The South Korean government, in an effort to raise money for its military, wants to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles that were used by U.S. soldiers in the Korean War to gun collectors in America.
The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.
A State Department spokesman said the administration’s decision was based on concerns that the guns could fall into the wrong hands.
“The transfer of such a large number of weapons — 87,310 M1 Garands and 770,160 M1 Carbines — could potentially be exploited by individuals seeking firearms for illicit purposes,” the spokesman told FoxNews.com.
“We are working closely with our Korean allies and the U.S. Army in exploring alternative options to dispose of these firearms.”
I think it’s odd how students ask about their judges’ preferences (and everyone does ask their judges’ paradigm before every round, right? Good.):
“What don’t you like to see in a debate round?”
What a crazy question to ask. Imagine going to a car lot and the salesperson asking you, “What cars do you hate? Because, I’ll show you any combination of cars that you don’t despise.”
Asking for a person’s preference in exclusive rather than proscriptive terms enables you deliver mediocrity, not contentment. Instead say:
“How can I delight you this round?” or “What arguments do you like to see at the end of the round?”
In my humble opinion, the best analytic on the perm debate of kritiks is this:
Perm: Do the plan and all non-competing parts of the alternative.
This causes a double-bind, either:
A. The affirmative won’t cause the implications
or
B. The alternative is too weak to solve.
It’s painfully generic and specifying the noncompetitive parts of the K would help, but this 15 second argument makes the neg block spend at least 1 minute on forming a clear answer.
I found a good opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal with 5 myths about the troop pullout from Iraq:
As of this month, the United States no longer has combat troops in Iraq.
Not even close. Of the roughly 50,000 American military personnel who remain in Iraq, the majority are still combat troops — they’re just named something else. The major units still in Iraq will no longer be called “brigade combat teams” and instead will be called “advisory and assistance brigades.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose, and the differences in brigade structure and personnel are minimal.…
Thanks to the troop “surge,” Iraq is secure enough that it will not fall back into civil war as U.S. forces pull out.
Extensive research on intercommunal civil wars — wars like Iraq’s, in which a breakdown in governance prompts different communities to fight one another for power — finds a dangerous propensity toward recidivism. Moreover, the fear, anger, greed and desire for revenge that helped propel Iraq into civil war in the first place remain just beneath the surface.…
The United States is leaving behind a broken political system.
If some on the right want to claim (incorrectly) that the surge stabilized Iraq to the point that civil war is impossible, their counterparts on the left try to insist (equally incorrectly) that the change in U.S. tactics and strategy in 2007–2008 had no impact on Iraq’s politics whatsoever…
Iraqis want U.S. troops to stay. Or they want them leave.
Be very, very careful with Iraqi public opinion. Polls are rarely subtle enough to capture the complexity of Iraqi views. Typically, they show a small number of Iraqis who want the Americans out immediately at any cost, a small number who want them to stay forever and a vast majority in the middle — determined that U.S. troops should leave, but only after a certain period of time. When Iraqis are asked how long they believe our troops are needed, their answers range from a few months to a few years, but are strongly linked to however long the respondent believes it will take Iraq’s forces to be able to handle security on their own.
The war will end “on schedule.”
Much as we should want the Obama administration to succeed in Iraq, this statement by the president in a speech to veterans this month should make us wary. If uttered in the first act of a Greek tragedy, it is exactly the kind of claim that would end in a Sophoclean fall.
I’m starting a gig this fall at a school with no previously existant policy debate program. Thus, my novice debate class will be all policy debate, all the time. I will be blogging a “Novice Lesson” semi-weekly, following my debate classes scope and sequence. The goal will be to provide basic vocabulary, etc. for new policy debaters with helpful links. Comments shouldn’t be used to argue over the cultural minutia of debate (ie rez focus v. plan focus), but instead to offer any other teaching hints, etc. that you may have.
I am preparing to start a school year at a new high school that has never had a policy debate component in the forensic program. So, I have been reading everything I can about what seems to be the “easy” novice case de jure on this year’s topic: Okinawa. Thus far my favorite reading material has been the articles pertaining to the Okinawan Dugong. I think if blocked out well the Dugong debate makes a pretty good unique internal link to species loss impact scenarios. So, if you want to read about Japanese sea cows, a good starting point might be Greenpeace’s collection of articles about the issue.
Finally, it is important to understand how events elsewhere in the world will be read in Tehran. For instance, Iran will be watching how the United States handles the ongoing crisis caused by the recent sinking of a South Korean corvette — apparentlyby a North Korean submarine. Continued tensions on the Korean Peninsula could create an impression in Tehran that the U.S. military is stretched too thin to respond effectively to a crisis in the Gulf, while a failure to maintain pressure on North Korea might convince Iran that it has room to engage in brinkmanship with the United States.
I think that Iranian aggressions is one of the most likely scenario for an attack on the US, so ROK affs could use this card to get there.
The Bulletin: Forensics in the 21st Century still needs contributions for the upcoming second issue. You can find the call for papers at www.dynasty-debate.com. Need contributions for almost all areas of forensic competition, including CX, LD and PF Debate, summer camp reviews, educational articles, etc. Email me (administrator@dynasty-debate.com) if you’re interested in contributing!
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea seized a South Korean squidding boat in waters near their eastern sea border, the South Korean Coast Guard said Sunday, straining already high tensions between the two Koreas.
The 41-ton boat was believed to have been detained after entering the North’s exclusive economic zone, where foreign fishing boats are banned, the coast guard said in a statement.
