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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

THE AFTER-THOUGHT
LETS BE HONEST, THE AFF DOESNT CARE ABOUT THE IRAQIS. THE 23 MILLION PEOPLE WHO COULD EXPERIENCE ENDLESS CIVIL WARS AND HUMANITARIAN DISASTERS AS A RESULT OF SOME FINELY-TUNED MULTILATERAL PEACEKEEPING & RECONSTRUCTION ARE AN AFTER THOUGHT. THATS RIGHT, THE IRAQIS ARE AN AFTER THOUGHT. THE REAL CONCERNS OF THE AFFIRMATIVE ARE THE IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANS-ATLANTIC RELATIONS AND THE SECURING OF US HEGEMONY. THATS WHAT THIS DEBATE IS ABOUT. THE RACE TO KHALIZAD. THE FATE OF THE IRAQIS, ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF DEBATE CLACULUS THE AFFIRMATIVE IS ENGAGED IN, MAKES THE LIVES OF IRAQIS AN AFTER THOUGHT. THEY PALE IN IMPORTANCE TO PREVENTING US OVERSTRETCH. THEY PALE IN IMPORTANCE TO THE WARS THAT THE US WILL SOMEHOW PREVENT IF ITS MILITARY GETS A LITTLE REST. NAOMI KLEIN MAKES THIS ARGUMENT FOR US IN 2003
(Journalist, Privatization in Disguise, LOOKOUT, 3/10)

But while Patten may find US unilateralism galling and Tony Blair may be calling for UN oversight, on this matter it's beside the point. Who cares which multinationals get the best deals in Iraq's post-Saddam, pre-democracy liquidation sale? What does it matter if the privatizing is done unilaterally by Washington or multilaterally by the United States, Europe, Russia and China? Entirely absent from this debate are the Iraqi people, who might--who knows?-want to hold on to a few of their assets. Iraq will be owed massive reparations after the bombing stops, but without any real democratic process, what is being planned is not reparations, reconstruction or rehabilitation. It is robbery: mass theft disguised as charity; privatization without representation. A people, starved and sickened by sanctions, then pulverized by war, is going to emerge from this trauma to find that their country has been sold out from under them. They will also discover that their newfound "freedom"--for which so many of their loved ones perished--comes pre-shackled with irreversible economic decisions that were made in boardrooms while the bombs were still falling. They will then be told to vote for their new leaders, and welcomed to the wonderful world of democracy.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

THE AFTER-THOUGHT

pg. 2

WHAT DO WE KNOW? WE KNOW THAT IRAQIS ARE DYING DAILY, MANY BELIEVE THAT THEIR LIVES ARE SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE AFTER SADDAMS REGIME. WE KNOW IN THE HERE AND NOW THAT CIVIL WARS ARE AN IMMEDIATE REALITY. WE ASK YOU TO NOT STEP OUTSIDE THE IRAQI SITUATION BY TURNING AWAY FROM THE IRAQIS TO CONSIDER WETHER WE SHOULD EMBRACE THE AFFIRMATIVE. THINK ABOUT CERTAINTY. THINK ABOUT THE HUNDREDS OF ALTERNATE CAUSUALITIES THAT RIDDLE THROUGH THEIR RELATIONS AND OVERSTRETCH ADVANTAGE. DECIDE WHETHER MORE COUNTRIES SHOULD BE BROUGHT IN TO RECONSTRUCT IRAQ, AS IF WE ARE ALL IRAQIS. UNDERSTAND RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ, VIA THE FATE OF IRAQ, NOT NORTH KOREA, NOT CHIRACS FEELINGS ABOUT THE US. _____ THE CERTAINTY OF THE STATUS QUO OUTWEIGHS ALL OF YOUR SPECULATION: WE KNOW THAT OCCUPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION KILL, IN THE NAME OF THE UNITED STATES. IMPERIAL OCCUPATION WHATEVER OR WHOEVER THE EMPIRE IS WAR. Engelhardt, the Nation Institute & fellow at the journalism school of UC Berkeley, October 31, 2003 (Tom, author of The End of Victory Culture, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/103104.htm) I'm no expert on Iraq. I can hardly keep the Shi'ite groups straight even with the help of the writings of Juan Cole. I do think it would be a mistake for any of us to claim that we know what would happen during a genuine withdrawal. It could indeed be a terrible mess or simply a true horror. Iraq could split in three an embattled Kurdish semi-democracy in the north (under the ominous shadow of Turkey), a Sunni dictatorship in the center, and a harsh Islamic Republic in the South. There could be bloodshed or civil war. Or not. The future has a way of surprising and since the American occupiers have chosen not to trust Iraqis with either responsibility or power, we have no idea what they might have done with it, or might someday do with it. All of that is speculation. But what we can see is what a long-term horror an American occupation and reconstruction of Iraq is likely to turn out to be. We can see the rising death toll; we can read about the civilians slain; we can note the mini-gulag set up there. We can mull over the greed and corruption in what passes for "reconstruction." All this we know. The rest is possibility. This we should not want to continue in our names. This "course" we should not want to "stay." Alternatives should not be considered "cutting and running." For me at least, the imperial occupation of the lands of this earth whatever the empire is unacceptable. Any armed occupation will always be part of the problem not the solution on this planet. In our present world, such acts can only lead to hell. We need to pressure this administration hard to step outside the box it has created for us, our troops, and the Iraqi people who truly did deserve a liberation and not the occupation and looting that they are living through. They are not the spoils of war. Let us offer Iraq genuine help, reconstruction aid, and support of all sorts afterwards, possibly indirectly through groups whose interests can't be mistaken for ours. But our troops are an occupying army. They can't keep the peace. They are the war.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

