holds on nominations to get a vote on a certain amendment, or an opposition to some spending provision that most Republicans agree with—Paul was obviously striving to legitimize himself as a leader with original but appealing viewpoints. "When foreign policy has become so monolithic, so lacking in debate that Republicans and Democrats routinely pass foreign policy statements without debate and without votes, where are the calls for moderation, the calls for restraint?" he said. "Anyone who questions the bipartisan consensus is immediately castigated, rebuked and their patriotism challenged."
Tea Partiers want to limit war powers--- establishment bandwagons
Carney 2013 (Timothy P. Carney, Senior Political Columnist at the Washington Examiner, March 7, 2013, “Why Rand Paul's Filibuster Matters,” http://nation.foxnews.com/rand-paul/2013/03/07/why-rand-pauls-filibuster-matters)
Besides delaying for a day the vote on President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, John Brennan, did Sen. Rand Paul accomplish anything besides “blowing up Twitter,” as his cohort Ted Cruz put it? He certainly did. How much he accomplished will be determined, but here are some places to look:¶ • He got the major media talking, for almost the first time, about the government’s ability to kill U.S. citizens, without trial, even when they’re not posing an imminent threat, on U.S. soil. Also, more broadly, about our government using drones to execute people that maybe we should be trying to capture and try.¶ ¶ • He got many Republicans to express objections to extrajudicial drone killings. Republicans, as a party, haven’t been very worried about U.S. overreaches in the “Global War on Terror.” Paul was something of a loner on this front when he was running in 2010. But Paul’s filibuster captured the attention of the media, and the heart of conservatives and libertarians around the country.¶ Twitter provided such instant feedback, that it was pretty easy for Republican politicians to see there is a real demand for these sorts of civil liberties concerns on the Right. It may even be that some conservatives who rushed to “Stand to Rand” were really coming out of the closet, emboldened by Paul. Probably, most politicians coming to Paul’s side were being opportunistic. Certainly many conservatives in the Twitterverse and Blogosphere were motivated a bit by partisanship — knocking Obama’s hypocrisy on due process and civil liberties.¶ But still, even when politicians move for opportunistic or partisan reasons, they move, and the bounds of permissible dissent move with them. It’s now easier for any future Republican politician or conservative commentator to push back on military overreach.¶ • Paul made a conservative case for limiting war powers. I’ll sound an even more hopeful note here: Paul may have made some conservatives watching on C-Span — or even some GOP lawmakers watching from the floor — more skeptical about executive power in the sprawling “war on terror.”
Debt ceiling will pass now
Robb, 8-27 (Greg Robb, editor for the Market Watch section of the Wall Street Journal,”Short-term deals on budget, debt ceiling now more likely: analyst”, August 27th, 2013, http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2013/08/27/short-term-deals-on-budget-debt-ceiling-now-more-likely-analyst/)
The Treasury Department’s fresh estimate that it will hit the debt limit in mid-October increases the likelihood that Congress will kick the can down the road for a few months, said Stan Collender, a budget expert, in a blog post Tuesday.¶ Congress has only 25 legislative days left to pass a budget for the next fiscal year and increase the debt ceiling and it is simply not credible to think they can do it, he said.¶ Congress returns to work on Sept. 9 and only has nine days of work before the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1. And then there are only about 10 legislative days until the Treasury says it will hit the borrowing limit, he said.¶ It would be all-but-impossible to do, even if the White House and Congress were controlled by the same political party and that party had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Collender said.¶ Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Tuesday that he doesn’t think Congressional leaders have a strategy to pass an increase in the debt limit.¶ In light of the earlier-than-expected deadline, Congress will pass a short-term stopgap spending measure to keep the government open and will also pass a small increase in the debt ceiling to prevent a default, Collender said.¶ This will extend the fight over the debt ceiling through the fall and into the winter, he said.
