AFFIRMATIVE, 2010-11 MILITARY TOPIC

EXAMPLE EVIDENCE.. 7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Military Topic Analysis 8

***Afghanistan Aff*** 13

1AC Afghanistan Troops Aff 14

1AC Afghanistan Troops Aff 15

1AC Afghanistan Troops Aff 16

1AC Afghanistan Troops Aff 17

1AC Afghanistan Troops Aff 18

Inherency – No Withdrawal 19

Stability Advantage – Uniqueness 20

Stability Advantage – Troops = Instability 21

Stability Advantage – Troops = Instability 22

Stability Advantage – Pakistan Internal 23

Stability Advantage – AT: Troops Key 24

Stability Advantage – AT: Troops Key 25

Stability Advantage – Impacts 26

Hegemony Advantage – Link Extension 27

Hegemony Advantage – Link Extension 28

Solvency Extensions 29

AT: Negotiations CP – Plan Key 30

AT: Negotiations CP – Negotiations Fail 31

AT: Negotiations CP – Fill-In Solves Terror 32

AT: Negotiations CP – No Terrorism 33

AT: Consult NATO CP 34

AT: NATO DA – Link Answers 35

AT: NATO DA – No Impact 36

AT: CMR DA 37

AT: Drug War DA 38

AT: Economy Disadvantages 39

AT: Imperialism Ks 40

***Iraq Aff*** 41

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 42

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 43

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 44

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 45

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 46

1AC Iraq Militarism Aff 47

Reductions Are Coming Now 48

Current Reductions Will Leave Tons Of Troops 49

We Should Withdraw From Iraq Now 50

We Should Withdraw From Iraq Now 51

Critical Pedagogies Can Change The System 52

The Details Of Withdrawal Are Secondary 53

Occupation Embraces US Imperialism 54

Imperialism Is Destructive 55

US Occupation Embodies Militarism 56

US Occupation Embodies Militarism 57

The Logic Of Militarism Is Disastrous 58

Occupation Constitutes Genocide 59

Occupation Undermines Democracy 60

Long-Term Presence Is Disastrous 61

Occupation Will Not Lead To Success 62

Withdrawal Solves Terrorism 63

Withdrawal Solves Terrorism 64

Withdrawal Will Not Cause Oil Shocks 65

Iran Will Not Benefit From US Withdrawal 66

Excluding Reconstruction Does Not Solve 67

Just War Theory Does Not Justify Occupation 68

***Japan Aff*** 69

1AC Japan Aff 70

1AC Japan Aff 71

1AC Japan Aff 72

1AC Japan Aff 73

1AC Japan Aff 74

1AC Japan Aff 75

1AC Japan Aff 76

1AC Japan Aff 77

1AC Japan Aff 78

Chinese Containment Extensions – Modernization Bad 79

Chinese Containment Extensions – Asian Arms Race 80

Japanese Politics Extensions – Link 81

Japanese Politics Extensions – IWC Impact 82

North Korean Containment Add-on 83

Regional Cooperation Add-on 84

Japanese Biodiversity Add-on 85

Economy Add-on 86

AT: Consult Japan Counterplan – Permutations 87

AT: Consult Japan Counterplan – Theoretically Illegitimate 88

AT: Consult Japan Counterplan – Solvency Deficits 89

AT: Japan Rearmament Disadvantage – No Internal Link 90

AT: Japan Rearmament Disadvantage – Impact Turns 91

AT: US-Japan Alliance Disadvantage – Non-Unique 92

AT: US-Japan Alliance Disadvantage – Impact Turns 93

AT: Hegemony Disadvantage – No Internal Link 94

AT: Hegemony Disadvantage – Decline Inevitable 95

Plan Unpopular 96

Plan Popular 97

***SK Aff*** 98

1AC South Korea Aff 99

1AC South Korea Aff 100

1AC South Korea Aff 101

1AC South Korea Aff 102

1AC South Korea Aff 103

1AC South Korea Aff 104

1AC South Korea Aff 105

1AC South Korea Aff 106

1AC South Korea Aff 107

Colonialism Advantage – Troops are Patriarchal 108

