T Presence

Report as inappropriate Your report has been received

Shared by: pengxiang

Tags

Stats

views:: 4
posted:: 11/11/2011
language:: English
pages:: 17

Public Domain

Document Sample

T: Presence
1. Presence refers to physical experience, not technology
(Jonathon Steur, PhD Stanford, 1992, transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/liu/ english25/materials/class26notes.html)
"The key to defining virtual reality in terms of human experience rather than technological hardware is the concept of
presence. Presence can be thought of as the experience of one's physical environment; it refers not to one's surroundings as
they exist in the physical world, but to the perception of those surroundings as mediated by both automatic and
controlled mental processes (Gibson, 1979): Presence is defined as the sense of being in an environment. Many perceptual
factors help to generate this sense, including input from some or all sensory channels, as well as more mindful
attentional, perceptual, and other mental processes that assimilate incoming sensory data with current concerns and
past experiences (Gibson, 1966). Presence is closely related to the phenomenon of distal attribution or externalization,
which refer to the referencing of our perceptions to an external space beyond the limits of the sensory organs themselves
(Loomis, 1992)."

2. The Affirmative removes drones, not personnel.

3. Standards
A. Limits—Allowing weapons explodes the topic—thousands of obscure affirmatives including Dragon
Eggs, Pain Rays, and Predators could all be removed. Afghanistan is a testing ground for new military
innovations—the literature base is small and the negative could never be prepared to debate that many
experimental affirmatives.

B. Ground—Affirmatives get weird advantages like virtual warfare and cyborgs while the negative can’t
even run a politics DA because the change isn’t perceived—this makes debates stale and non-specific
because the literature base is too small and the aff can just spike out of every DA.

4. Voter for fairness and education.

T: Reduce
1. Reduce means to lessen
Merriam Webster Dictionary. ―reduce‖. 2010. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reduce
1 a : to draw together or cause to converge : consolidate <reduce all the questions to one> b (1) : to diminish in size,
amount, extent, or number <reduce taxes> <reduce the likelihood of war> (2) : to decrease the volume and concentrate the
flavor of by boiling <add the wine and reduce the sauce for two minutes> c : to narrow down : restrict <the Indians were
reduced to small reservations> d : to make shorter : abridge 2 archaic : to restore to righteousness : save 3 : to bring to a
specified state or condition <the impact of the movie reduced them to tears> 4 a : to force to capitulate b : force, compel 5 a
: to bring to a systematic form or character <reduce natural events to laws> b : to put down in written or printed form
<reduce an agreement to writing> 6 : to correct (as a fracture) by bringing displaced or broken parts back into their normal
positions 7 a : to lower in grade or rank : demote b : to lower in condition or status : downgrade 8 a : to diminish in strength
or density b : to diminish in value 9 a (1) : to change the denominations or form of without changing the value (2) : to
construct a geometrical figure similar to but smaller than (a given figure) b : to transpose from one form into another :
convert c : to change (an expression) to an equivalent but more fundamental expression <reduce a fraction> 10 : to break
down (as by crushing or grinding) : pulverize 11 a : to bring to the metallic state by removal of nonmetallic elements
<reduce an ore by heat> b : deoxidize c : to combine with or subject to the action of hydrogen d (1) : to change (an element
or ion) from a higher to a lower oxidation state (2) : to add one or more electrons to (an atom or ion or molecule) 12 : to
change (a stressed vowel) to an unstressed vowel

―In‖ means within
Merriam Webster Dictionary. ―in‖. 2010. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in
1 a —used as a function word to indicate inclusion, location, or position within limits <in the lake> <wounded in the leg>
<in the summer> b : into 1 <went in the house> 2 —used as a function word to indicate means, medium, or instrumentality
<written in pencil> <bound in leather> 3 a —used as a function word to indicate limitation, qualification, or circumstance
<alike in some respects> <left in a hurry> b : into 2a <broke in pieces> 4 —used as a function word to indicate purpose
<said in reply> 5 —used as a function word to indicate the larger member of a ratio <one in six is eligible>

2. Violation: The plan does not remove drones from Afghanistan, it just prevents their use.

3. Standards

A. Limits: The affirmative use of ―reduce‖ explodes the topic because there are thousands of small
combat missions that could be altered or stopped. Small changes in strategy are unpredictable and
affirmatives that change combat missions could get new advantages off of putting those troops into
different strategies.

B. Ground: ―Keep the troops, stop the strategy‖ counterplans are core negative ground. The affirmative
can spike out of all our links to the DAs by saying that they don’t withdraw troops—this kills the core of
the topic.

5. Voter for fairness and education
A. Gendered scripts, taught to us from birth, determine the way we see the world. It is impossible to
escape the effect social constructions of gender have on positive statements of the world
bell hooks, former Prof of English at Yale, Oberlin, USC, and City College in New York, Ph.D UC Santa Cruz, 7/25/ 04,
―Understanding Patriarchy,‖ http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/20613.php
Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation. Yet most men
do not use the word "patriarchy" in everyday life. Most men never think about patriarchy-what it means, how it is created
and sustained. Many men in our nation would not be able to spell the word or pronounce it correctly. The word "patriarchy"
just is not a part of their normal everyday thought or speech. Men who have heard and know the word usually associate it
with women's liber-ation, with feminism, and therefore dismiss it as irrelevant to their own experiences. I have been
standing at podiums talking about patriarchy for more than thirty years. It is a word I use daily, and men who hear me use it
often ask me what I mean by it. Nothing discounts the old antifeminist projection of men as all-powerful more than their
basic ignorance of a major facet of the political system that shapes and informs male identity and sense of self from birth
until death. I often use the phrase "imperialist white-supremacist capi-talist patriarchy" to describe the interlocking political
sys-tems that are the foundation of our nation's politics. Of these systems the one that we all learn the most about growing
up is the system of patriarchy, even if we never know the word, because patriarchal gender roles -are assigned to us as
children and we are given continual guid-ance about the ways we can best fulfill these roles. Patriarchy is a political-social
system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially
females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various
forms of psychological terrorism and violence. When my older brother and I were born with a year separating us in age,
patriarchy determined how we would each be regarded by our parents. Both our parents believed in patriarchy; they had
been taught patriarchal thinking through religion. At church they had learned that God created man to rule the world and
everything in it and that it was the work of women to help men perform these tasks, to obey, and to always assume a
subordinate role in relation to a powerful man. They were taught that God was male. These teachings were reinforced in
every institution they encountered---schools, courthouses, clubs, sports arenas, as well as churches. Embracing patriarchal
thinking, like everyone else around them, they taught it to their children because it seemed like a "natural" way to organize
life. As their daughter I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak, to be free from the burden of thinking, to
caretake and nurture others. My brother was taught that it was his role to be served; to provide; to be strong; to think,
strategize, and plan; and to refuse to caretake or nurture others. I was taught that it was not proper for a female to be violent,
that it was "unnatural." My brother was taught that his value would be determined by his will to do violence (albeit in
appropriate settings). He was taught that for a boy, enjoying violence was a good thing (albeit in appropriate settings). He
was taught that a boy should not express feelings. I was taught that girls could and should express feelings, or at least some
of them. When I responded with rage at being denied a toy, I was taught as a girl in a patriarchal household that rage was
not an appropriate feminine feeling, that it should be not only not be expressed but be eradicated. When my brother
responded with rage at being denied a toy, he was taught as a boy in a patriar-chal household that his ability to express rage
was good but that he had to learn the best setting to unleash his hos-tility. It was not good for him to use his rage to oppose
the wishes of his parents, but later, when he grew up, he was taught that rage was permitted and that allowing rage to
provoke him to violence would help him protect home and nation. We lived in farm country, isolated from other people.
Our sense of gender roles was learned from our parents, from the ways we saw them behave. My brother and I remember
our confusion about gender. In reality I was stronger and more violent than my brother, which we learned quickly was bad.
And he was a gentle, peaceful boy, which we learned was really bad. Although we were often confused, we knew one fact
for certain: we could not be and act the way we wanted to, doing what we felt like. It was clear to us that our behavior had
to follow a predetermined, gendered script. We both learned the word "patriarchy" in our adult life, when we learned that
the script that had determined what we should be, the identities we should make, was based on patriarchal values and
beliefs about gender.
1NC Shell (2/3)
B. International Relations excludes feminine perspectives in its descriptions of global politics