GOP will give in now
Alexander Bolton, 9-12-2013, "Reid 'really frightened' over potential for government shutdown ," The Hill, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/321923-reid-really-frightened-of-possible-government-shutdown-after-meeting-with-boehner
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he is scared of a possible government shutdown after meeting with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Thursday morning. “I’m really frightened,” he told reporters after a press conference to discuss the morning meeting he had with Boehner, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “I think they’re looking like the House is having trouble controlling themselves,” he said. Earlier in the day, Reid declared that the lower chamber had been taken over by anarchists after an energy efficiency bill stalled on the Senate floor. “We’re diverted totally from what this bill is about. Why? Because the anarchists have taken over,” he said. “They’ve taken over the House and now they’ve taken over the Senate. Reid on Thursday delivered a blunt message to Boehner that he will not delay the 2010 Affordable Care Act in exchange for keeping the government open past the end of the month. Reid also made clear he will not grant Republicans any concessions in order to pass legislation to raise the debt limit. Reid told reporters that he will strip out any language defunding or delaying the new healthcare law included in House-passed legislation funding government beyond Sept. 30. “Go to something else, get away from ObamaCare. Send us something else,” he said. He plans to pass a “clean” stopgap spending measure to keep the government open through year’s end. Reid characterized Thursday morning’s bicameral leadership meeting as cordial and said he offered to help Boehner circumvent Tea Party-affiliated conservatives who are threatening a government shutdown. “I said to him, ‘What can I do to help?’,” Reid said. “It was not a yelling-at-each-other meeting. It was a very nice meeting we had. Hey listen, I like John Boehner.” Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democratic leader, predicted House Republican leaders will fold before allowing the government to shut down. “I still think at the last minute they’ll have to blink,” Schumer said. “The fact that Boehner came up with his sort-of concoction shows that he knows that a government shutdown plays badly for him,” he added, referring to the stopgap spending measure House GOP leaders presented to their colleagues on Tuesday. “Should he go forward and let the Tea Party win on the government shutdown, then everyone will come down on him and say, ‘Why’d you allow them to do it?’.”
AQAP
Status quo flexibility is sufficient but the plan’s statutory restrictions guarantees WMD attacks on the US
Yoo 12
John Yoo, law professor at University of California, Berkeley. He was Deputy¶ Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the US Department¶ of Justice from 2001 to 2003, “Exercising Wartime Powers,” Harvard International¶ Review28. 1 (Spring 2006): 22-25.
Critics of these conflicts want to upend long practice by appealing to an "original
understanding" of the Constitution. But the text and structure of the Constitution, as well as its application over the¶ last two centuries, confirm that the president can begin military hostilities without the approval of Congress. The Constitution¶ does not establish a strict warmaking process because the Framers understood that war¶ would require the speed, decisiveness, and secrecy that only the presidency could bring. "Energy¶ in the executive," Alexander Hamilton argued in the Federalist Papers, "...is essential to the protection of the community against¶ foreign attacks." He continued, "the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of¶ power by a single hand." Rather than imposing a fixed, step-by-step method for going to war, the¶ Constitution allows the executive and legislative branches substantial flexibility in shaping the¶ decisionmaking process for engaging in military hostilities. Given the increasing ability of¶ rogue states to procure weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the rise of international¶ terrorism, maintaining this flexibility is critical to preserving US national security.
That causes extinction
Yoo 12
(John Yoo, American attorney, law professor, and author. He served as a political appointee, the Deputy Assistant US Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (OLC), during the George W. Bush administration. “War Powers Belong to the President”¶ Posted Feb 1, 2012,¶ http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/war_powers_belong_to_the_president, KB)
A radical change in the system for making war might appease critics of presidential power. But it could also seriously threaten American national security. In order to forestall another 9/11 attack, or to take advantage of a window of opportunity to strike terrorists or rogue nations, the executive branch needs flexibility. It is not hard to think of situations where congressional consent cannot be obtained in time to act. Time for congressional deliberation, which leads only to passivity and isolation and not smarter decisions, will come at the price of speed and secrecy.¶ The Constitution creates a presidency that can respond forcefully to prevent serious threats to our national security. Presidents can take the initiative and Congress can use its funding power to check them. Instead of demanding a legalistic process to begin war, the framers left war to politics. As we confront the new challenges of terrorism, rogue nations and WMD proliferation, now is not the time to introduce sweeping, untested changes in the way we make war.
No Indo-Pak war – multiple factors prevent.