Colonialism Advantage – South Korea is Key 109

Colonialism Advantage – South Koreans Want Troops Gone 110

Colonialism Advantage – South Koreans Want Troops Gone Cont’d 111

Environment Add-on 112

Structural Violence Impact 113

Structural Violence Impact Cont’d 114

Violence Against Women Impact 115

United States Forces Are Unnecessary 116

North Korea Is Not A Threat 117

North Korea Would Not Win a War 118

AT: Realism Prevents Solvency 119

AT: Plan = War – Non-Unique 120

AT: Plan = War – Non-Unique Cont’d 121

AT: Plan = War – Aff Outwieghs 122

AT: Counterplans 123

AT: Consult SK CP 124

AT: Hegemony Disadvantage 125

AT: Asian Conflict Disadvantage 126

AT: US-South Korea Relations DA – Resilient 127

AT: US-South Korea Relations DA – Resilient Cont’d 128

AT: US-South Korea Relations DA – Alt-Causes 129

AT: Pacifism Bad 130

AT: Kritiks 131

***Generic Advantage Core*** 132

US Is Overstretched Now 133

US Is Overstretched Now – AT: Other Countries Fill-In 134

South Korea Causes Overstretch 135

Japan Causes Overstretch 136

Afghanistan Causes Overstretch 137

Iraq Causes Overstretch 138

Kuwait Causes Overstretch 139

Overstretch Hurts US Hegemony 140

Overstretch Undermines US Recruiting 141

Recruiting Is Key To Hegemony 142

Hegemony Good – General 143

Hegemony Good – General Cont’d 144

Hegemony Good – Economy 145

Hegemony Good – Economy Cont’d 146

Hegemony Good – Asian Economy 147

Hegemony Good – India-Pakistan 148

Hegemony Good – Asian War 149

Hegemony Good – AT: Entanglement Wars 150

Hegemony Good – AT: Entanglement Wars Cont’d 151

Hegemony Good – AT: Multipolarity Solves 152

Hegemony Sustainable 153

Hegemony Sustainable – AT: Balancing 154

Hegemony Sustainable – AT: Withdrawal Inevitable 155

Hegemony Sustainable – AT: Withdrawal Inevitable Cont’d 156

Overstrech Bad – Draft 157

Draft Is Bad 158

Proliferation Would Be Slow 159

Proliferation Would Be Slow Cont’d 160

Proliferation Good – Deterrence 161

Proliferation Good – War 162

Proliferation Good – War Cont’d 163

Proliferation Good – Japan 164

Proliferation Good – AT: Accidents 165

***Prolif DA Aff*** 166

Proliferation Increasing Now – Nuclear Weapons Spreading 167

Proliferation Increasing Now – Deterrence Decreasing Now 168

Proliferation Increasing Now – Allies Proliferating Now 169

No Link – Allies Won’t Proliferate 170

Impact Takeout – Proliferation Not Bad 171

Impact Takeout – Japan Scenario 172

Impact Takeout – Saudi Scenario 173

Impact Turn – Allied Proliferation Good 174

Impact Turn – Proliferation Solves Conventional War 175

Impact Turn – Proliferation Stabilizes 176

***Hegemony DA Aff*** 177

Uniqueness – Hegemony Low Now 178

Uniqueness – Multipolarity Inevitable 179

Uniqueness – Multipolarity Inevitable Cont’d 180

No Link – Deployment Not Key to Hegemony 181

Link Turn – Soft Power 182

Link Turn – Military Advantage 183

No Impact – Hegemony Doesn’t Solve 184

Impact Turn – Conflict 185

Impact Turn – Conflict Cont’d 186

Impact Turn – Multipolarity Good 187

Impact Turn – Multipolarity Good Cont’d 188

Impact Turn – Terrorism 189

Impact Turn – Proliferation 190

***Midterms DA Aff *** 191

Democrats Win Now 192

Other Factors Outweigh 193

Election is Too Unpredictable 194

The Plan is Insufficient to Cause the Link 195

Link Turn – Weak on National Security 196

Link Turn – Issue Change 197

Impact Turn – EPA Regulations Good 198

Impact Turn – Immigration Reform 199

Impact Turn – Card Check 200

AT: Gridlock Impact 201