Darryl Jarvis, Ph.D in IR from University of British Columbia, 2000, ―International Relations and the Challenge of
Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline,‖ p. 145
The Third Debate has thus evolved a new addendum, one where gender and identity politics questions even dissident
thought, labeling it an equally suspect discourse propagated largely by white middle class hetero-sexual males. This
represents a new, deeper, subversive tendency in dissident scholarship, perhaps more radical and more threatening than
even Ashley's. This time the charge is not just that we have been thinking wrong, or not thinking at all, but when not
thinking we have been actively constructing gender gulags, excluding women by segregating and denying them access to
international relations. In its most overt form practitioners are charged with being misogynist, sexist, racist, and
homophobic, a disposition in theory that manifests itself in to what Steve Smith describes as pomophobia, or what V. Spike
Peterson laments as the failure of feminist literature to be taken seriously in International Relations." For feminists, such a
predilection represents an "androcentric system of thought inherited from early western state making[,] ... revitalized in the
Enlightenment," and now cemented in international relations as a form of "masculinism" but one which is "rendered so
invisible as to be absent in even critical and postmodern accounts."" International Relations thus represents a form of
professionalized bigotry, evolved through the natural outgrowth of unreflective men theorists who are wedded implicitly "to
an unacknowledged and seemingly commonplace principle that international relations is the proper homestead or place for
people called men." Men of all political stripes have, according to Sylvester, been winking at feminists as they walk by,
failing to read them, appoint them, take them seriously, or acknowledge them." In such a "chilly climate," women have
been sys-tematically "evacuated" from International Relations, forced into their assigned places at home, and even when
they have managed to break free of such places, "their words have been lost, or covered-up and stored in the basement, . . .
ignored because they are the views of people called women and 'women' have no place in the political places of 'men.""' Of
"all the institutionalized forms of contemporary social and political analysis," concludes R.B.J. Walker, International
Relations is "the most gender- blind, indeed crudely patriarchal." At the center of this disciplinary bastion of male privilege
and repression, feminists identify an unreflective male-body-politic, one unknowingly prone to gendered or masculinist
worldviews because of their unconscious male-sexuality. Underpinning much contemporary feminist theory is an implicit
assumption of innate difference between men and women, where social inequalities stem as much from the hormonal/
anatomical attributes of men as they do from social institutions like patriarchy or the thought practices associated with
rational or positivist-based epistemologies. For many feminists, the litany of allegations also derive from psychoanalytic
interpretation, where, for example, the arms race, strategic and military studies, comparative force assessment, military-
industrial complexes, or studies of the new surveillance technologies represent a male obsession with hardware and high
politics characteristic of the egocentric, aggressive, powerseeking, rational man who unconsciously transposes his
phallocentric desires into war-hunting-sport-fighting-power-seeking pursuits. Using a type of neobiological cum
psychosociological logic, males are seen to project a testosterone-induced aggression/violence indicative of hormonal
dispositions or imprinted primeval genetic memories to protect food sources or territory, for example. Or, as the case may
be, some men never mature. They continue to play with dangerous toys-motorbikes, racing cars, weapons, and war-flirting
with death." For Helen Caldicott, some men simply display a fascination with killing. Why? Perhaps, she notes, "Because
women know from birth that they can experience the ultimate act of creativity, whereas boys and men lack this potential
capacity and replace it with a fascination with control over life and death and a feeling of creative omnipotence."" Women,
on the other hand, are "allied to the lift process" by virtue of "theft hormonal constitution." "She is not afraid to admit she
has made a mistake and is generally interested in life-oriented human dynamics. She innately understands the basic
principles of conflict resolution."" Men, by contrast, when they make war do so for reasons of psychosexual virility, in
order to demonstrate their sexual potency as aging, white, elite male decision makers. As Caldicott notes, "It is never the
people who make the decision to kill who get killed. It is the boys who usually don't even know what a dispute is about, let
alone understand the intricacies of international politics. [These] old men act out theft fascination with killing, theft need to
prove theft toughness and sexual adequacy by using innocent pawns."" Here, male aggression is ascribed to the deeply
embedded psychodramas played out in male minds, the psychosociology of the male as a competitive sex predator, for
example, and the fixation with phallocentric satisfaction." Men theorists of international relations are still really boys
playing with guns, tanks, and bombs, caught up in the activity of psychosexual play as they study or help prepare for, make,
and fight wars. "Little boys with big toys" was the popular expression of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
and of the protests by women at Greenham Common against the deployment of Pershing and Cruise miles in the United
Kingdom. For Caldicott, for example, the arms race was little more than an incidence of "missile envy," a competition
between male superpowers intent on projecting theft power as a phalloeentrie expression of their desire to compete and
dominate. Indeed, for Caldicott, it is no accident that missiles and phalluses have a certain similarity in shape and
appearance."
1NC Shell (3/3)
C. The logic of patriarchy can only end in total annihilation
Betty Reardon, Director of the Peace Education Program at Teacher's College Columbia University, 93, ―Women and Peace:
Feminist Visions of Global Security,‖ p. 30-2
A clearly visible element in the escalating tensions among militarized nations is the macho posturing and the patriarchal
ideal of dominance, not parity, which motivates defense ministers and government leaders to "strut their stuff" as we watch
with increasing horror. Most men in our patriarchal culture are still acting out old patterns that are radically inappropriate
for the nuclear age. To prove dominance and control, to distance one's character from that of women, to survive the
toughest violent initiation, to shed the sacred blood of the hero, to collaborate with death in order to hold it at bay-all of
these patriarchal pressures on men have traditionally reached resolution in ritual fashion on the battlefield. But there is no
longer any battlefield. Does anyone seriously believe that if a nuclear power were losing a crucial, large-scale conventional
war it would refrain from using its multiple-warhead nuclear missiles because of some diplomatic agreement? The military
theater of a nuclear exchange today would extend, instantly or eventually, to all living things, all the air, all the soil, all the
water. If we believe that war is a "necessary evil," that patriarchal assumptions are simply "human nature," then we are
locked into a lie, paralyzed. The ultimate result of unchecked terminal patriarchy will be nuclear holocaust. The causes of
recurrent warfare are not biological. Neither are they solely economic. They are also a result of patriarchal ways of
thinking, which historically have generated considerable pressure for standing armies to be used. (Spretnak 1983) These
cultural tendencies have produced our current crisis of a highly militarized, violent world that in spite of the decline of the
cold war and the slowing of the military race between the superpowers is still staring into the abyss of nuclear disaster, as
described by a leading feminist in an address to the Community Aid Abroad State Convention, Melbourne, Australia: These
then are the outward signs of militarism across the world today: weapons-building and trading in them; spheres of influence
derived from their supply; intervention-both overt and covert; torture; training of military personnel, and supply of
hardware to, and training of police; the positioning of military bases on foreign soil; the despoilation of the planet;
'intelligence' networks; the rise in the number of national security states; more and more countries coming under direct
military rule; the militarization of diplomacy, and the interlocking and the international nature of the military order which
even defines the major rifts in world politics. (Shelly 1983).