Mutti 9 (James, Master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Washington, Has over a decade of expertise covering South Asia geopolitics, “Mumbai Misperceptions: War is Not Imminent”, Demockracy
http://demockracy.com/four-reasons-why-the-mumbai-attacks-wont-result-in-a-nuclear-war/
Fearful of imminent war, the media has indulged in frantic hand wringing about Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals and renewed fears about the Indian subcontinent being “the most dangerous place on earth.” As an observer of the subcontinent for over a decade, I am optimistic that war will not be the end result of this event. As horrifying as the Mumbai attacks were, they are not likely to drive India and Pakistan into an armed international conflict. The media frenzy over an imminent nuclear war seems the result of the media being superficially knowledgeable about the history of Indian-Pakistani relations, of feeling compelled to follow the most sensationalistic story, and being recently brainwashed into thinking that the only way to respond to a major terrorist attack was the American way – a war. Here are four reasons why the Mumbai attacks will not result in a war: 1. For both countries, a war would be a disaster. India has been successfully building stronger relations with the rest of the world over the last decade. It has occasionally engaged in military muscle-flexing (abetted by a Bush administration eager to promote India as a counterweight to China and Pakistan), but it has much more aggressively promoted itself as an emerging economic powerhouse and a moral, democratic alternative to less savory authoritarian regimes. Attacking a fledgling democratic Pakistan would not improve India’s reputation in anybody’s eyes. The restraint Manmohan Singh’s government has exercised following the attacks indicates a desire to avoid rash and potentially regrettable actions. It is also perhaps a recognition that military attacks will never end terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly win a war against India, and Pakistan’s military defeat would surely lead to the downfall of the new democratic government. The military would regain control, and Islamic militants would surely make a grab for power – an outcome neither India nor Pakistan want. Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has shown that this is not the path he wants his country to go down. He has forcefully spoken out against terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and has ordered military attacks against LeT camps. Key members of LeT and other terrorist groups have been arrested. One can hope that this is only the beginning, despite the unenviable military and political difficulties in doing so. 2. Since the last major India-Pakistan clash in 1999, both countries have made concrete efforts to create people-to-people connections and to improve economic relations. Bus and train services between the countries have resumed for the first time in decades along with an easing of the issuing of visas to cross the border. India-Pakistan cricket matches have resumed, and India has granted Pakistan “most favored nation” trading status. The Mumbai attacks will undoubtedly strain relations, yet it is hard to believe that both sides would throw away this recent progress. With the removal of Pervez Musharraf and the election of a democratic government (though a shaky, relatively weak one), both the Indian government and the Pakistani government have political motivations to ease tensions and to proceed with efforts to improve relations. There are also growing efforts to recognize and build upon the many cultural ties between the populations of India and Pakistan and a decreasing sense of animosity between the countries. 3. Both countries also face difficult internal problems that present more of a threat to their stability and security than does the opposite country. If they are wise, the governments of both countries will work more towards addressing these internal threats than the less dangerous external ones. The most significant problems facing Pakistan today do not revolve around the unresolved situation in Kashmir or a military threat posed by India. The more significant threat to Pakistan comes from within. While LeT has focused its firepower on India instead of the Pakistani state, other militant Islamic outfits have not. Groups based in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have orchestrated frequent deadly suicide bombings and clashes with the Pakistani military, including the attack that killed ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. The battle that the Pakistani government faces now is not against its traditional enemy India, but against militants bent on destroying the Pakistani state and creating a Taliban-style regime in Pakistan. In order to deal with this threat, it must strengthen the structures of a democratic, inclusive political system that can also address domestic problems and inequalities. On the other hand, the threat of Pakistani based terrorists to India is significant. However, suicide bombings and attacks are also carried out by Indian Islamic militants, and vast swaths of rural India are under the de facto control of the Maoist guerrillas known as the Naxalites. Hindu fundamentalists pose a serious threat to the safety of many Muslim and Christian Indians and to the idea of India as a diverse, secular, democratic society. Separatist insurgencies in Kashmir and in parts of the northeast have dragged on for years. And like Pakistan, India faces significant challenges in addressing sharp social and economic inequalities. Additionally, Indian political parties, especially the ruling Congress Party and others that rely on the support of India’s massive Muslim population to win elections, are certainly wary about inflaming public opinion against Pakistan (and Muslims). This fear could lead the investigation into the Mumbai attacks to fizzle out with no resolution, as many other such inquiries have. 4. The international attention to this attack – somewhat difficult to explain in my opinion given the general complacency and utter apathy in much of the western world about previous terrorist attacks in places like India, Pakistan, and Indonesia – is a final obstacle to an armed conflict. Not only does it put both countries under a microscope in terms of how they respond to the terrible events, it also means that they will feel international pressure to resolve the situation without resorting to war. India and Pakistan have been warned by the US, Russia, and others not to let the situation end in war. India has been actively recruiting Pakistan’s closest allies – China and Saudi Arabia – to pressure Pakistan to act against militants, and the US has been in the forefront of pressing Pakistan for action. Iran too has expressed solidarity with India in the face of the attacks and is using its regional influence to bring more diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.