***Politics DA Aff *** 202

Not Unique – No Climate Bill 203

Not Unique – No Political Capital 204

Link Turn – Winners Win 205

Link Turn – Afghanistan Reductions Help Obama 206

Link Turn – Iraq Reductions Help Obama 207

Link Turn – Japan Reductions Help Obama 208

Link Turn – Kuwait Reductions Help Obama 209

Link Turn – South Korea Reductions Help Obama 210

Link Turn – Turkey Reductions Help Obama 211

Link Turn – Turkey Reductions Help Obama Cont’d 212

Link Turn Internals – Popularity Key to the Agenda 213

***Courts CP Aff*** 214

CP Doesn’t Solve Withdrawal – Congressional Deferral 215

CP Doesn’t Solve Withdrawal – President Won’t Obey 216

CP Doesn’t Solve Withdrawal – President Won’t Obey Cont’d 217

AT: Courts Create More Stable/Effective Foreign Policy 218

AT: Courts Create More Stable/Effective Foreign Policy Cont’d 219

Deference Key to War on Terrorism 220

Deference Key to Hegemony 221

Deference Key to Foreign Policy 222

AT: Ending Deference Key to Separation of Powers 223

AT: Ending Deference Key to the Environment 224

AT: Ending Deference Key to Preventing Conflict 225

AT: Ending Deference Key to Preventing Conflict Cont’d 226

Courts Link to Politics 227

***Recruitment CP*** 228

The CP Hurts Obama’s Agenda 229

The CP Hurts Obama’s Agenda 230

Military Child Care is Sufficient Now 231

Withdrawal from Iraq Is Necessary For Recruitment/Retention 232

DoD Tradeoff DA 2AC 233

DoD Tradeoff DA 2AC 234

DoD Tradeoff – Uniqueness Extension 235

DoD Tradeoff – Link Extension 236

DoD Tradeoff – Impact Extension 237

Spending DA 2AC 238

***Security K Aff*** 239

Securitization Solves War And Extinction 240

Securitization Solves War And Extinction 241

Security Predictions Are Essential 242

Fetishizing Language Debilitates Politics 243

Fetishizing Language Debilitates Politics 244

Particular Uses Of Security Is Empowering 245

Biopower Is Not Destructive 246

Biopower Is Not Destructive 247

Value To Life Arguments Are Flawed 248

Survival Outweighs Ontology/Epistemology 249

Violence Is Inevitable And Good 250

***Capitalism K Aff*** 251

Link Turn – Military Deployment Is Capitalist 252

Link Turn – Military Deployment Is Capitalist Cont’d 253

Link Turn – Reformism Is Good 254

Link Turn – Reformism Is Good Cont’d 255

Permutation Solves 256

Capitalism Good – Mass Violence 257

Capitalism Good – Poverty 258

Capitalism Good – Environment 259

Capitalism Good – Space 260

Alternative Bad – Oppression 261

Alternative Bad – Oppression Cont’d 262

Alternative Doesn’t Solve Capitalism 263

AT: Zizek 264

EXAMPLE EVIDENCE

Stability Advantage – AT: Troops Key

US troops can’t generate stability in Afghanistan

Kenneth Theisen, Steering committee member of World Can’t Wait, 10-01-2009, “Commentary: The United States Must Withdraw from Afghanistan,” The Berkeley Daily Planet, http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-10-01/article/33852?headline=Commentary-The-United-States-Must-Withdraw-from-Afghanistan

But neither Taliban nor the United States rule, through its puppet allies, is in the interests of the Afghan people. Two historically obsolete and reactionary forces are contending in Afghanistan—the Islamic fundamentalist forces led by the Taliban and the outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, led by the United States These two forces reinforce each other, even while opposing one another. Supporting the U.S. government to defeat the Taliban and their allies will not advance the interests of the Afghan or American people.