D. It’s not enough to add women and stir – vote negative to fundamentally alter the way we approach
international relations
Laura Sjoberg, assistant prof of political science @ University of Florida, 20 08, "The Norm of Tradition: Gender Subordination and
Women's Exclusion in International Relations‖, p. 177-178.
If what is ―traditional‖ is endogenous, then the problem of women‘s underrepresentation is structural rather than incidental.
To argue that the problem is structural is to argue that adding women to the ranks of our faculties, our tenure rolls, and our
journals is insufficient to redress women‘s subordination. Even if women were numerically ―equal‖ to men in terms of their
participation and rank in the profession, they would still be participating in a men‘s world. Nancy Hirschmann explains that
―one cannot merely add women‘s experience to the dominant discourse because the two utilize different ontological and
epistemological frameworks‖ (1989, 1242). Maybe women‘s experiences in life also color their preference for
nonmainstream theories. I am not saying that there is one ―woman‘s perspective‖ or that all women necessarily have
something in common (except, perhaps, some experience of gender subordination). But gender subordination is rampant
throughout the world and even in the United States. J. Ann Tickner argues that women‘s marginality in life helps them to
see women‘s marginality specifically and political marginality more generally in scholarship. This argument would help
explain the difference of chosen areas of study. The argument is essentially that subordination alters perspective (Pettman
1996; Tickner 2001). Catharine MacKinnon argues that differences between women and men in task, perspective, and even
physicality are the result of gender subordination rather than its cause, because subordinated people have different tasks and
see the world differently (MacKinnon 1989). The incompleteness of gender subordination accounts for the exceptions,
while the fact of gender subordination accounts for the norm. Spike Peterson argues that ―the femininity and masculinity
that inform our identification as women and men have pervasive implications for the lives we lead and the world(s) in
which we live‖ (1999, 37).
Pakistan CP
Counterplan Text: The United States Congress should ban the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in
Pakistan. The United States Congress should provide necessary financial and infrastructure-based aid to
Pakistan.

The U.S. Must Abandon Drones in Pakistan in Favor of Intelligence—The U.S. Must Cooperate With
and Assist Pakistan to Address Terrorism—this is their author.

Maleeha Lodhi, Former Ambassador of Pakistan to US, April 2009, INSS Special Report, ―The Future of Pakistan-U.S. Relations:
Opportunities and Challenges,‖ http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA497485

An even more significant worry for Islamabad the military escalation signaled by the focus on rooting out ―safe havens‖
in Pakistan‘s border region and redefining the war as a regional conflict. President Obama‘s suggestion that if Pakistan did
not take action, the United States would step in, implies a widening of the war into western Pakistan even if the President
later explained that he would consult Pakistani leaders before terrorist hideouts were pursued. All this has still left open the
prospect of increased U.S. Predator strikes against targets in FATA, a risky course since this action will only inflame public
opinion in Pakistan and have destabilizing effects. Drone attacks have already evoked condemnation from the National,
Frontier, and Balochistan Assemblies. Any policy that is vehemently opposed by the people will ultimately be
unsustainable. The tactical gains claimed from these strikes must be set against the costs in terms of undermining strategic
goals. Such a perilous approach should be abjured in favor of the only viable one, which is based on the sharing of
intelligence and technology, to enable Pakistan and its forces to address the terrorist threat in its own territory. The United
States should show strategic patience as well as respect for a sovereign country‘s red lines in deeds, and not just in words.
Moreover, an approach that attempts to deal with al Qaeda only militarily ignores the fact that the organization has to be
defeated in the ideological battle because it is ideology that finds followers who are ever ready to replace those ―taken out.‖
A counter–al Qaeda strategy must attempt to neutralize the network‘s ideological appeal in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other
parts of the world where it finds recruits and allies. Al Qaeda is now more of an idea. Terrorist operations are increasingly
conducted mostly by self-generated ―affiliates‖ drawn from young men in various countries who have been radicalized by
al Qaeda‘s ideology. The notion of fighting al Qaeda only militarily will remain only a partial response. Islamabad and
Washington will also need to close the gap in their perceptions over how they identify the strategic center of gravity of the
threat that has to be addressed. Islamabad has long argued that the core of the problem and its solution lies in Afghanistan
while acknowledging that support for the insurgency is provided by fighters using Pakistani soil. In Washington‘s view, it
is the safe havens in Pakistan that are now the central front of the battle to defeat international terrorism. Islamabad believes
that U.S. strategy downplays the fact that the situation in FATA is the consequence of the collapse of security in
Afghanistan and not the other way around. Islamabad also finds the notion of treating Pakistan and Afghanistan‘s border
region as a―single theater of combat‖ unsettling, not least because the security trajectories, causes, contexts, and capacities
are so different and because it would be a grave error to think one size fits both. If the flawed concept of ―AfPak‖ has
achieved anything so far, it is to unite the militants on both sides of the border in a new alliance to resist the troop
reinforcements in Afghanistan ordered by President Obama. The United States recognizes that the attainment of its
redefined goals depends critically on Pakistan‘s stability. That is the rationale for the economic and security assistance that
President Obama has pledged to give Pakistan. He has urged Congress to pass the bill sponsored by Senators John Kerry
and Richard Lugar that authorizes $1.5 billion in nonmilitary aid over the next 5 years. But Islamabad has taken strong
exception to the proposed conditions and benchmarking of the aid, linking this to its counterterrorism performance. In
stating that Washington will not provide a blank check to Pakistan, President Obama struck a note that is
counterproductive. This stance reinforces the transactional nature of the relationship that Pakistanis resent, and it
strengthens rather than breaks from the paradigm of treating Pakistan as hired help rather than a valued ally.

