Tournament: Mountaineer Tournament | Round: 6 | Opponent: JMU AP | Judge: 

Force-Feeding 1AC, Version 1

Contention 1: Torture

The United States is force feeding dozens of detainees in the status quo. This is the new face of torture. The atrocity occurs at least twice a day, and it violates medical ethics.

Lendman 13
Stephen Lendman (BA, Harvard; MBA, Wharton School, market research 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient). Global Research, May 20, 2013. "Guantanamo Force-Feeding Constitutes Torture."
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/guantanamo-force-feeding-constitutes-torture/5335757-http://www.globalresearch.ca/guantanamo-force-feeding-constitutes-torture/5335757)

Around 130 of 166 Guantanamo detainees refuse food. They're hunger striking for justice.
AND
striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity."

Recent court rulings on force-feeding create a legal aporia at GTMO, laying the groundwork for institutionally legitimized torture.

Wakeman 13
Raffaela Wakeman (Raffaela Wakeman is a law student at Georgetown University Law Center and a project manager at the Brookings Institution, where she researches law, American politics, and governance issues. She graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009, and wrote her Master's thesis on electoral design in the Middle East). "GTMO Detainee To District Court: You Do Have Jurisdiction Over Forced Feeding."Friday, July 12, 2013 at 2:38 PM. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/gtmo-detainee-to-district-court-you-do-have-jurisdiction-over-forced-feeding/
Readers will recall Monday's order by District Court Judge Gladys Kessler dismissing, on jurisdictional
AND
the level of custody", and thus habeas corpus provides the proper remedy. 

Scenario One: Torture

Torture is a systematic oppression that kills agency and value to life.

Wolfgang 1999 (German Philosopher, Anthropologist- professor at Universities of Gottingen 26 Erfurt. ~Sofsky, "The endurance of impotence: The dynamics of persecutory violence," International Psychoanalysis Newsletter,)
The prisoners will be incarcerated or put into camps and, not rarely, are
AND
cosmos at the border of the social world, a universum of unparalleled destructivity

The impact of torture outweighs political impacts and moral standards and is so large that it is literally incalculable. It corrupts people spiritually and irreversibly.

Hunsinger 8 ~George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Torture is the ticking time bomb. Dialog, vol. 47(3), Fall~
Just as the persistence of torture is unnerving, so are the costs of torture
AND
and its purposes are carried out by shattering the essential humanity of another.

The 1AC gives voice to those trapped within Guantanamo and tortured by the practice of force-feeding. Affirming this performance is itself a partial reversal of torture, which is an independent and sufficient reason to vote affirmative.

Scarry 87 (Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, Elaine, The Body in Pain, 1987, BH)
In this closed world where conversation is displaced by interrogation, where human speech is
AND
person in great pain or sickness can be swallowed alive by the body. 

American torture at Guantanamo Bay has become a global model for a oppression and governmental abuse.

Foot 6
Rosemary Foot, St Antony's College, Oxford. Torture: The Struggle over a Peremptory Norm in a Counter-Terrorist Era. International Relations 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol 20(2): 131-151. http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/courses/pols4255/pdf/Week20620Foot.pdf-http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/ncanefe/courses/pols4255/pdf/Week 6 Foot.pdf

This 'torture culture' (Luban's phrase) had earlier been given licence by the
AND
and other official personnel, but apparently elsewhere in the world as well. 

Using hypothetical risk scenarios to justify torture is the specific mechanism that causes torture to be normalized and spread like wildfire.

Hunsinger 8 ~George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Torture is the ticking time bomb. Dialog, vol. 47(3), Fall~
The so-called 'ticking time-bomb scenario' is analogous to the just
AND
crisis, in a downward spiral of fear and self-empowerment."15

Scenario Two: Rule Of Law

The prohibition on torture is the archetype of rule of law. Failure to meaningfully restrict torture causes the whole system to unravel.