TURN: OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY A: LINK: THE MOVE TOWARDS THE UN IS AN ATTEMPT TO MANAGE
OCCUPATION IN A WAY THAT SERVES US INTERESTS. IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO SHIFT THE TARGET OF IRAQI RESISTANCE FROM ANTI-AMERICANISM AND THE LOSS OF US SOLDIERS LIVES TO ANTI-UN RESISTANCE, TO ROTATE THE TARGET AWAY FROM US LIVES. Bennis, Sept 23 03
(Phyllis, Back to the UN..., http://www.alternatives.ca/article843.html)

Bush's decision to return to the UN for military and financial assistance does not reflect any U.S. concern regarding the illegality of the occupation, the lack of legitimacy of the U.S. presence in Iraq, or the impact on Iraqis of Washington's abject failure to provide for even the minimal humanitarian needs of the population. Instead, it reflects a growing concern about how to deal with what the New York Times called the "high cost of occupation" for the U.S. in Iraq -- costs both in U.S. soldiers' lives and in dollars.

B: THE IMPACT IS RACISM AND ESCALATING BLOODSHED IN IRAQ:

OCCUPATION OF IRAQ IS RACIST: IT ASSUMES THAT IRAQIS CANNOT GOVERN THEMSELVES and THE LONGER THE COUNTRY IS OCCUPIED, THE LESS PEACE IS POSSIBLE. BRITISH OCCUPATION OF IRAQ EMPIRICALLY WAS BLOODY. Reese 2003
(Charley, King Features, 9/29, Road To Darkness, commondreams.org)

Now the neoconservatives who got us into a war on false pretenses are saying we "can't afford to lose the peace." This same ploy was used to prolong America's stay in Vietnam. We won't lose the peace if we hand Iraq over to the Iraqis and say goodbye. We will if we prolong our stay. That old colonialist racism is manifesting itself in all these remarks about our having to tutor the Iraqis in running their own country. The Iraqis can govern themselves. They've been a nation as long as Finland and a civilization longer than Europe. Bush wants to stay in Iraq for purely economic reasons. He wants to make sure it's we, not the Iraqis, who decide who gets the business of a rebuilding a country. He doesn't want a democratic government in Iraq. He wants a puppet government that will follow his orders. It's too bad Bush isn't a reader. He's following in the colonialist footsteps of the British. They tried occupation and found it was too bloody and costly, so they set up a puppet government. The Iraqis overthrew it. And the probability is high that they will drive us out and overthrow whatever puppet government we leave behind. The question is how many billions of dollars and how many American lives we want to spend teaching George Bush a lesson he should have learned at the library.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY UN INVOLVEMENT RESCUES THE WAR

___ UN RESCUING OF IRAQ LEGITIMATES THE USS UNILATERAL POLITICAL IMPOSITION. THE UN WILL SAVE THE USS WAR ON IRAQ.

ARATO,

Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research,

2003

(Andrew, Constellations, The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship, Vol. 10, # 3, p. online)

If we see a narrow path of opportunity for democratic change in Iraq, should we point it out and even insist that it be taken seriously? Would we thereby be trying, as Habermas put it, to redeem the irredeemable? Would even a minimally democratic outcome in Iraq retrospectively justify the American war, and provide ideology for the architects of empire to embark on similar ventures in the future? Should we not rather hope for the total defeat of the imperial project by whoever has the means, so that the neoconservative ideologists of the Pentagon, the wag the dog strategists among the presidents men, and the reluctant hawks of all stripes be taught a much needed lesson?