Court Stripping DA
1. International law isn’t binding now—it is only incorporated to a minimal extent
Jeffrey McDermott, Attorney with the GAO and editorial board for Federal Lawyer, 20 04 (The Federal Lawyer, 51.6, ―Citation to
Foreign Precedent: Congress vs. the Courts,‖ p. 21-23, Wilson Web paid search service)
The resolution does not appear to be a high priority for the House of Representatives, and no similar resolution has been
introduced in the Senate. Furthermore, the resolution may be, in Rep. Nadler's words, "much ado about nothing." The
foreign precedents to which the sponsors objected are limited to two citations in Lawrence, a single citation contained
within a footnote in Atkins, and a citation in a concurring opinion in Grutter. Even Ramsey, who testified in favor of the
resolution, acknowledged that none of the citations had a "substantial role" in any of the decisions. Furthermore, as Jackson
pointed out, federal courts frequently cite any number of sources, including state court decisions and law review articles.
However, several recent statements by Supreme Court justices suggest that the citation to foreign precedent could become
increasingly common. For example, in 2002, in a speech to the American Society of International Law, Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor criticized the reluctance of the Supreme Court to look to international and foreign law to interpret the
Constitution: The landmark judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving fresh meaning to the principles of
the Bill of Rights, are studied with as much attention in New Delhi or Strasbourg as they are in Washington, D.C., or the
State of Washington, or Springfield, Ill. This reliance, unfortunately, has not been reciprocal ... While ultimately we must
bear responsibility for interpreting our own laws, there is much to be learned from other distinguished jurists who have
given thought to the difficult issues we face here. O'Connor endorsed the concept of transjudicialism: "Although
international law and the Jaw of other nations are rarely binding upon our decisions, conclusions reached by other countries
and by the international community should at times constitute persuasive authority in American courts." Similarly, in his
dissent in a 1999 death penalty case (Knight v. Florida), Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: This Court has long considered as
relevant and informative the "way in which foreign courts have applied standards roughly comparable to our own
constitutional standards in roughly comparable circumstances. In doing so, the Court has found particularly instructive
opinions of former [British] Commonwealth nations insofar as those opinions reflect a legal tradition that also underlies our
own.... Willingness to consider foreign judicial views in comparable cases is not surprising in a Nation that from its birth
has given a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." In his dissent, Breyer listed a string of Supreme Court decisions
that cited foreign precedent dating back to 1881 and noted that foreign precedent is "useful even though not binding." Even
Chief Justice Rehnquist has written, "When many new constitutional courts were created after the Second World War, these
courts naturally looked to decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, among other sources, for developing their
own law. But now that constitutional law is solidly grounded in so many countries, it is time that the United States courts
begin looking to the decisions of other constitutional courts to aid in their own deliberative process." While the justices of
the Supreme Court appear ready to increase their citation to foreign and international sources of law, at least 70 members of
Congress are seeking to bring this practice to a halt. Although citation to foreign precedent is still quite rare, it remains to
be seen whether Congress or the courts will prevail in this emerging controversy.
2. Relying on CIL for contentious issues causes public backlash against the judiciary
Honorable J. Harbie Wilkinson III, judge for US curiut court, 4th district, Spring 2004 (―THE USE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
IN JUDICIAL DECISIONS‖, 27 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 423, lexis)
Where courts go too far, in my view, is where they rely upon international (and mostly European) precedents when
resolving important and contentious social issues. This "internationalization" of the Constitution on domestic social issues
raises three types of problems.The first is that an over-reliance on foreign precedents may serve to compromise judicial
decisions in the eyes of the American public. Judges serve as unelected stewards of the Constitution whose power rests in
part on their ability to persuade. While majorities may simmer [*426] when judges vindicate the rights of minorities, in
the long run judges can promote respect for their decisions by appealing to principles that Americans can relate to as part of
an American constitutional tradition. The counter-majoritarian difficulty is thus alleviated when judges draw upon common
principles and ideas that form our shared American heritage. But when judges rely on foreign sources, especially for
difficult constitutional questions concerning domestic social issues, they move the bases for judicial decision-making even
farther from the realm of both democratic accountability and popular acceptance. They aggravate the risks already inherent
in having unelected officials overrule popular enactments by creating the perception that foreign sentiment shapes domestic
law. To be sure, examples from other countries may be illuminating. But the Court's legitimacy must ultimately rest on
reliance and reference to the American Constitution and to American democratic; outcomes, from which their judicial
authority springs. By relying on foreign laws and rulings over which the American people have no control -- either directly
through the power of election or even indirectly through the process of judicial appointment -- judges risk estranging and
disempowering the public. I fear that the internationalization of our constitutional values may thus undermine public
acceptance of our judicial system. A closely related danger is that reliance on foreign precedents may stimulate popular
perceptions that judges are out of touch with American culture. The risks of a common perception of judicial distance and
removal should not be underestimated. The detachment and insulation which an independent judiciary properly enjoys
should not be endangered by pronouncements that appear targeted at foreign and domestic elites rather than the American
public at large. The power of persuasion which sustains judicial authority must not neglect those very people whose
acceptance of judicial decree is most essential. Americans treasure their diversity and their identity. The great Willa Cather
novels, My Antonia and O Pioneers!, still play a prevalent role in the American psyche, and the distance from American to
European modes of thought remains in some vital particulars more psychological than physical. The distinguished Harvard
historian, Bernard Bailyn, has noted that the power of the American Constitution derived from the fact that its framers were
proud and stubborn provincials, that they did not accept all the received wisdom of the Continent, and that, for example, the
[*427] animating constitutional idea of dual and concurrent sovereignties actually rejected the contrary notions of the
French theorist Montesquieu.
3. Negative public opinion for the courts causes courtstripping
Helen Norton, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law, Winter 20 06 (41 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1003, ―ARTICLE:
RESHAPING FEDERAL JURISDICTION: CONGRESS'S LATEST CHALLENGE TO JUDICIAL REVIEW‖, lexis)
Not only are these efforts increasingly successful, they are likely to reemerge in future proposals to shape subject matter
jurisdiction and thus the balance of judicial power. The House's passage of two separate court-stripping bills in the same
Congress represents a high-water mark in the court-shaping movement, as does its passage of the Pledge Protection Act in
successive Congresses. Indeed, some of the dynamics that helped thwart earlier court-stripping measures appear to have
diminished or disappeared altogether. n97 In the past, for example, the courts - and especially the Supreme Court - may have
survived congressional attack due to their comparatively strong public reputation. n98 Shifting perceptions of government
institutions may weaken that shield, as one survey found that a majority of respondents agreed "that "judicial activism'
[*1027] has reached the crisis stage, and that judges who ignore voters' values should be impeached. Nearly half agreed
with a congressman who said judges are "arrogant, out-of-control and unaccountable.'" n99 Other recent polls also suggest a
drop in public support for the courts, including the Supreme Court, at least in some quarters. n100 Changes in public opinion,
accompanied by proponents' sheer political power, may encourage further jurisdictional realignment.

4. Court stripping destroys judicial legitimacy and seperation of powers
Andrew D. Martin, Prof of Political Science at Washington University 2001. (Statuatory Battles and
Constitutional Wars: Congress and the Supreme Court)
But the large policy payoff in the constitutional cases. What does the ability of the President and Congress to attack through
overrides or other means constitutional court decisions imply in terms of the cost of the justices bear? If an attack succeeds and
the court does not back down, it effectively removes the court from the policy game and may seriously or, even irrevocably
harm its reputation, credibility, and legitimacy. Indeed, such an attack would effectively remove the court from policy making,
thus incurring an infinite cost. With no constitutional prescription for judicial review, this power is vulnerable, and would be
severely damaged if congress and the president were effective in attack on the Court. But even if the attack is unsuccessful, the
integrity of the court may be damaged, for the assault may compromise its ability to make future constitutional decisions and,
thus, more long-lasting policy. One does not have to peer as far back as scott v. sandford to find examples; Bush v. Gore (2000,
U.S.) may provide one. To be sure, the new President and Congress did not attack the decision, but other memebers of
government did of course, unsuccessfully at least in terms of the ruling‘s impact. Yet, there seems little doubt that the critics
(not to mention the decision itself) caused some major damage to the reputation of the cout, the effects of which the justeces
may feel in the not-so-distant future.