Troops don’t provide stability in Afghanistan – statistics proves

George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, 09-01-2009, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan,” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102912.html

The U.S. strategy is "clear, hold and build." Clear? Taliban forces can evaporate and then return, confident that U.S. forces will forever be too few to hold gains. Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: The Brookings Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation with a weaker state. Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only about a third of the country -- "control" is an elastic concept -- and " 'our' Afghans may prove no more viable than were 'our' Vietnamese, the Saigon regime." Just 4,000 Marines are contesting control of Helmand province, which is the size of West Virginia. The New York Times reports a Helmand official saying he has only "police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for 'vacation.' " Afghanistan's $23 billion gross domestic product is the size of Boise's. Counterinsurgency doctrine teaches, not very helpfully, that development depends on security, and that security depends on development. Three-quarters of Afghanistan's poppy production for opium comes from Helmand. In what should be called Operation Sisyphus, U.S. officials are urging farmers to grow other crops. Endive, perhaps?

Even if troops can help, there’s no impact to Taliban resurgence after withdrawal

Malou Innocent, foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, and Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at Cato, 09-14-2009, “Escaping the "Graveyard of Empires": A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan,” Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/escaping-graveyard-empires-strategy-exit-afghanistan.pdf

Moreover, the worst-case scenario—the resurrection of the Taliban’s fundamentalist regime—does not threaten America’s sovereignty or physical security. Many policymakers who call for an indefinite military presence in Afghanistan conflate bin Laden’s network—a transnational jihadist organization—with the Taliban—an indigenous Pashtun-dominated movement. But the Taliban and other parochial fighters pose little threat to the sovereignty or physical security of the United States. The fear that the Taliban will take over a contiguous fraction of Afghan territory is not compelling enough of a rationale to maintain an indefinite, large-scale military presence in the region, especially since the insurgency is largely confined to predominately Pashtun southern and eastern provinces and is unlikely to take over the country as a whole, as we saw in the 1990s.

Stability Advantage – Impacts

Instability in Afghanistan will spillover and undermine Pakistan – causes nuclear war

Joshua Foust, associate editor for Current Intelligence, 08-27-n, “The Case for Afghanistan: Strategic Considerations,” Registan, http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/08/27/the-case-for-afghanistan-strategic-considerations/

And lest anyone think it is appropriate to write off the India-Pakistan conflict as somebody else’s problem, it is never somebody else’s problem when nuclear weapons are involved. As Jari Lindholm reminded, India and Pakistan have come a hair’s breadth from nuclear conflict twice over Kashmir. And like it or not, it is a compelling and vital American interest to prevent nuclear conflict in South Asia—which makes “fixing” Afghanistan in some way also a vital American interest. Regional security is one of those topics that gets mentioned casually by many pundits but never really articulated. It is by far Ahmed Rashid’s most convincing argument, that supporting stability in Central and South Asia is a compelling interest not just for the U.S., but for the West in general. When it comes to Pakistan, the big danger is not in a Taliban takeover, or even in the Taliban seizure of nuclear weapons—I have never believed that the ISI could be that monumentally stupid (though they are incredibly stupid for letting things get this far out of hand). The big danger, as it has been since 1999, is that insurgents, bored or underutilized in Afghanistan, will spark another confrontation between India and Pakistan, and that that confrontation will spillover into nuclear conflict. That is worth blood and treasure to prevent.

Continued US presence will destabilize Pakistan causing nuclear war

Talking Points Memo, 01-26-2010, “Destabilizing Nuclear Pakistan to Chase Ghosts in Afghanistan,” Talking Points Memo, http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/r/u/rutabaga_ridgepole/2010/01/destabilizing-nuclear-pakistan.php

So our new "Terror President" bombs bombs bombs some of the most desolate wastelands in the world in North and South Waziristan, and it makes even less sense than bombing Antarctica on the chance that Usama bin Laden is hiding in an igloo at the South Pole, because if we were bombing Antarctica, we wouldn't be destabilizing nuclear Pakistan. A wave of bombings has swept Pakistan since October, devastating Peshawar but also reaching far beyond the troubled northwest. Attacks on places believed to be safe, such as the military headquarters in Rawalpindi and a popular market in the eastern city of Lahore, have struck fear into the population. Last week, Pakistan's foreign minister warned in a statement that the U.S. troop buildup could magnify the problems by bringing an "influx of militants and refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan." The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 led thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda members to flee the fighting and seek refuge in Pakistan. For the United States, the worst-case scenario in Pakistan is nuclear weapons "diverted" to Islamic militants, and in an increasingly fractured Pakistan this possibility has attained sufficient urgency so that Obama and his bumbling Secretary of Defense have been trying to negotiate a deal that would allow "specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani (nuclear) arsenal in case of a crisis."