China
Conflict won’t escalate or draw the US in---deterrence checks
China Post 11 6/23, “Armed conflict for control of South China Sea unlikely,” http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/world-issues/2011/06/23/307134/Armed-conflict.htm, AJ
It's true that Vietnam is trying to manufacture a war scare over the Spratly Islands, a large archipelago that sits atop very rich oil reserves in the South China Sea. The Vietnamese navy has conducted a live-fire exercise to flex its military muscle in a show of force against the People's Republic of China. The People's Liberation Army retaliated in kind by sending its naval flotilla to the Spratlys, whose largest and only habitable island is under control of the Republic of China. At least six countries — including Taiwan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines — claim sovereignty over the Spratlys, known in Chinese as Nansha Jundao (South Sand Islands). The only habitable island of the chain was first occupied by the Japanese shortly before World War II and what the Japanese called Nagashima (Long Island) was renamed Taiping (Peace) after an R.O.C. warship of that name that brought a small contingent to the islet to take over after the war. The Japanese placed the whole group under jurisdiction of Takao-shu, which is the present-day special municipality of Kaohsiung. Taiwan isn't much concerned, though tensions are mounting over the Spratlys. The Ministry of National Defense denied on Saturday that there's a plan to provide Hai-ou (Sea Gull) missile boats and M41A3 tanks to the coast guard personnel stationed on Taiping Island. Nor will the R.O.C. Navy stage a maneuver at the end of this month, an MND spokesman pointed out. There's no need whatsoever to take any such action, because it's just a Hanoi-fomented war scare. Taiwan withdrew marines from Taiping in 1999, and coast guard personnel replaced them. We are positive that no armed conflict will occur over the Spratlys. Despite the hollow saber-rattling, Vietnam and the Philippines, who claim uninhabited isles of the archipelago, have no stomach for a war against Taiwan and China. The Vietnamese were defeated by China in 1974 and ousted from the Paracel Islands and Xisha-jundao (West Sand Islands) that lie south of Hainan and quite near Danang in southern Vietnam. A brief sea encounter took place between the two countries over the Spratlys a few years ago, and the Vietnamese were trounced. In land battles, the Vietnamese may outdo the People's Liberation Army; and in fact, they did in a brief war with the PRC under Deng Xiaoping in 1989. Hanoi knows full well it's no match for the PLA Navy. So the Vietnamese wish to draw the United States into any possible fray with Beijing. At one time, Washington was willing to back up Hanoi. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said so, though not in so many words, at an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) meeting in Hanoi earlier this year. But Washington has changed its mind. A U.S. State Department spokesman told the press not long ago that the United States did not support the Vietnamese sea maneuver, which isn't conducive to the reduction of tensions in the region. Now that the U.S. has refused to side with Vietnam in any armed conflict with China, the only thing Hanoi can and should do is scale down its defense buildup. It's planning to buy six Kirov submarines and 12 Sukhoi 30 fighters from Russia. Israel is said to be selling short-range ballistic missiles to Vietnam. There's no reason why such expensive military hardware should be acquired for a shadowboxing match with China. Instead, Hanoi should spend its hard currency to promote economic growth and enable the Vietnamese people to live better. But there is one thing the United States can and should do. Washington must call an international conference on the security of sea lanes in the South China Sea. Beijing is against American participation in regional meetings to hammer out plans to shelve the issue of sovereignty and jointly tap the oil resources of the Spratlys, but seems ready to support a Washington conference on the security of the South China Sea. The United States should invite Taipei to take part in that meeting.