5. Seperation of powers is key to preventing tyranny
Martin H. Redish and Elizabeth J. Cisar, Duke University School of Law, December 19 91
(―‘If Angels Were to Govern‘: The Need for Pragmatic Formalism in Separation of Powers Theory‖ Duke Law Journal, p. 449-506)
In any event, the political history of which the Framers were aware tends to confirm that quite often concentration of political
power ultimately leads to the loss of liberty. Indeed, if we have begun to take the value of separation of powers for granted, we
need only look to modern American history to remind ourselves about both the general vulnerability of representative
government, and the direct correlation between the concentration of political power and the threat to individual liberty. The
widespread violations of individual rights that took place when Pres- ident Lincoln assumed an inordinate level of power, for
example, are well documented.128 Arguably as egregious were the threats to basic freedoms that arose during the Nixon
administration, when the power of the executive branch reached what are widely deemed to have been intolerable levels.129
Although in neither instance did the executive's usurpations of power ultimately degenerate into complete and irreversible
tyranny, the reason for that may well have been the resilience of our political traditions, among the most important of which is
separation of powers itself. In any event, it would be political folly to be overly smug about the security of either representative
government or individual liberty. Although it would be all but impossible to create an empirical proof to demonstrate that our
constitutional tradition of separation of powers has been an essential catalyst in the avoidance of tyranny, common sense
should tell us that the simultaneous division of power and the creation of interbranch checking play important roles toward that
end. To underscore the point, one need imagine only a limited modification of the actual scenario surrounding the recent
Persian Gulf War. In actuality, the war was an extremely popular endeavor, thought by many to be a politically and morally
justified exercise. But imagine a situation in which a President, concerned about his failure to resolve significant social and
economic problems at home, has callously decided to engage the nation in war, simply to defer public attention from his
domestic failures. To be sure, the President was presumably elected by a majority of the electorate, and may have to stand for
reelection in the future. However, at this particular point in time, but for the system established by separation of powers, his
authority as Commander in Chief 130 to en- gage the nation in war would be effectively dictatorial. Because the Con- stitution
reserves to the arguably even more representative and accountable Congress the authority to declare war,131 the Constitution
has attempted to prevent such misuses of power by the executive.132 It remains unproven whether any governmental structure
other than one based on a system of separation of powers could avoid such harmful results. In summary, no defender of
separation of powers can prove with certitude that, but for the existence of separation of powers, tyranny would be the
inevitable outcome. But the question is whether we wish to take that risk, given the obvious severity of the harm that might
result. Given both the relatively limited cost imposed by use of separation of powers and the great severity of the harm sought
to be avoided, one should not demand a great showing of the likelihood that the feared harm would result. For just as in the
case of the threat of nuclear war, no one wants to be forced into the position of saying, "I told you so."474 [Vol. 41:449]

6. We must reject tyranny in every instance
Sylvester Petro, Professor of Law @ Wake Forest, 1974 (Sylvester Petro, University of Toledo Law Review, Spring 1974)
However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway – ―I believe in only one thing: liberty.‖ And it is always well to
beat in mind David Hume‘s observation: ―It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.‖ Thus, it is unacceptable to
say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no import because there have been invasions of so many other aspects.
That road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism, and the end of all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenitsyn. Ask Milovan Djilas.
In sum, if one believes in freedom as a supreme value and the proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize
spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying
spirit.
RT Virtual War Frontline
1. Face to Face Murder Worse: A soldier must face a victim, acknowledge that they have no value or
importance, re-entrenching stereotypes, and then kill them. Being presented with life, the imperial U.S.
soldier decides whether an individual is valuable according to a western calculus.

2. Virtual war inevitable— Video Games Make the Enemy’s Life Irrelevant and the Soldier’s Life
Renewable, Justifying and Rewarding Violence in War. As Long as War Games Promote Violence, the
War in the Middle East Cannot be Resolved.
Rune Ottosen, Department Of Languages And Mass Communication, Kathmandu University, 20 08, Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary
Journal, ―Targeting the Audience: Video Games as War Propaganda in Entertainment and News,‖
http://nepjol.info/nepal/index.php/BOHDI/article/viewFile/2862/2532
Besides constantly producing stereotype images of ‗your‘ side and the enemy, the conception of life and death in video
games is worth a study in itself. Usually, death differs, depending on which side you are. It means one thing for your side
but it‘s a totally different matter for the others. If you destroy a space invader it‘s gone for ever. If you are able to kill a
dungeon in the game ‗Zelda 64‘ it disappears into dust, but if you leave the room and return it has regenerated and must be
fought all over again. If your own space ship is hit by the aliens, it‘s bad news, of course. But luckily a brand new ship
appears at your disposal at the bottom of the screen. In reality, life is something sacred, to be protected. But in video games,
life is redefined as an expendable part of a larger campaign. Of course we can see a parallel to real wars here. For generals,
even the lives of their own soldiers are expendable enough to take calculated risks and sometimes send soldiers into battle –
with a potential fatal outcome. The video games offer a multitude of lives to each individual, depending on the
circumstance in which it operates, and in most games you are have several lives before you finally are out of the game.
‗Life‘ in a video game is not just a resource, it‘s also a possible reward: Games such as ‗Defender‘ or ‗Space Invaders‘ offer
‗extra lives‘ when a certain score is achieved (usually a multiple of ten or twenty thousand). It resembles an ethically inverted
form of Buddhism. In the Eastern philosophy, if you commit wrongs, your growing karmic debt means you are constantly rein
carted into a new existence in order to suffer anew. But whereas Buddhism‘s final aim is to jump off the exhausting carousel of
constant reincarnation and to be no more, life in a video game is always a good thing, and killing is the morally praiseworthy
action required to resurrect it. The fact that simple survival edges the player closer, as the score increases, to an extra life argues
that – as Nietzsche would have growled through his moustache after half an hour at the Robotron controls – what does not destroy
you makes you stronger. (Poole, 2004, p. 55-56). Besides creating a confused and unrealistic image of ‗lives‘, the video
games present a concept of ‗health‘ that is just as disturbing. In many games, ‗health‘ is a full ‗account‘ at the start of the
game, and is gradually reduced after the receipt of punches and kicks. The player whose energy is reduced to zero first is
the loser. In real life, any one of these kicks or punches could be fatal. It addition, the game creates the illusion that a kick
to your foot is just as dangerous as one to your head, since it generates the same amount of reduction to your ‗health scale‘.
Most games featuring a ‗health bar‘ also provide means for the player to restore health by allowing the subject in the game to
pick up healing devices. Bullet wounds are healed and injuries forgotten by picking up mysterious ‗medikits‘. Sometimes these
items offer extra energy in addition to restoring health or granting an extra life (op.cit., p. 56-59). The Relationship between
Computer Games Violence and Real Violence The debate about whether a connection between video games and social behaviour
can be proved surfaces from time to time. Patricia Greenfield‘s 1984 study, Media and the Mind of the Child, concluded that it
could not. Later studies have suggested that video-game playing temporarily increases aggression (Griffiths, 1997) but despite
evidence of such a connection I will argue that the ideology of the games should be evaluated. Even though there is no
proof of a direct link between the content of video games and children‘s behaviour, their content does somehow influence
the way children look at themselves, at other people and at human relations in general. Questions were asked in the British
Parliament on the 1993 release of ‗Mortal Kombat‘. Worried voices have been raised about ‗Grand Theft Auto‘ (1997) a game in
which the player steals cars, runs people down, shoots cops and indulges in other unsocial behaviour. Even worse is ‗Silent Hill‘,
in which a girl disappears and is subjected to torture. In the U.S. there has been a questioning of possible connections between
violent computer games and childhood violence. When, in the spring of 1999, two teenagers shot twelve students at Columbine
School in Littleton, Colorado, the media made a point of the fact that the shooters were avid players of the video games ‗Doom‘
and ‗Duke Nuke‘. The year before, 14-year-old Michael Carneal had killed three students and injured five others at his school in
West Paducah, Kentucky. The parents of the three murdered children filed a 130-million dollar law suit against 24 video-game
and Internet companies. Carneal was apparently a heavy user of ‗Doom‘ and the claim was that the game turned had him into an
―effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity‖ (quoted
from Poole, 2004, p. 208). The case was eventually dismissed, in May 2000, by a federal court jury, but the argument over video
games continues. Evan Wright, the author of the book Generation Kill, spent two months living with 23 Marines from First
Recon, the elite unit which spearheaded the invasion of Iraq. In his book Wright refers to a Marine soldier who talks about the
game ‗Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘ at the same time that they are about to attack a unit of alleged insurgents: ―I was just
thinking one thing when we drove into that ambush: ‗Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘. I felt like I was living it when I see the
flames coming out of windows, the blown-up car in the street, guys stealing out around shooting at us. It was fucking cool,‖
(quoted from Herbst, 2005). Wright explains how the violence in video games is related to experiences on the battlefield.
He compares the war in Iraq with earlier wars, and concludes that the soldiers seem to be more trigger happy than
previously. With reference to the book On Killing by Dave Grossman, Wright makes the point that in past generations only
15% to 20% of combat infantry were willing to fire weapons, whereas in Wright‘s unit he saw no resistance to firing, and
he believes that this change of attitude owes something to the experience of violence in entertainment (Matera, 2005). In
another article, Wright tells how soldiers in the unit were quite open about killing civilians, one even saying that it was
authorised by the priest in the unit – so long as they didn‘t enjoy the killing. Quoting this soldier, Wright writes: ―By the
time the unit reached the outskirts of Baghdad, this sergeant was certain he had killed at least four men. When this
commander praised the unit for ―slaying dragons‖ on the way to Baghdad, the sergeant later told his men, ―If we did half
the shit back home down here, we‘d be in prison,‖ (Wright, 2004b). Another aspect of the masculine culture in the unit was
to reward Iraqi boys with pornography for information. This made one village elder so furious that he wanted to attack the
unit with a rocket launcher; the old man was almost killed in a return of fire – so the clash of cultures had many aspects
(ibid.). The violent masculine culture transferred from fiction in video games and pornography to the battlefield in Iraq is
hardly a good basis for drumming up support for George Bush‘s experiment in creating a ‗new‘ Iraq.