It’s the most dangerous region

Robin Wright, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 12-09-2009, “The real stakes in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120903678.html

Finally, U.S. interests in the wider region are also at stake, notably on two fronts. Obama's strategy will deeply affect India, the world's largest democracy. Long-standing tensions between Pakistan and India have taken the world closer to the brink of nuclear war than any conflict has since World War II -- and still could, since Pakistan has failed to contain extremists responsible for terrorist atrocities in India, including the Mumbai attacks last year. U.S. failure to help nuclear Pakistan expand or shift its military focus from India to the more immediate threat from its internal extremists risks allowing those tensions to deepen.

Hegemony Advantage – Link Extension

Current US policy in Afghanistan will lead to the collapse of US leadership

Nicolas Davies, local coordinator of Progressive Democrats of America, 11-23-2009, “Why Afghans Dig Empire Graveyards,” Consortium News, http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/112309b.html

In Afghanistan as in Iraq (and Vietnam), despite endless lip-service to phrases like "winning hearts and minds" and "clear, hold and build," American military strategists cling to the core belief that their virtually unlimited capacity for violence can ultimately carry the day if enough legal and political constraints are removed. Instead, the failures of U.S. military force and the success of "Anti-Coalition Forces" everywhere have confirmed Richard Barnet's Vietnam-era judgment that, "at the very moment the number one nation has perfected the science of killing, it has become an impractical instrument of political domination." The United States military budget is higher than at any time since the Second World War because U.S. officials now regard more of the world as critical to U.S. interests than ever before and are determined to militarily control all of it. Fortunately for people everywhere, this policy, if it even deserves to be called one, is neither realistic nor economically sustainable. But the whole world faces a critical period of transition as the U.S. military-industrial complex wrestles with the impossible challenge of an unconquerable world, experimenting with new weapons and strategies at the expense of countless lives and squandering resources that could otherwise be used to solve real problems.

Obama’s commitment to Afghanistan undermines US hegemony – overcomes Obama’s changes on international law

Francis Shor, Professor in History at Wayne State University, 2010, “War in the Era of Declining U.S.

Global Hegemony,” Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, Issue 2, http://www.criticalglobalisation.com/Issue2/65_81_DECLINING_US_HEGEMONY_JCGS2.pdf

As the bodies pile up, however, the ability to maintain hegemony abroad and even at home is eroded. Yet, war, as a political strategy, remains a compulsive choice by those elite forces in the United States waging a losing struggle to retain global hegemony. As argued by one fierce critic of U.S. military imperialism: “All presidents, whether Democrats or Republicans, have sought to shape the contours of politics worldwide. This global mission and fascination with military power has entangled [U.S.] priorities and stretched its resources over and over again”. Although imperial overstretch is even more pronounced in the aftermath of the recent world-wide economic crisis and the proliferation of conflicts in new regions, the fundamental bi-partisan commitment by the political elite to exercising, in the words of President Barack Obama, “global leadership” will continue. Of course, there will be nuances in the exercise of that global leadership. Given the massive violations of international and U.S. laws by the Bush Administration, from abrogation of the Geneva Conventions to renditions to torture and domestic spying, it is not surprising to see President Obama repudiating some of the most egregious policies while retaining others. Although the adoption of these positions by President Obama is certainly part of the restoration of U.S. standing, and, hence, hegemony in the international arena, this new administration is wedded to prosecuting war aggressively in Afghanistan with the expansion of U.S. troops and in Pakistan with increasing attacks by U.S. drones and forays by U.S. Special Forces.