I admit to some ambivalence on this fundamental question. But it seems to me that it is always a good rule of thumb to avoid thinking that the worse, the better. In this case, worse could mean endless civil war and a humanitarian disaster for a country of 23 million people. Discrediting the aggressors, however satisfying, is less important than contributing in however small a way to the freedom the Iraqis that may be possible if significant political forces in the United States (including the Democratic party in an election year), the United Nations, and Europe could come to see the issues of democratization in the now occupied country more clearly.
In fact, there is a danger of trying to redeem the irredeemable. The kind of bad compromise Habermas seems to have been thinking of when he used this phrase is one in which the United Nations would somehow rescue the Americans after the occupation of Iraq by providing some kind of international legitimating cover for a unilateral enterprise of political imposition. While the US government has already made clear that it does not desire any serious UN participation in the political transition, it does seem to want a transparent cover of this type, as long as it will not do too much to restore the prestige of the international organization.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATION PREVENT RECONSTRUCTION / STABLITY

____ ANY US MILITARY OCCUPATION WILL INSPIRE ATTACKS: EVEN IF THE PLAN BUILDS MORE SUPPORT FOR THE US, VIOLENT MINORITIES WILL ALWAYS BE ABLE TO UNDERMINE IT. OCCUPATION IS FLAWED AT ITS CORE. Sachs, Pf @ Columbia, 2003 (Jefferey, Financial Times, 9/10, p. lexis)

Yet from the vantage point of Iraq's recovery, the US occupation is a dead end. Even 140,000 US soldiers on the ground are unable to stop the wanton destruction of infrastructure, which has cut Iraq's oil exports by more than 1m barrels a day, or roughly Dollars 10bn a year at current world market prices. These attacks will continue. America's occupation is a lightning rod for a wide range of violent groups, including Ba'athist die-hards, Shia nationalists and newly arrived al-Qaeda fighters. Oil pipelines, power pylons and water supply stations are easy targets. So too are American soldiers on patrol, who daily continue to die at the hands of snipers and bombers. America has no workable plan for legitimate Iraqi government. Its leading Shia backer has just been assassinated and other moderate collaborators undoubtedly risk the same fate. Even if a majority of Iraqis were to support a government friendly to the US, a violent and sizeable minority would be able to undermine that government by terror and mobilisation of nationalist fervour. Such problems would exist even if Iraq were not deeply riven between its Shia, Sunni and Kurdish populations and feuding sub-groups within these larger groups. Given the history of US engagement in the region, its rhetorical support for democracy in Iraq will almost certainly prove to be no more than skin deep especially when Islamic parties achieve political success, as they surely will. Mr Bush and his team believe the situation will stabilise step by step. They express confidence that anti-terror raids will vanquish the enemy; that improved public services will win the hearts and minds of the population; and that the continued US military presence will become an accepted fact on the ground. These are the same illusions of Israel in the West Bank, Russia and now the US in Afghanistan, and America in Vietnam a generation ago. The occupation strategy fails because it is flawed at the core. The military occupier has motives that are un-acceptable to a significant part of the population.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

UN RECONSTRUCTION LINKS TO OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY

____ UN RECONSTRUCTION IS IMPERIALISM: IT IS THE EXTERNAL

IMPOSITION OF POLITICAL FRAMEWORKS AND EVEN THE MOST BASIC HUMANITARIAN AID WILL REQUIRE MILITARY SUPPORT

Ottaway, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2003

(Marina, Pf of African Studies @ Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS Review, International Interventions and Imperialism: Lessons from the 1990s, 23.2, 71-92) Nevertheless, international interventions, particularly the interventions of the 1990s aimed at nation building, not just peacekeeping, have some imperial characteristics. During the Cold War, UN peacekeeping was largely confined to monitoring the uneasy peace between two states or political entities, as in Sinai, Kashmir, or Cyprus. In the 1990s, however, the international community has been forced to intervene in a greater number of civil conflicts. By their nature, these conflicts require a transformation of the governing system in order to ensure lasting peace. In many cases, international actors thus became involved in a fundamental restructuring of the state. International actors influence the restructuring process by shaping the course of military events, for example, by trying to protect humanitarian aid routes or civilian populations, or even reinstalling regimes, as in Haiti. 6 Or they use diplomatic pressure to dictate the terms of a peace agreement supposedly negotiated by the local combatants. Most importantly, international personnel aim to build democratic and stable political systems by supporting political reform and political reconstruction in the post-conflict period. All of these possible points of influence give international actors a chance to shape the [End Page 75] restructuring of the conflict-torn state. They therefore represent, to some degree, an external imposition of a new political framework, lending the undertaking some imperial characteristics.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY TURNS THE LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGES

____ OUR OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY ARGUMENTS TURN YOUR LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGES. IF THE US OUTSOURCES THE WAR OUT TO OTHER COUNTRIES, AND IT IS STILL A FAILURE, THE US WOULD LOOK RIDICULOUS YOUR AFF AUTHOR, KAGAN, AGREES - YOU HAVE TO WIN YOUR IRAQI STABILITY ADVANTAGE IN ORDER TO WIN YOUR LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGES Kagan 1/24/04
(Robert, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/24/arts/24KAGA.html?pagewanted=2&th)

The manner in which the United States conducts itself in Iraq today is especially important in this regard. At stake is not only the future of Iraq and the Middle East more generally, but also the future of America's reputation, its reliability and its legitimacy as a world leader. The United States will be judged, and should be judged, by the care and commitment it takes to secure a democratic peace in Iraq. It will be judged by whether it really advances the cause of liberalism, in Iraq and elsewhere, or whether it merely defends its own interests. No one has made this argument more powerfully, and more presciently, than that quintessential realist, Henry A. Kissinger. The task in Iraq, Mr. Kissinger argued in an essay, was not just to win the war but to convey "to the rest of the world that our first pre-emptive war has been imposed by necessity and that we seek the world's interests, not exclusively our own." America's "special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world," he said, "is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation. Any other attitude will gradually isolate and exhaust us." The United States, in short, must pursue legitimacy in the manner truest to its nature, by promoting the principles of liberal democracy, not only as a means to greater security, but as an end in itself. Success in such endeavors will provide the United States a measure of legitimacy in the liberal, democratic world, and even in Europe.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

UN PEACEKEEPING IS IMPERIALISM: LINK TO OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY

____ UN PEACEKEEPING IS IMPERIALISM: IT IS COLONIALISM PORTRAYED AS HUMANITARIANISM Ottaway, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2003
(Marina, Pf of African Studies @ Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS Review, International Interventions and Imperialism: Lessons from the 1990s, 23.2, 71-92) As a result of these developments, the 1990s witnessed an unprecedented number of UN interventions, most of them in intrastate [End Page 73] rather than interstate conflicts. Before 1989, only fifteen UN peacekeeping missions had ever been deployed, and all but three of these missions dealt primarily with interstate conflicts. 3 Since 1989, there have been forty UN peacekeeping missions, only seven concerning interstate conflicts. These interventions have raised concerns over the possibility of a new period of imperialism, even among people who previously worried that the international community was ignoring the growing number of civil conflicts and severe violations of human rights around the world. Fear of a new imperialism is particularly acute in parts of the world that have known colonization, where international interventions revive memories of the imperial past. After all, many colonial conquests and the establishment of many protectorates and trust territories were portrayed in their time as humanitarian interventions to deal with particularly abusive leaders, to bring civilization and higher standards of morality to heathen populations, and to improve the world.

____ INTERNATIONALIZATION IS DESIGNED TO LEGITIMIZE THE WAR International Socialist Review 2003 (Issue 31, SeptemberOctober http://www.isreview.org/issues/31/editorials.shtml) The "liberal" New York Times put it best in a September 4 editorial: The passage of a new Security Council resolution, even if it does no more than place military operations under UN auspices, should permit nations like India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to contribute troops. A more broadly based force with a substantial Muslim component could help transform what looks uncomfortably like an imperial army of occupation into a true international peacekeeping force. In other words, they're looking for thousands of Gurkhas, preferably many from Islamic countries, to do the U.S.'s dirty work of occupying Iraq for them. And let's also be clear about something else: When the New York Times or other liberals describe U.S. aims this way, there is no irony or criticism implied in their words. In fact, this is one Bush administration decision they support wholeheartedly.
It's too early to tell how easily the U.S. will win UN approval for its plans. In its initial canvassing for support of the proposed UN resolution, the U.S. got a thumbs down from Germany and France. After all, UN Security Council members France, Russia and China and European Union powerhouse Germany all opposed the U.S. war. In considering the U.S. proposal, "The opponents of U.S. in Iraq face an unenviable choice. If

they agree to a UN role, and take part in a postwar clean-up, they will in the end have done America's bidding," wrote Financial Times columnist Gerard Baker.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATION LEGITIMACY ALTERNATIVE: IRAQI SOVEREIGNTY ALSO A LINK TO WE MAKE IRAQIS HAPPY ABOUT THE US ELECTION PLAN

____ OUR ALTERNATIVE: NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE THAT THEY CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO RULE THEMSELVES.