1AR
CP
Obama can unilaterally restrict drone strikes
Reuters 13 (May 23rd, “Obama shifts U.S. from 'perpetual war-footing,' limits drone strikes” http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/23/us-usa-obama-speech-idUSBRE94M04Y20130523)
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday shifted the United States away from a "boundless global war on terror," restricting deadly drone strikes abroad and signaling that America's long struggle against al Qaeda will one day end. In a major policy speech, Obama narrowed the scope of the U.S. targeted-killing campaign against al Qaeda and its allies and took new steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison - controversial elements of the U.S. counterterrorism fight that have drawn condemnation at home and abroad. "Our nation is still threatened by terrorists," Obama said at Washington's National Defense University. "We must recognize however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11." After launching costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is tiring of conflict and while combating terrorism is still a high priority for the White House, polls show by large margins that Americans' main concerns are the economy and healthcare. Faced with criticism about civilian casualties in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles, Obama said the United States would only use these drone strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent," a nuanced change from the previous policy of launching strikes against a significant threat. Under new presidential guidance signed by Obama on Wednesday, the Defense Department will also take the lead in launching lethal drones, as opposed to the current practice of the CIA taking charge.
Executive action solves best – nations respond to behavior not legal standards
Roberts 13 (Kristin, When the Whole World Has Drones, National Journal, 21 March 2013, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/when-the-whole-world-has-drones-20130321, da 8-1-13) PC
But even without raising standards, tightening up drone-specific restrictions in the standing control regime, or creating a new control agreement (which is never easy to pull off absent a bad-state actor threatening attack), just the process of lining up U.S. policy with U.S. practice would go a long way toward establishing the kind of precedent on use of this technology that America—in five, 10, or 15 years—might find helpful in arguing against another’s actions. A not-insignificant faction of U.S. defense and intelligence experts, Dennis Blair among them, thinks norms play little to no role in global security. And they have evidence in support. The missile-technology regime, for example, might be credited with slowing some program development, but it certainly has not stopped non-signatories—North Korea and Iran—from buying, building, and selling missile systems. But norms established by technology-leading countries, even when not written into legal agreements among nations, have shown success in containing the use and spread of some weapons, including land mines, blinding lasers, and nuclear bombs. Arguably more significant than spotty legal regimes, however, is the behavior of the United States. “History shows that how states adopt and use new military capabilities is often influenced by how other states have—or have not—used them in the past,” Zenko argued. Despite the legal and policy complexity of this issue, it is something the American people have, if slowly, come to care about. Given the attention that Rand Paul’s filibuster garnered, it is not inconceivable that public pressure on drone operations could force the kind of unforeseen change to U.S. policy that it did most recently on “enhanced interrogation” of terrorists. The case against open, transparent rule-making is that it might only hamstring American options while doing little good elsewhere—as if other countries aren’t closely watching this debate and taking notes for their own future policymaking. But the White House’s refusal to answer questions about its drone use with anything but “no comment” ensures that the rest of the world is free to fill in the blanks where and when it chooses. And the United States will have already surrendered the moment in which it could have provided not just a technical operations manual for other nations but a legal and moral one as well.