3. Their Der Derian links to the criticism of virtual warfare: He justifies his arguments by American
casualty counts in virtuous conflicts. The idea of body count separates individuals from bodies, making a
death just a number that makes war quantifiable and sanitary. That’s Wilcox from the fem K. Counting
American casualties characterizes the enemy as disposable, creating an us-them dichotomy that justifies
war and murder. That’s Ottosen.

4. No internal link: Their Der Derian evidence presumes that pilots are separated from warfare. Real
people are behind the drones, making decisions. This human aspect means that drone use is not entirely
mechanized, and therefore they do not link to virtual war.

5. Claiming that Drone Pilots are Separated from War Belittles Their Work: Ground Soldiers Provide a
Connection to the Reality of War to them, While Calling on Piloted Fighter Planes to Strike Eliminates
Virtual War. When Drones Strike, Pilots Take 17 Steps to Launch Missiles, Creating Awareness of their
Task—They Often Have a Difficult Time Managing the Realities of War Fare.
Christopher Drew, author of military contracting and Pentagon spending for The New York Times and professor at Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism, 2009, New York Times, “Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?_r=1
On a recent day, at 1:15 p.m. in Tucson — 1:15 the next morning in Afghanistan — a pilot and sensor operator were staring
at gray-toned video from the Predator‘s infrared camera, which can make even the darkest night scene surprisingly clear.
The crew was scanning a road, looking for — but not finding — signs of anyone planting improvised explosive devices or
lying in wait for a convoy. As the Predator circled at 16,000 feet, the dark band of a river and craggy hills came into view,
along with ribbons of farmland. ―We spend 70 to 80 percent of our time doing this, just scanning roads,‖ said the pilot,
Matthew Morrison. At other times, the crews monitor insurgent compounds and watch over troops in battle. ―When you‘re
on the radio with a guy on the ground, and he is out of breath and you can hear the weapons fire in the background, you are
every bit as engaged as if you were actually there,‖ Major Morrison said. When Predators spot possible targets, officers
monitoring video at command centers in Iraq and Afghanistan decide whether to order an attack. Col. Gregg A. Davies,
commander of the group that flies Predators for the Arizona Guard, said fighter planes with bigger bombs are often sent in
to make the strikes. In all, the Air Force says, Predators and Reapers shot missiles on 244 of the 10,949 missions in Iraq and
Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. Air Force officials said a few crew members have had a difficult time watching the strikes.
And some pilots said it can be hard to transition from being a computer-screen warrior to dinner at home or their children‘s
soccer games. Another problem has been that few pilots wanted to give up flying fighter jets to operate drones. Given the
shortages, the Air Force has temporarily blocked transfers out of the program. It also has begun training officers as drone
pilots who have had little or no experience flying conventional planes. Colonel Mathewson, director of the Air Force‘s task
force on unmanned aerial systems, said that while upgrades have been made to control stations, the service plans to
eventually shift to simpler and more intuitive ground systems that could allow one remote pilot to control several drones.
Now, pilots say, it takes up to 17 steps — including entering data into pull-down windows — to fire a missile. And even
though 13 of the 70 Predator crashes have occurred over the last 18 months, officials said the accident rate has fallen as flying
hours have shot up. All told, 55 have been lost because of equipment failure, operator errors or weather. Four were shot down in
Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq; 11 were lost in combat situations, like running out of fuel while protecting troops under fire. Given the
demand for video intelligence, the Air Force is equipping 50 manned turboprop planes with similar cameras. And it is developing
new camera systems for Reapers that could vastly expand the intelligence each plane can collect. P. W. Singer, a defense analyst
at the Brookings Institution, said the Predators have already had ―an incredible effect,‖ though the remote control raised obvious
questions about whether the military could become ―more cavalier‖ about using force. Still, he said, ―these systems today are very
much Model T Fords. These things will only get more advanced.‖

6. Their first piece of Gregory evidence attributes soldiers’ justification for murder on a visual
separation. This ignores that it is not the separation that justifies killing, but masculine cyborg
subjectivities. That’s Wilcox from the fem k. Removing drones does not remove these masculine
subjectivities that enable war, and so they can’t solve for future manifestations of virtual warfare.

7. Their second piece of Der Derian states that the motivation for war is based on the perception of the
other and the self. This perception is formed before and exists after virtual warfare by the political
realm, media, and entertainment, and virtual war does not change it.