IF WE FAIL TO RESTORE SOVEREIGNTY TO IRAQIS, RECONSTRUCTION WILL BE EXPOSED AS IMPERIALISM AND IRAQ WILL DEVOLVE INTO A CIVIL WAR. WE SHOULD ABANDON THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE IRAQIS HAPPY WITH CAUCUSES, ONLY A TRULY INDEPENDENT IRAQI GOVERNMENT WILL ALLOW IRAQIS TO LIVE WITH THEIR OWN DECISIONS
SCHEER 1/20/04 (Robert, Los Angeles Times, p. commondreams)

Led by clerics demanding real democracy, the protests have strongly raised this question: What right does the United States have to tell people that they cannot be allowed to rule themselves? With the stated reasons for the U.S. invasion the imminent threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his ties to Al Qaeda now a proven fraud, the Bush administration was left with one defense: It was bringing democracy to this corner of the Mideast. If we now fail to promptly return full sovereignty to the Iraqis, inconvenient as that outcome may be, the invasion will stand exposed as nothing more than old-fashioned imperial plunder of the region's oil riches and the continued occupation could devolve into civil war. The Shiites do not require divine revelation to see through the U.S. plan to perpetuate its influence through an opaque process of caucuses designed, implemented and run by Washington and its Iraqi appointees. It is just colonial politics as usual. That's why the conservative Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered cleric of Iraq's Shiites (who make up 60% of the country), is requesting a transparent one-person, one-vote election. The U.S., however, has not agreed. And a top Sistani aide recently suggested that President Bush's opposition to a universal ballot election stemmed from a fear that his own reelection efforts could be hurt if the invasion he launched resulted in another Mideast country where ayatollahs played a major political role. Or, perhaps worse from the president's point of view, an independent government might be so bold as to ask the U.S. to pull out its troops, hand back control of its oil and dismiss billions in reconstruction contracts with corporations like Halliburton. The White House now says that a free election is impossible because no census has been taken. Is it naive to ask why this hasn't been done? After all, we've been in control of the country for nearly a year now. Couldn't we have spent some of those billions in taxpayer dollars dedicated to Iraq to employ a few thousand Iraqis to go door-to-door with clipboards? We also are told that key Iraqis signed off on the caucus plan, yet the Washington Post writes that "there is no precise equivalent in Arabic for 'caucus' nor any history of caucuses in the Arab world, U.S. officials say." Perhaps a format Iraqis might better understand could have been generated by, say, Iraqis? The fact is, history teaches us that when foreigners forcibly intervene in another country's affairs it is a terribly messy business that usually fails miserably. And in Iraq, which is an artificial construct of previous colonial intervention, "nation-building" is a flat-out nightmare.
Our most trusted local allies, the Kurds in the north, are loudly seeking an autonomous state in a federation; the Sunni minority has grown used to a vastly disproportionate degree of power that it will not easily relinquish; and the much poorer Shiites are clearly ready to enjoy some fruits of majority rule. Yet all this was ignored by the Pentagon intellectuals, who so cavalierly dismissed the warnings of the French and Germans not to mention many millions of protesters at home and abroad while convincing themselves that bringing peace and stability to Iraq would be a "cakewalk." Now, the top U.S. general in Iraq tells us that the Iraqis "don't want us to stay, but they don't want us to go," which is as good a definition of quagmire as any.

There is, of course, no guarantee that a freely elected Iraqi government would prove efficient or enlightened. But at least under a representative government, decisions would be made by the people who have to live with the consequences, rather than by self-interested foreigners. After all, isn't that the radical idea upon which our own country was founded?