Waldron 5 ~Jeremy Waldron, University Professor, Columbia Law School. TORTURE AND POSITIVE LAW: JURISPRUDENCE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE. 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1681~
One point is that "engines of state" and "engines of law"
AND
wholly under its power with methods of brutality from which law itself recoils.

Rule of law is our best longterm hope of solving extinction.

Rhyne 58
Charles S. Rhyne, Washington lawyer, Law Day Speech for Voice of America delivered on the first Law Day, 1958

Law and courts exist to protect every citizen of the United States in his person
AND
to replace weapons before the dreadful holocaust of nuclear war overtake our people.

No Risk Of Kritikal Offense; Rule Of Law Constrains State Power And Is An Essential Part Of Any Society

Jonathan Rose '4 (Arizona State University College of Law). "The Rule of Law in the Western World: An Overview." Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 35, 2004. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1426343-http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1426343

Perhaps. Thus, as many of the commentators suggest, adherence to the Rule
AND
inhibitions upon power and the defence of the citizen from power's all-intrusive claims, seems to me to be an unqualified human good."

Contention 2: Medical Ethics

Force-feeding is indicative of the same ethical move as Nazi doctors designating populations for the gas chambers. We must address the legal environment surrounding indefinite detainees in order to revitalize medical ethics

Wilks 6 ~Michael Wilks, chairman, Medical Ethics Committee, British Medical Journal. Guantanamo: a call to action. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1397736/~~
According to the British prime minister, Tony Blair, the detention facility at Guantanamo
AND
, primarily because of the legal vacuum in which detainees are held there.

Nazi doctors provide an important historical lesson. Absent strong institutional norms for medical ethics, average people can commit horrific atrocities including genocide.

Lifton 86 (Robert Lifton, professor of psychiatry @ Harvard. The Nazi Doctors, http://www.holocaust-history .org/lifton/LiftonT503.shtml p503)
But my witness does not end with the Nazis. I want to extract from
AND
of danger that must be heard before it becomes a hopeless genocidal scream.

The plan revitalizes the soft power of the U.S. medical community to resist torture in other countries. Only the plan can create a renewed medical and military ethic.

Miles 13 ~Steven H. Miles is professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, Center for Bioethics. "The New Military Medical Ethics," bioethics, vol 27(3)~
The ineffective engagement of United States' medical societies and medical ethicists with evolving moral issues
AND
military policies may result in healthcare professionals simply being excluded from military operations.

Military medical ethics are key to inject moral norms into military decisions. That checks militarism and use of WMD.

Levy and Sidel 4
VICTOR W. SIDEL, MD (Distinguished Professor of Social Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Cornell; former President of the American Public Health Association; President of Physicians for Social Responsibility; and President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) AND BARRY S. LEVY, MD, MPH (Adjunct Professor of Community Health at Tufts School of Medicine; former President of the American Public Health Association; and Executive Director of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War)., "Physician-Soldier: A Moral Dilemma?," in Military Medical Ethics, ed. Thomas E. Beam, Linette R. Sparacino, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Anthony E. Hartle, and, and Edmund G. Howe: TMM Publications, Borden Institute, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 2004. (Washington, DC: TMM Publications, Borden Institute, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 9 July 2004).

Participating in, or Failing to Report, Torture In the section on research and
AND
, and more generally illustrate the role physicians may play in effecting change. 

Thus, the Plan

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit should rule that force feeding indefinite detainees is unconstitutional.

Contention 3: Solvency

SCOTUS has ruled that every aspect of indefinite detention flows from the president's war power's authority, and that this gives federal district courts the power to check that authority through habeas corpus challenges.