8. Their final Gregory card makes no claim to an ethical obligation, let alone an obligation to combat
drones. Instead, it attributes the reduction of the enemy’s space into photographs and simulations to
news media and video games. This reduction creates a naturalization of murder and means that the
perception of sanitary warfare will linger as long as video games and news media portray it as such.

RT International Law Frontline
1. Status quo solves - CIL is being integrated into the US legal system now - especially the human rights
laws in the aff’s impact scenarios
Martin S. Flaherty, Prof. Program in Law and Public Affairs @ Princeton, 04 [67 Law & Contemp. Prob. 169, ―Case Studies In
Conservative And Progressive Legal Orders: The Future And Past Of U.S. Foreign Relations Law,‖ ln
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?67+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+169+%28autumn+2004%29)
As Anne-Marie Slaughter has pointed out, "judicial globalization" marches on in almost the same inexorable fashion as its
economic cousin.17 This observation holds true in particular regarding judges of one nation making reference to the
analogous laws of another, as well as judges of any nation citing relevant international law. So powerful has the tide
become that it has recently swept up several justices -- and even an occasional majority -- of the Supreme Court of the
United States. This past term provides the latest cases in point. With regard to international law, easily one of the most
important decisions handed down was Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain.18 Despite an excess of cautionary rhetoric, the Court in
essence upheld modern litigation under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), through which aliens have brought tort suits in federal
court for human rights violations under customary international law.19 In so doing, the Sosa majority guaranteed that the
federal judiciary's duty to engage with international legal standards in ATS suits would continue. Less noted, but perhaps
even more significant, was the Court's rejection of Justice Scalia's contention that Erie v. Tompkins in effect deprived the
Federal courts of the power to recognize international norms absent further congressional action. To the contrary, Justice
Souter's majority opinion indicates that the Court stands by its traditional understanding, as conventionally understood in
such cases as The Pacqute Habana,21 that customary international law was part of the domestic law of the United States.
While this confirmation came in the specific context of considering whether federal judges could identify evolving
international norms under the ATS, its import is to confirm that international custom was part of judicially enforceable
federal law even in the absence of a statute.22 Justice Souter, joined by Justice Ginsburg, likewise displayed an
internationalist bent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which an American citizen seized in Afghanistan and held incommunicado
in the United States as an "enemy combatant" sought habeas relief from the federal courts.23 Here Justice Souter came
closer to the core of judicial globalization in looking to international law to resolve a domestic legal issue. Specifically, the
Justice considered the government's contention that the Congressional resolution authorizing military action against al-
Qaida and the Taliban authorizes the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to detain enemy belligerents according to the
international laws of war. Accordingly, the argument continued, the Resolution author-[*pg 174] ized detention consistent
with 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a), which prohibits detention of citizens except pursuant to an act of Congress. Souter (and
Ginsburg) rejected this argument on the grounds that the laws of war as codified in the Third Geneva Convention appeared
to require that Hamdi be treated as a prisoner of war, or at least receive a hearing to determine that he is an unlawful
combatant. The opinion, in short, concluded that Congress could not have authorized Hamdi's detention as consistent with
the laws of war on the assumption that the government was violating exactly those laws.24 If anything, the previous term
was even more significant. In the widely anticipated University of Michigan affirmative action cases, a 5-4 majority in
Grutter v. Bollinger held that "the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the [University of Michigan] Law School's
narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits
that flow from a diverse student body," 25 even while the court struck down the more "mechanical" race-conscious scheme
in undergraduate admissions in Gratz v. Bollinger.26 Likewise anticipated, but far more surprising, another one-vote
majority in Lawrence v. Texas27 overruled Bowers v. Hardwick28 to hold that a state statute criminalizing homosexual
sodomy was inconsistent with substantive due process. For all the obvious domestic importance of these rulings, their
embrace of international law may prove to be more compelling in the long run. In Grutter, for example, Justice Ginsburg,
joined by Justice Breyer, filed a concurring opinion that commences with citations to the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)29 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).30 The concurrence brings in these standards to argue that although the majority
opinion that affirmative action programs must have an end point "accords with the international understanding," the United
States has not yet gotten there.31 Even more striking was Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in Lawrence, which stressed
that Western standards regarding the regulation of homosexual conduct had for all intents and purposes made Bowers an
anomaly in most of the industrialized world.32 For this proposition, Lawrence relied on a string of decisions issued by the
European Court of Human Rights, as well as a brief submitted by former Irish President and UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Mary Robinson, who had liti-[*pg 175] gated several of these cases while still a law school professor.33
These references, moreover, follow on the previous term's Atkins v. Virginia, in which the Court likewise referenced
international standards in holding that the execution of the mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment. 34 What
makes these references striking is not their content but that they were included at all, especially in such high profile,
ostensibly domestic cases. With certain exceptions -- such as Justice Breyer35 and Justice Stevens36 -- the Justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States are notorious for their aversion to referring to legal developments abroad unless
absolutely necessary. This aversion has long stood in ironic contrast to courts around the world that regularly examine both
international and comparative law, including the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court. 37 When the Court has turned to
foreign materials in major cases, it has usually been in areas of law where U.S. sources had yet to exist, as in Justice
Blackmun's account of the Persian Empire in Roe v. Wade38 or Chief Justice Burger's musings on the "Judeo-Christian"
heritage in Bowers itself.39 By contrast, the decisions of the past term stand out precisely because they go out of their way
to consider contemporary international standards -- in particular, international human rights law -- in dealing with
fundamental domestic issues.

2. Their Cassese evidence states that international law requires cooperation—but not that U.S.
compliance is key. International Law has functioned throughout the duration of the U.S. involvement in
the Middle East, proving that the U.S. is unessential.

3. The United States lack of involvement in international law will increase environmental measures. The
U.S. has empirically rejected international environmental initiatives at Kyoto and Copenhagen in
preference of capitalist profit ideologies.

4. Using transnational law destroys the constitution and kills democracy and freedom
Jeaneene Nooney, 7/8/10 columnist for Morningstar Publishing Co.,
(Morningstarhttp://www.morningstarpublishing.com/articles/2010/07/08/leader_and_kalkaskian/opinion/doc4c35fd3d6003744948076
4.txt)
Last week we spoke of freedom; how quickly we are losing it, how costly it is to achieve, and how devotedly it must be
maintained. We cannot rest on our Founding Fathers‘ laurels — or blood. We must be like sheep dogs after wolves when it
comes to sustaining liberty. At the heart of this freedom lies the Constitution of the United States. Personally, I hate
conflict. I hate phoning my representatives to voice my views; though it is much easier than I had once thought. But if we
are to keep this Republic together, it‘s vital that we not allow the wolves to sneak in and swiftly carry off our stock. And by
that I mean our future. I promised to explain about a ―living constitution‖ and transnationalism in last week‘s column.
Much of what is said by proponents of these ideologies is fraught with legalese. I run the risk of oversimplification here,
but the attempt to warn is intentional, and my hope is to illumine rather than muddle the reader‘s understanding of a very
complex issue. Hang in there. I will do my best. In speaking of a ―21st century constitution‖ or ―living constitution‖ during
a speech in Washington last February, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephan Markman said ―Proponents aim to
transform our nation‘s supreme law beyond recognition — and with a minimum of public attention and debate. Indeed, if
there is an overarching theme to what they wish to achieve, it is the diminishment of the democratic and representative
processes of American government. ―It is the replacement of a system of republican government,‖ Markman continues, ―in
which the constitution is largely focused upon the architecture of government in order to minimize the likelihood of abuse
of power; with a system of judicial government, in which substantive policy outcomes are increasingly determined by
federal judges. Rather than merely defining broad rules of the game for the legislative and executive branches of
government, the new constitution would compel specific outcomes.‖ In other words, an unelected, appointed group of nine
would determine law, rather than interpret it from the Constitution. This is in direct opposition to what the Framers of the
Constitution set forth as a natural check to laws being enacted by any elite, rather than by the people. Elena Kagan, who
might appear as a neutral moderate — though a careful study will reveal her bias — is a proponent of transnationalism.
Other proponents are top State Department legal advisor Harold Koh, Justices Marshall and Mikva and Israeli Judge
Aharon Barak — all activists, all of whom Kagan has said that she admires. Kagan went so far as to call radical Barak ―a
hero.‖ Essentially, transnationalism means that American law can be subject to international law. Transnational law
regulates actions or events that go beyond national frontiers. I am not speaking of business dealings here, but something
much greater in scope and consequence.