IRAQ NEG

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

PRE-INSTITUTE BONUS BLOCKS NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS 2004 OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY ALTERNATIVE: REJECT THE AFF ____ THE IMMEDIATE TASK OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST MOVEMENT IS TO REJECT THE PLAN AS A NEW DRESSING FOR THE RECOLONIZATION OF IRAQ Ali 2003 (Tariq, Editor of New Left Review, New Left Review, May-June)

There will, of course, be pleas from the European governments for the un to take over the conquests of American arms, which Blair, keener than Bush on unctuous verbiage, will second for reasons of his own. Much talk will be heard of humanitarian relief, the urgency of alleviating civilian suffering and the need for the international community to come together again. So long as no real power is ceded to it, the us has everything to gain from an ex post facto blessing bestowed on its aggression by the un, much as in Kosovo. The months of shadow-boxing in the Security
Councilwhile, in the full knowledge of all parties, Washington readied the laborious logistics for attacking Iraqcost it little. Once it had Resolution 1441 in its pocket, passed by a unanimous voteincluding France, Russia and China, not to speak of Syriathe rest was dcor. Even Frances Ambassador to Washington, Jean-David Levitte, had urged the us not to go forward with the second resolution: Weeks before it was tabled I went to the State Department and the White House to say, Dont do it . . . You dont need it. [7] It was, of course, sanctimony in London rather than bull-headedness in Washington that dragged the world through the farce of further

But Levittes advice spotlights the real nature of the United Nations which, since the end of the Cold War, has been little more than a disposable instrument of American policy. The turning-point in this transformation was the dismissal of Boutros-Ghali as SecretaryGeneral, despite a vote in his favour by every member of the Security Council save the us, for having dared to criticize Western concentration on Bosnia at the expense of far greater tragedies in Africa. Once Kofi Annanthe African Waldheim, rewarded for helping the Clinton Administration to deflect aid and attention from genocide in Rwandawas installed instead, at Washingtons behest, the organization was safely in American hands.
authorization, without success.

This does not mean it can be relied on to do the will of the us on every matter, as the failure of its efforts to secure a placebo for Blair made clear. There is no need for that. All that is necessaryand now unfailingly availableis that the un either complies with the desires of the us, or rubber-stamps them after the event.
HE CONTINUES

If it is futile to look to the United Nations or Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious obstacle to American designs in the Middle East, where should resistance start? First of all, naturally, in the region itself. There, it is to be hoped that the invaders of Iraq will eventually be harried out of the country by a
growing national reaction to the occupation regime they install, and that their collaborators may meet the fate of Nuri Said before them. Sooner or later, the ring of corrupt and brutal tyrannies around Iraq will be broken. If there is one area where the clich that classical revolutions are a thing of the past is likely to be proved wrong, it is the Arab world. The day the Mubarak, Hashemite, Assad, Saudi and other dynasties are swept away by popular wrath, Americanand Israeliarrogance in the region will be over. In the imperial homeland itself, meanwhile, opposition to the ruling system should take heart from the example of Americas own past. In the closing years of the 19th century, Mark Twain, shocked by chauvinist reactions to the Boxer Rebellion in China and the us seizure of the Philippines, sounded the alarm. Imperialism, he declared, had to be opposed. In 1899 a mammoth assembly in Chicago established the American Anti-Imperialist League. Within two years its membership had grown to over half a million and included William James, W. E. B. DuBois, William Dean Howells

Today, when the United States is the only imperial power, the need is for a global Anti-Imperialist League. But it is the us component of such a front that would be crucial. The most effective resistance of all starts at home. The history of the rise and fall of Empires teaches us that it is when their own citizens finally lose faith in the virtue of infinite war and permanent occupations that the system enters into retreat.
and John Dewey. HE CONTINUES

The immediate tasks that face an anti-imperialist movement are support for Iraqi resistance to the Anglo-American occupation, and opposition to any and every scheme to get the un into Iraq as retrospective cover for the invasion and after-sales service for Washington and London. Let the aggressors pay the costs of their own imperial ambitions. All attempts to dress up the re-colonization of Iraq as a new League of Nations Mandate, in the style of the 1920s, should be stripped away. Blair will be the leading mover in these, but he will have no shortage of European extras behind him. Underlying this obscene campaign, the beginnings of which are already visible on Murdochs tv channels, the bbc and cnn, is the urgent desire to reunite the West. The vast bulk of official opinion in Europe, and a substantial chunk in the us, is desperate to begin the post-war healing process.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