The Executive alone can set standards for the international community
Zakaria 13 (Tabassum, U.S. Drone Policy: Obama Seeking To Influence Global Guidelines, Reuters, 17 March 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/17/us-drone-policy-obama_n_2895015.html, da 7-30-13) PC
President Barack Obama, who vastly expanded U.S. drone strikes against terrorism suspects overseas under the cloak of secrecy, is now openly seeking to influence global guidelines for their use as China and other countries pursue their own drone programs. The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill militant suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. But other countries are catching up. China's interest in unmanned aerial vehicles was displayed in November at an air show. According to state-run newspaper Global Times, China had considered conducting its first drone strike to kill a suspect in the 2011 murder of 13 Chinese sailors, but authorities decided they wanted the man alive so they could put him on trial. "People say what's going to happen when the Chinese and the Russians get this technology? The president is well aware of those concerns and wants to set the standard for the international community on these tools," said Tommy Vietor, until earlier this month a White House spokesman. As U.S. ground wars end - over in Iraq, drawing to a close in Afghanistan - surgical counterterrorism targeting has become "the new normal," Vietor said. Amid a debate within the U.S. government, it is not yet clear what new standards governing targeted killings and drone strikes the White House will develop for U.S. operations or propose for global rules of the road. Obama's new position is not without irony. The White House kept details of drone operations - which remain largely classified - out of public view for years when the U.S. monopoly was airtight. That stance is just now beginning to change, in part under pressure from growing public and Congressional discomfort with the drone program. U.S. lawmakers have demanded to see White House legal justifications for targeting U.S. citizens abroad, and to know whether Obama thinks he has the authority to use drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil. On Friday, a three-judge federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that the CIA gave an inadequate response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking records about drone strikes. The CIA had said it could neither confirm nor deny whether it had drone records because of security concerns. The judge who wrote the ruling noted that the president had publicly acknowledged that the United States uses drone strikes against al Qaeda. LETHAL ACTION Strikes by missile-armed Predator and Reaper drones against terrorism suspects overseas began under former President George W. Bush and were expanded by Obama. The ramp-up started in 2008, the last year of Bush's term, when there were 35 air strikes in Pakistan, and escalated under Obama to a peak of 117 in 2010, according to The Long War Journal ( http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php ). That jump in use of armed drones resulted from the authorization to use "signature" strikes, which allowed targeting terrorism suspects based on behavior and other characteristics without knowing their actual identity, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the administration is committed to explaining to Congress and the public as much as possible about its drone policies, including how decisions to strike are made. "We are constantly working to refine, clarify, and strengthen the process for considering terrorist targets for lethal action," Hayden said. The administration recognizes "we are establishing standards other nations may follow," she said. James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said other countries, including Russia, have unarmed reconnaissance drones. China says it has an armed drone, but "we don't know if it works," he said. "Getting agreement on the applicability of existing humanitarian law to the new technologies is crucial," he said, because China and Russia do not endorse applying laws of armed conflict to new military technologies.
Self-Restraint is the best option for shaping international use of drones through norms
Zenko 13 (Micah, Dr. Zenko is a Douglas Dillon fellow in the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), he worked for five years at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and in Washington, DC, at the Brookings Institution, Congressional Research Service, and State Department's Office of Policy Planning, Council Special Report No.65, January 2013, p. 24-25, Reforming US Drone Strike Policies, i.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Drones_CSR65.pdf)
History shows that how states adopt and use new military capabilities¶ is often influenced by how other states have—or have not—used¶ them in the past. Furthermore, norms can deter states from acquiring¶ new technologies.72 Norms—sometimes but not always codified as¶ legal regimes—have dissuaded states from deploying blinding lasers¶ and landmines, as well as chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. A well-articulated and internationally supported normative framework,¶ bolstered by a strong U.S. example, can shape armed drone proliferation¶ and employment in the coming decades. Such norms would not¶ hinder U.S. freedom of action; rather, they would internationalize¶ already-necessary domestic policy reforms and, of course, they would¶ be acceptable only insofar as the limitations placed reciprocally on U.S.¶ drones furthered U.S. objectives. And even if hostile states do not accept¶ norms regulating drone use, the existence of an international normative¶ framework, and U.S. compliance with that framework, would preserve¶ Washington’s ability to apply diplomatic pressure. Models for¶ developing such a framework would be based in existing international¶ laws that emphasize the principles of necessity, proportionality, and¶ distinction—to which the United States claims to adhere for its drone¶ strikes—and should be informed by comparable efforts in the realms of¶ cyber and space.¶ In short, a world characterized by the proliferation of armed¶ drones—used with little transparency or constraint—would undermine¶ core U.S. interests, such as preventing armed conflict, promoting¶ human rights, and strengthening international legal regimes. It would¶ be a world in which targeted killings occur with impunity against anyone¶ deemed an “enemy” by states or nonstate actors, without accountability¶ for legal justification, civilian casualties, and proportionality. Perhaps¶ more troubling, it would be a world where such lethal force no longer¶ heeds the borders of sovereign states. Because of drones’ inherent¶ advantages over other weapons platforms, states and nonstate actors¶ would be much more likely to use lethal force against the United States¶ and its allies.¶ Much like policies governing the use of nuclear weapons, offensive¶ cyber capabilities, and space, developing rules and frameworks for¶ innovative weapons systems, much less reaching a consensus within the¶ U.S. government, is a long and arduous process. In its second term, the¶ Obama administration has a narrow policy window of opportunity to¶ pursue reforms of the targeted killings program. The Obama administration¶ can proactively shape U.S. and international use of armed¶ drones in nonbattlefield settings through transparency, self-restraint,¶ and engagement, or it can continue with its current policies and risk¶ the consequences. To better secure the ability to conduct drone strikes,¶ and potentially influence how others will use armed drones in the¶ future, the United States should undertake the following specific policy¶ recommendations.