Horowitz 13 ~Creating A More Meaningful Detention Statute: Lessons Learned From Hedges v. Obama. Colby P. Horowitz, J.D. Candidate, 2014, Fordham University School of Law. Captain, U.S. Army. 2013. Fordham Law Review, Vol. 81, http://fordhamlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/Vol_81/Horowitz_April.pdf~~
Given the broad and vague language of the AUMF, it was initially unclear whether
AND
of habeas corpus), regardless of their citizenship status or national origin. n61
provisions, even as they are amended, will present numerous constitutional questions that the courts will inevitably have to resolve." n109

The DC Court has specifically described force feeding of indefinite detainees as a presidential war power. However, that same court has incorrectly ruled that it lacks the jurisdiction to restrict that war power authority.

Kessler 13 (Gladys Kessler is a U.S. District judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Jihad Dhiab v. Barack Obama, et al. http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/gitmo-order.pdf)
Despite the statements contained in the Declaration submitted by the Government in support of its
AND
address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The plan solves without overlimiting executive flexibility. It creates a standard of protection from substantial abuse.

Aamer Petitioners 13
AHMED BELBACHA, NABIL HADJARAB, ABU WA'EL (JIHAD) DHIAB, SHAKER AAMER, Petitioners, v. BARACK H. OBAMA, et al., Respondents. "PETITIONERS' MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF JUDGE KESSLER'S MEMORANDUM ORDER OF JULY 8, 2013" Case 1:04-cv-02215-RMC Document 221 Filed 07/11/13 http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ISN-238-239-290-722-Motion-For-Reconsideration-re-Enteral-Feeding-....pdf-http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ISN-238-239-290-722-Motion-For-Reconsideration-re-Enteral-Feeding-....pdf 

In Willis, a federal prisoner challenged the conditions of his confinement (his placement
AND
is within the scope of habeas jurisdiction as their only recourse to justice.

These decisions are incorrect and have led to judicial inconsistency on force feeding. The court does have jurisdiction; 3 reasons.

Chong 8-6
Jane Chong (Jane Chong is a third-year student at Yale Law School, where she is an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She researches national security issues at Brookings as a Ford Foundation Law School Fellow and has previously interned in the narcotics and terrorism units at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She graduated from Duke University in 2009). "Appellant Brief Filed in Aamer v. Obama"
Tuesday, August 6, 2013 at 11:00 AM. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/appellant-brief-filed-in-aamer-v-obama/
Three Guantanamo detainees filed their opening brief yesterday in Aamer v. Obama. Shaker
AND
18, before Circuit Judges Tatel and Griffith and Senior Circuit Judge Williams. 

The DC court solves so hard, Obama won't know what hit him.

Goad and Hattem 13
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/court-battles/319287-regulation-nation-courts-emerge-as-obstacle-for-obama-regs-http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/court-battles/319287-regulation-nation-courts-emerge-as-obstacle-for-obama-regs
Julian Hattem graduated from the University of Chicago with honors with a B.A
AND
coming years," said Philip Wallach, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Only the formal court system can check Executive war powers in the case of torture. Allowing the executive to exercise discretion leads to informal checks that always get bypassed.

Lightcap 11 (Tracy Lightcap is a professor of Political Science and chair of the Department of Political Science at LaGrange College. The Politics of Torture. P. 152-155)
In the United States the informal institutionalization of torture has had a different course but
AND
as firmly in our institutional practices as it did in the Soviet Union. 

The court is effective at foreign policy.

Knowles 9 ~Spring, 2009, Robert Knowles is a Acting Assistant Professor, New York University School of Law, "American Hegemony and the Foreign Affairs Constitution", ARIZONA STATE LAW JOURNAL, 41 Ariz. St. L.J. 87~

A common justification for deference is that the President possesses superior competence due to expertise
AND
correct balance to strike between competing functional goals of the separation of powers?

District court action is key to check overreach of executive power.

Tomkiel 6
Tomkiel, Melissa M. (2006) "Enemy Combatants and Due Process: The Judiciary's Role in Curbing Executive Power," Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Vol. 21.1, 443-445

Much concern has been expressed regarding the current Executive branch and recent attempts to increase
AND
Constitution when seeking to protect those liberties the Constitution was designed to secure.