ALTERNATIVE: A CALL FOR A JUST SETTLEMENT: IRAQI DECISION-MAKING

____ DONT RESCUE BUSHS OCCUPATION FROM ITS OWN SELF-DESTRUCTION: GIVEN THAT NOTHING WE SAY WE CHANGE BUSHS ACTION, WE SHOULD CALL FOR A TRULY JUST SETTLEMENT IN SUPPORT OF IRAQI PEOPLE DECIDING THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT Monbiot 2003 (George, Pf Poli Planning @ Oxford Brookes University, The Guardian, 8/26, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1029147,00.html) So, given that nothing we say will make any difference to Bush and his people, we may as well call for a just settlement, rather than the diluted form of injustice represented by a UN occupation. This means the swiftest possible transition to real democracy. Troy Davis of the World Citizen Foundation has suggested a programme for handing power to the Iraqis which could begin immediately, with the establishment of a constitutional convention.2 This would permit the people both to start deciding what form their own government should take, and to engage in the national negotiation and reconciliation without which democracy there will be impossible. From the beginning of the process, in other words, the Iraqi people, not the Americans, would oversee the transition to democracy.

This is the logical and just path for the US government to take. As a result, it is unlikely to be taken. So, one day, when the costs of occupation become unsustainable, it will be forced to retreat in a manner and at a time not of its choosing. Iraq may swallow George Bush and his imperial project, just as the Afghan morass digested the Soviet empire. It is time his opponents stopped seeking to rescue him from his self-destruction.

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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATION INSPIRES VIOLENCE TURNS THE CASE / LINK TO CAPITALISM

___ OCCUPATION IS NEO-LIBERALIST COLONIALISM. LIFE IN IRAQ IS WORSE TODAY, UNDER OCCUPATION THAN IT WAS UNDER SADDAM. ANY SORT OF OCCUPATION WILL REQUIRE COLONIALISM. BOSNIA AND KOSOVO ARE THE PROOF.

ALI 2003

(Tariq, The Guardian, 11/3, p. 18)

At least the Pentagon understands that the resistance in Iraq is following a familiar anti-colonial pattern. In the movie, they would have seen acts carried out by the Algerian maquis almost half a century ago, which could have been filmed in Fallujah or Baghdad last week. Then, as now, the occupying power described all such activities as "terrorist". Then, as now, prisoners were taken and tortured, houses that harboured them or their relatives were destroyed, and repression was multiplied. In the end, the French had to withdraw. As American "postwar" casualties now exceed those sustained during the invasion (which cost the Iraqis at least 15,000 lives), a debate of sorts has begun in the US. Few can deny that Iraq under US occupation is in a much worse state than it was under Saddam Hussein. There is no reconstruction. There is mass unemployment. Daily life is a misery, and the occupiers and their puppets cannot provide even the basic amenities of life. The US doesn't even trust the Iraqis to clean their barracks, and so south Asian and Filipino migrants are being used. This is colonialism in the epoch of neo-liberal capitalism, and so US and "friendly" companies are given precedence. Even under the best circumstances, an occupied Iraq would become an oligarchy of crony capitalism, the new cosmopolitanism of Bechtel and Halliburton. It is the combination of all this that fuels the resistance and encourages many young men to fight. Few are prepared to betray those who are fighting. This is crucially important, because without the
tacit support of the population, a sustained resistance is virtually impossible. The Iraqi maquis have weakened George Bush's position in the US and enabled Democrat politicians to criticise the White House, with Howard Dean daring to suggest a total US withdrawal within two years. Even the bien pensants who opposed the war but support the occupation and denounce the resistance know that without it they would have been confronted with a triumphalist chorus from the warmongers. Most important, the disaster in Iraq has indefinitely delayed further adventures in Iran and Syria. One of the more comical sights in recent months was Paul Wolfowitz on one of his many visits informing a press conference in Baghdad that the "main problem was that there were too many foreigners in Iraq".

Most Iraqis see the occupation armies as the real "foreign terrorists". Why? Because once you occupy a country, you have to behave in colonial fashion. This happens even where there is no resistance, as in the protectorates of Bosnia and Kosovo. Where there is resistance, as in Iraq, the
only model on offer is a mixture of Gaza and Guantanamo. Nor does it behove western commentators whose countries are occupying Iraq to lay down conditions for those opposing it. It is an ugly occupation, and this determines the response. According to Iraqi opposition sources, there are more than 40 different resistance organisations. They consist of Ba'athists,

dissident communists, disgusted by the treachery of the Iraqi Communist party in backing the occupation, nationalists, groups of Iraqi soldiers and officers disbanded by the occupation, and Sunni and Shia religious groups. He continues

Sooner or later, all foreign troops will have to leave Iraq. If they do not do so voluntarily, they will be driven out. Their continuing presence is a spur to violence. When Iraq's people regain control of their own destiny they will decide the internal structures and the external policies of their country. One can hope that this will combine democracy and social justice, a formula that has set Latin America alight but is greatly resented by the Empire. Meanwhile, Iraqis have one thing of which they can be proud and of which British and US citizens should be envious: an opposition.