Congress only rolled back one XO in 25 years
Olson 99
William Olson of William Olson, PC, Attorneys at Law, “The Impact of Executive Orders on the Legislative Process” http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-wo102799.html October 27, 1999
Congress has done little more than the courts in restricting presidential lawmaking. Nevertheless, Congress did make one bold step to check executive powers in the related arenas of executive orders, states of emergency and emergency powers. The Congressional concern led to the creation of a Special Senate Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, co-chaired by Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles Mathias, Jr. (R-MD), more than 25 years ago.
There is a 0.2 risk of an overturn
Krause and Cohen 2000
George and David, Professors of Political Science @ South Carolina, “Opportunity, Constraints, and the Development of the Institutional Presidency: The Issuance of Executive Orders” The Journal Of Politics, Vol. 62, No. 1, February 2000, JSTOR
We use the annual number of executive orders issued by presidents from 1939 to 1996 to test our hypotheses. Executive orders possess a number of properties that make them appropriate for our purposes. First, the series of executive orders is long, and we can cover the entirety of the institutionalizing and institutional-ized eras to date.6 Second, unlike research on presidential vetoes (Shields and Huang 1997) and public activities (Hager and Sullivan 1994), which have found support for presidency-centered variables but not president-centered factors, ex-ecutive orders offer a stronger possibility that the latter set of factors will be more prominent in explaining their use. One, they are more highly discretionary than vetoes.7 More critically, presidents take action first and unilaterally. In ad-dition, Congress has tended to allow executive orders to stand due to its own collective action problems and the cumbersomeness of using the legislative process to reverse or stop such presidential actions. Moe and Howell (1998) report that between 1973 and 1997, Congress challenged only 36 of more than 1,000 executive orders issued. And only two of these 36 challenges led to overturning the president's executive order. Therefore, presidents are likely to be very successful in implementing their own agendas through such actions. In fact, the nature of executive orders leads one to surmise that idiopathic factors will be relatively more important than presidency-centered variables in explaining this form of presidential action. Finally, executive orders have rarely been studied quantitatively (see Gleiber and Shull 1992; Gomez and Shull 1995; Krause and Cohen 1997)8, so a description of the factors motivating their use is worth-while.9 Such a description will allow us to determine the relative efficacy of these competing perspectives on presidential behavior.10
Unilateral action defuses opposition
Moe and Howell 99
(Terry Moe, William Bennett Munro professor of political science at Stanford University, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a member of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12, William Howell, the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics in the Harris School, a professor in the Department of Political Science and the College, and a co-director of the Program on Political Institutions, “The Presidential Power of Unilateral Action” 1999, Oxford University Press, http://jleo.oxfordjournals.org.ezproxy.baylor.edu/content/15/1/132.full.pdf, KB)
On the other hand, the second form of agenda control, rooted as it is in unilateral action, gives the president what he wants immediately – a shift in the status quo, and perhaps a new increment to his new power – and depends for its success on Congress’s not being able to pass new (and veto-proof) legislation that would overturn or change it. Such a requirement is much more readily met, for it is far easier, by many order of magnitude, to block congressional action than it is to engineer new legislation. And if this were not enough, the new status quo initiated by the president may in itself defuse legislative opposition and do away with the need to block at all. When a president unilaterally launches an invasion of another country, for instance, Congress faces a drastically different set of options than it did before the conflict started, and may find itself politically compelled to support and provide funds for an exercise it never would have agreed to beforehand. Needless to say, these advantages of agenda control give modern presidents strong incentives to favor an “administrative strategy” of leadership as opposed to a “legislative strategy” (Nathan, 1983).