RT Instability Frontline
1. Instability is inevitable—the conflict in the Middle East is rooted in a religious conflict that is 700 years
in the making. The Taliban has taken over before, and it will take over again. It was unstable before
U.S. intervention and the invention of drones, and it will be unstable even if we withdraw drones. The
tensions and alliances are too deeply rooted to be solved by any U.S. policy action.

2. The Courts Cannot Rule on Drones: They are Legal by the Laws of War, Making Them the
Jurisdiction of the President and not Courts.
David Rittgers, Legal Policy Analyst for Cato Institute, 2/24/10, The Wall Street Journal, ―Both s Left and Right Are Wrong
About Drones,‖
http://www.collegejournal.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575085511472753150.html?mod=WSJ_article_related
The Obama administration has significantly expanded the use of unmanned aerial drones to kill al Qaeda and Taliban
operatives. This decision has been criticized from both the left and the right, but it fits neatly into a broader strategy of
countering terrorists world-wide. Advances in unmanned aerial vehicle technology allow the United States to reach around
the globe and target terrorists in areas where our troops cannot go for tactical or diplomatic reasons. Drone attacks have
increased significantly in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past six months while civilian casualties have decreased. Liberal
critics should refrain from erroneously labeling drone strikes as "nonjudicial killings." Even the most controversial drone
strikes—those that kill American citizens who have joined al Qaeda affiliates overseas—are permissible under the laws of
war. Neither Congress nor the courts should micromanage tactical decisions such as whether the president can order
soldiers to seize a particular hill or employ a certain weapon. Referring to drone strikes as "nonjudicial" implies that the
courts should be given the ability to rule out specific drone attacks. Vetting these targets for accuracy of intelligence and
minimization of collateral damage is essential, and the record continues to improve on that front. Criticism from
conservatives is largely based on the logic that a live and talking terrorist is worth more than a dead one. While this is true
as a general matter, several factors make drone attacks a good alternative to capture. First, not all terrorists targeted in drone
attacks can be feasibly taken alive. This is especially true of those who reside in the many areas dominated by local
insurgent groups and therefore out of reach of national governments. For example, putting troops on the ground in the
Pakistani tribal areas, where numerous drone attacks have been carried out, is both tactically and diplomatically
problematic. Last May, CIA Director Leon Panetta called drones the "only game in town" when it comes to certain parts of
Pakistan, and this will remain the case for the long term. Second, many terrorist leaders are captured and interrogated, but
by their own governments rather than U.S. forces. Cooperation with the governments who capture these terrorists serves
numerous purposes, and this should not be viewed as a loss. The recent interrogation of high-level Taliban official Mullah
Baradar by Pakistani agents is an example how U.S. personnel need not be—indeed, are often unable to be—involved in
every phase of these operations.

3. Double Bind—Either they aren’t topical or they don’t solve their aff.
A. Banning drones internationally means you are not topical—removing drones from Afghanistan isn’t a
substantial decrease in comparison to the thousands of drones located elsewhere.
B. In a topical version of the plan, removing drones from Afghanistan ignores drones in other places of
the world: Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and South America. Pakistan is an ally of the U.S. and the existence
of drones aggravates U.S.-Pakistan relations since drones violate territorial sovereignty and undermine
their ability to fight terrorism. That’s their Shah evidence. U.S. relations cannot be resolved until all
drones are removed from Pakistan.

4. Surveillance and Combat Drones Reduce Terrorism and Protect Civilian Lives
Christopher Drew, author of military contracting and Pentagon spending for The New York Times and professor at Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism, 2009, New York Times, “Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?_r=1
Field commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Air Force is in charge of the Predators, say their ability to linger over
an area for hours, streaming instant video warnings of insurgent activity, has been crucial to reducing threats from roadside
bombs and identifying terrorist compounds. The C.I.A. is in charge of drone flights in Pakistan, where more than three
dozen missiles strikes have been launched against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in recent months. Considered a novelty a
few years ago, the Air Force‘s fleet has grown to 195 Predators and 28 Reapers, a new and more heavily armed cousin of
the Predator. Both models are made by General Atomics, a contractor based in San Diego. Including drones that the Army
has used to counter roadside bombs and tiny hand-launched models that can help soldiers to peer past the next hill or
building, the total number of military drones has soared to 5,500, from 167 in 2001. The urgent need for more drones has
meant bypassing usual procedures. Some of the 70 Predator crashes, for example, stemmed from decisions to deploy the
planes before they had completed testing and to hold off replacing control stations to avoid interrupting the supply of
intelligence. ―The context was to do just the absolute minimum needed to sustain the fight now, and accept the risks, while
making fixes as you go along,‖ Colonel Mathewson said. It is easier, of course, for the military to take more risks with
unmanned planes. Complaints about civilian casualties, particularly from strikes in Pakistan, have stirred some concerns
among human rights advocates. Military officials say the ability of drones to observe targets for lengthy periods makes
strikes more accurate. They also said they do not fire if they think civilians are nearby. The Predators were still undergoing
basic testing when they were rushed into use in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and then hastily armed with missiles after
the September 2001 terrorist attacks. But it was only after the military turned to new counterinsurgency techniques in early
2007, that demand for drones became almost insatiable. Since then, Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North, the air-component
commander for the combined forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the service has gone to ―amazing lengths‖ to increase
their use. The Predators and Reapers are now flying 34 surveillance patrols each day in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from 12 in
2006. They are also transmitting 16,000 hours of video each month, some of it directly to troops on the ground. The strains
of these growing demands were evident on a recent visit to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., one of four
bases where Air National Guard units have been ordered to full-time duty to help alleviate crew shortages.

5. Their Dressler evidence criticizes counter terrorism, not drones. This means that the impact is
inevitable both post plan and in the status quo

6. Page: 17
Their Holder evidence states that the U.S. must maintain its commitment to Afghanistan beyond military
presence. The plan moves to remove presence while not maintaining its commitment to the safety of
Afghanistan. Removal guarantees the loss of trust of Afghanis and all the resulting impacts—the status
quo makes a symbolic commitment that makes these impacts less likely.