IRAQ NEG
PRE-INSTITUTE BONUS BLOCKS 2004

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
NATIONAL INSTITUTE IN FORENSICS

OCCUPATIONAL LEGITIMACY: AT: PERM ____ ONLY A REJECTION OF THE AFFIRMATIVES ACTIVISM WILL BUILD SUPPORT FOR OCCUPATIONAL OPPOSITION. YES OUR ARGUMENT IS ALSO ABOUT US AS ACTIVISTS. YOUR AFFIRMATIVE IS A PARTICULAR TYPE OF ACTIVISM WHICH ARGUES THAT YOU SHOULD DECIDE FOR IRAQIS WHEN THEY CAN BE POLITICAL. THEY ARE COVERS FOR A TYPE OF WHITE MANS BURDEN THAT IRAQIS ARE NOT READY TO DETERMINE THEIR OWN FUTURE. International Socialist Review 2003 (October, www.isreview.org/issues/31/editorials.shtml) The U.S. must withdraw and complete sovereignty should be restored to the Iraqi people immediately. Any position short of that constitutes support for the occupation, and, by extension, for the invasion and conquest of Iraq itself. We must reject this proimperialist line if we are to build an effective opposition to the occupation. From a factual standpoint, it can be clearly demonstrated that the U.S. invasion and occupation has contributed generously to the chaos, dislocation and violence erupting in Iraq. In that sense, there is no doubt that the havoc wreaked in Iraq will continue long after the U.S. is forced to depart. Are we then to argue that the imperialist conquerors should remain longer? Why? To commit more atrocities? To establish a more secure puppet dictatorship that will answer to American needs even after American troops depart? The argument that the troops should not leave immediately is an argument that the Iraqi people do not have sovereignty, do not have the right to self-determination; that in fact, the U.S.--even activists in the U.S.--should decide when and how the U.S. departs. To argue this isn't the reality is to accept some kind of utopian idea that the killers of Iraqis can somehow, if they stay, deliver something else-democracy perhaps? This is a serious breach of elementary political logic. No country can impose democracy on another from without and by force of arms--it is a contradiction in terms. The antiwar movement should not be peddling the lies of the Bush administration about America's "international mission" as a spreader of democracy. "Democracy" has long been a cover for imposing puppet regimes under American sway.
If it's rebuilding Iraqis need, they don't need the kind of privatized, American corporate rebuilding on offer (at some distant future date, to be sure). What they need is war reparations. The U.S., in our calculation, owes Iraq billions and billions in reparations for inflicting 13 years of war and blockade on the country.

More fundamentally, this argument accepts the idea, at the outset, that "we" Americans have the right to determine Iraq's future. It differs little from the old colonial "White Man's Burden" argument, that the Iraqi people are not "ready" to run their own country.
Activists who are making this argument are placing conditions on their support for withdrawal of the conquerors. We support pullout, they say, but only on conditions that the Iraqis will create a regime that is acceptable. This means supporting the occupation, at the very least on a negative basis that it might prevent a "wrong" regime from coming to power.

Our position must be that any regime in Iraq imposed by the U.S. is a wrong regime, and that the sooner the U.S. pulls out, the sooner ordinary Iraqis themselves can build their own society. The U.S. can only play the role of executioner of democracy in Iraq.
THEY CONTINUE

Calling for the Blue Helmets to replace the green ones is hardly an alterative to imperialism. Denis Halliday, a former UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq who resigned to protest the genocidal sanctions the UN enforced for 13 years, explains in this issue why someone could bomb the UN headquarters in Baghdad: "the United Nations killed more Iraqis through UN sanctions--probably one million people, particularly children--in those 13 years than Mr. Bush the First, Mr. Clinton and then Mr. Bush the Second." It took the Vietnamese more than a decade to kick the U.S. out of their country, at the cost of millions of Vietnamese lives and tens of thousands of American soldiers' lives. Had the U.S. left sooner, it would have done less damage. Today, U.S. soldiers are murdering and imprisoning Iraqis daily who resist the occupation.