Most executive orders aren’t overturned.
Murray 99
Frank, “Clinton’s Executive Orders are Still Packing a Punch: Other Presidents Issued More, but His are Still Sweeping” Washington Times http://www.englishfirst.org/13166/13166wtgeneral.html
Clearly, Mr. Clinton knew what some detractors do not: Presidential successors of the opposite party do not lightly wipe the slate clean of every order, or even most of them. Still on the books 54 years after his death are 80 executive orders issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt. No less than 187 of Mr. Truman's orders remain, including one to end military racial segregation, which former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell praised for starting the "Second Reconstruction." "President Truman gave us the order to march with Executive Order 9981," Mr. Powell said at a July 26, 1998 ceremony marking its 50th anniversary. Mr. Truman's final order, issued one day before he left office in 1953, created a national security medal of honor for the nation's top spies, which is still highly coveted and often revealed only in the obituary of its recipient.
Political barriers check – new, stronger constituencies
Branum 2
Tara L, Associate, Fulbright and Jaworski L.L.P, “President or King? The Use and Abuse of Executive Orders in Modern Day America” Journal of Legislation
Congressmen and private citizens besiege the President with demands *58 that action be taken on various issues. n273 To make matters worse, once a president has signed an executive order, he often makes it impossible for a subsequent administration to undo his action without enduring the political fallout of such a reversal. For instance, President Clinton issued a slew of executive orders on environmental issues in the weeks before he left office. n274 Many were controversial and the need for the policies he instituted was debatable. n275 Nevertheless, President Bush found himself unable to reverse the orders without invoking the ire of environmentalists across the country. n276 A policy became law by the action of one man without the healthy debate and discussion in Congress intended by the Framers. Subsequent presidents undo this policy and send the matter to Congress for such debate only at their own peril. This is not the way it is supposed to be.
Tea partiers won’t take credit for the aff – Republicans will oppose everything the President will do even if it’s a win for them.
Swerdlick, Staff Writer, ‘13
David, “The Other Reason GOP Won't Work With Obama”, The Root, 5-6-13,
http://www.theroot.com/views/other-reason-gop-wont-work-obama?page=0,1, RSR
Right now, among many other issues, there are universal background checks and immigration reform on the table that can be exchanged for a budget deal and revamping the tax code. But a deal like that doesn't give congressional Republicans the one thing they apparently want more than a flatter tax code or more sensible budget cuts -- it doesn't help them throw sand on Obama.¶ Even Toomey admits that Republicans are trying to make Obama look bad. But it's even worse than that. They're not interested in looking good themselves if it means that he looks good, too.
Pakistan
Drone strikes are less utilized in the status quo, and are killing record low levels of civilians- takes out their Internal link to instability
Cahall 13 (Bailey, research associate with the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation, July 2nd 2013, New report says CIA drone strikes in Pakistan at an all-time low, afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/02/report_cia_drone_strikes_in_pakistan_at_all_time_low
A new report released by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on Monday notes that the number of reported civilian deaths caused by the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan is at an all-time low (ET). The drone strikes are at their lowest level since early 2008, and the average number of people killed in each strike has also fallen sharply over the last few years. Similar data from the New America Foundation shows that, to date, there have been 13 drone strikes in Pakistan and 82 people have been killed, down from the record 122 strikes and 849 people killed in 2010. Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland have written repeatedly about the sharply falling civilian casualty rate for the past year on CNN.com.