Afghanistan exposed the fallibility of US hard power – hegemony will decline as a result

Manish Chand, Staff Writer, 04-23-2008, “Goodbye US Hegemony, Welcome China, Europe,” Boloji Media, http://www.boloji.com/bookreviews/154.htm

So who will win this mother of all battles in the decades to come? Military superiority is no longer the sure-fire guarantee as the disaster of American interventionism in Iraq and Afghanistan brought out starkly, damaging the credibility of American power. And as each of the new empires has nuclear weapons, "economic power is more important than military power," writes the author, a well-travelled author, who directs the Global Governance Initiative in the American Strategy Programme of the New America Foundation. With the legitimacy of American hard power under scrutiny, the US is also fast losing the soft power game, making Washington "merely one of several competing vendors or brands on the catwalk of credibility". "From hedge funds to online gambling, London and Hong Kong are preferred to New York for listing companies," writes Khanna in what seems like a preface to a post-America world.

Hegemony Advantage – Link Extension

Afghanistan will collapse US hegemony unless we pull out

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, 02-05-2009, “Tomgram: The Empire v. The Graveyard,” Tom Dispatch, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175030/the_empire_v_the_graveyard

After all, more than a trillion dollars later, with essentially nothing to show except an unbroken record of destruction, corruption, and an inability to build anything of value, the U.S. is only slowly drawing down its 140,000-plus troops in Iraq to a "mere" 40,000 or so, while surging yet more troops into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency war, possibly for years to come. At the same time, the U.S. continues to expand its armed forces and to garrison the globe, even as it attempts to bail out an economy and banking system evidently at the edge of collapse. This is a sure-fire formula for further disaster -- unless the new administration took the unlikely decision to downsize the U.S. global mission in a major way. Right now, Washington is whistling past the graveyard. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the question is no longer whether the U.S. is in command, but whether it can get out in time. If not, when the moment for a bailout comes, don't expect the other pressed powers of the planet to do for Washington what it has been willing to do for the John Thains of our world. The Europeans are already itching to get out of town. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Indians who exactly will ride to our rescue? Perhaps it would be more prudent to stop hanging out in graveyards. They are, after all, meant for burials, not resurrections.

Afghanistan risks the collapse of the US empire

Joe Barnes, Baker Institute's Bonner Means Baker Fellow, 01-26-2010, “Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires,” Baker Institute, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog/2010/01/afghanistan_the_graveyard_of_empires.html

One word does capture Bearden's analysis of our current situation: caution. For centuries, Bearden stressed, the remote region now known as Afghanistan has proven to be the graveyard of empires. The Moguls, the British, and then the Soviets all attempted to subdue Afghanistan -- and all failed. The pattern for would-be conquerors is almost always the same: a swift initial victory followed by a protracted and painful effort to extend control into the countryside. Since 2001, Bearden said, the American experience has run true to regrettable form. Our early attempts to strike at Al Qaeda and topple the Taliban regime in Kabul have morphed into an ongoing effort to bolster the authority of the new pro-American central government. My personal take-away from his presentation was general in nature: it is the terrible temptation of pride. Our policies toward Iraq and Afghanistan reflected an excessive faith in both our understanding and our power. I do not say this, let me stress, from some radical critique of American foreign policy. I believe that the United States has on balance been a force for good in world events. I am no isolationist or pacifist. But -- as our expensive adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown -- there is clearly more room for modesty in our approach to the world. We don't know everything. We can't change everything. And pride can blind us to both truths. This is not an original view. Nor is it a new one. The ancient Greeks had a word -- hubris -- for overbearing pride. The Old Testament, too, reminds us that "pride goeth before destruction." Every American foreign policymaker should have that particular verse from "Proverbs" in mind when he or she embarks on decisions of war and peace.

Continued occupation of Afghanistan will undermine American hegemony – history proves

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador and a Post-Gazette associate editor, 02-04-2009, “Get out of Afghanistan, too,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09035/946657-374.stm

Apart from the situation on the ground, the principal reason for the United States to complete its withdrawal from Iraq and not build up a substitute presence in Afghanistan is domestic -- U.S. national interests overall. Afghanistan ground up the British in the 19th century, and probably drove -- with our help -- the final nail into the coffin of a fading Soviet Union.