There was no immediate confirmation from North Korea that its forces had impounded the squidding vessel. But the North Korean government, angry over an ambitious South Korean naval exercise due to end Monday, had said it would respond with “strong physical retaliation” and had warned civilian vessels to stay clear of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
Four South Koreans and three Chinese crew members were aboard the squidding vessel, the Daeseung 55. (Continued)
While teaching at two camps this summer, I found the dichotomy between combat and non-combat troops to be too simplistic. I’m glad I’m not the only one:
On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States is on schedule to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31. However, a residual force of at least 50,000 “noncombat” troops will remain in Iraq for the next year. So what exactly are noncombat troops?
Whatever you want them to be. The distinction is more political than military. The White House says the remaining troops will “train and advise Iraqi Security Forces; conduct partnered and targeted counter-terrorism operations; and protect ongoing U.S. civilian and military efforts.” All of this has the potential to involve quite a bit of combat.
When asked about the distinction, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last year that thought the units in Iraq will still have combat capability, “the notion of being engaged in combat in the way we have been up until now will be completely different.”
It’s true that the majority of U.S. troops left in Iraq will rarely leave base, but that’s already the case. However, the units involved are certainly prepared for combat should the need arise. For instance, the first division deployed in support of the new noncombat mission — which the Obama administration decided in February to rechristen Operation New Dawn — is the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Division, and armored cavalry unit.
The remaining U.S. troops will participate in combat patrols with Iraqi forces. (This isn’t new. According to the U.S. military, independent operations have not been carried out for several months, and the Iraqi government’s approval of any combat mission has been required since the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement.) U.S. special operations troops will continue, in partnership with Iraqi forces, to conduct counterterrorism raids against insurgent groups. Additionally, Iraqi forces are still largely dependent on the United States for air support, artillery and medical assistance.
For a moment of levity, you can view here the manga produced by the US to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the US-Japan security alliance.
The story features an American boy called Usa-kun — a word play on “USA” and “usagi”, Japanese for rabbit — who wears a hooded jacket with bunny ears and befriends a Japanese girl, Arai Anzu (This is another pun, say it aloud — ‘Alliance’. ).
An interesting wrinkle in the Turkey debate was pointed out to me today: The Deep State. As I understand it, the deep state is like the Turkish equivalent of “The Shadow Government”, the non-elected officials that “really” rule the nation. However, it seems that there is some degree of proof that The Deep State “really” exists in some form, maybe.
I’m not really sure how you could use this on the Turkey debate, since I’ve yet to sit down and read a Turkey aff. Maybe solvency mitigation? Some sort of systemic disad?
Just a quick random thought. It has always bothered me when the 2nr kicks out of lots and lots of case specific, good arguments to extend nothing but Topicality, while claiming that “clearly they aren’t topical, otherwise we would have a better argument to go for”.
I’m aware that most 2ars already do a good job of explaining why this is dumb/shady. However, while I was participating in a demo debate today, I started thinking about baseball’s infield fly rule as a potential analogy for why you don’t let the neg get away with such shenanigans. Maybe this helps with block writing, teaching, re-thinking how you make this argument. Just a thought.
Such is no less true now than it was in 1950 or 1977. It is the reason the people of Guam today wait to hear exactly how many more acres of their land will be taken for military purposes, how many tens of thousands of new people and new vehicles will be visited on the island, how many over flights and aircraft carrier visits, and toxic trickles or spills will be visited upon them. It is why they wait, not for rent payments for the land, but to hear whether there will be some US federal dollars allocated to cover some percentage of the externalized costs of the increased tempo of military operations on the island. That is Guam’s colonial history and colonial situation. It is colonial even as many of Guam’s residents take their US citizenship seriously and want to make claims to full citizenship on the foundation of the limited citizenship they now have. It is colonial even as Guam’s many military members – those born on Guam and those born in the 50 United States – can and do see themselves as doing their duty to the US civilian leadership who deploy them to bases here and around the world. It is colonial even as many of Guam’s citizens have been acting in the faith that they should be able to make and are making their own choices about whether Guam becomes even more of a battleship or not. But social science will call it nothing more than colonial when a people have not historically chosen their most powerful leaders and have been told to background their own national identity in favor of that of the power which has ultimate rule. The US presence in Guam is properly called imperial because the US is an empire in the strict sense of the term as used by historians and other social analysts of political forms.
Besides colonialism, another concept relevant to Guam’s situation is militarization. It refers to an increase in labor and resources allocated to military purposes and the shaping of other institutions in synchrony with military goals. It involves a shift in societal beliefs and values in ways that legitimate the use of force (Ferguson 2009). It helps describe the process by which 14 year olds are in uniform and carrying proxy rifles in JROTC units in all of Guam’s schools, why a fifth to a quarter of high school graduates enter the military, and why the identity of the island has over time shifted from a land of farmers to a land of war survivors to a land of loyal Americans to a land that is, proudly, “the Tip of the Spear,” that is, a land that is a weapon. This historical change – the process of militarization or military colonization – has been visible to some, but more often, hidden in plain sight.
Speaking Friday during a forum of Southeast Asian countries in Vietnam, Mrs. Clinton apparently surprised Beijing by saying the United States had a “national interest” in seeking to mediate the dispute, which involves roughly 200 islands, islets and coral outcroppings that are claimed by China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi of China warned the United States against wading into the conflict, saying it would increase regional tensions.
“What will be the consequences if this issue is turned into an international or multilateral one?” he asked in remarks published on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site. “It will only make matters worse and the resolution more difficult.”
The state-run news media were far less diplomatic, describing Mrs. Clinton’s speech as “an attack” and a cynical effort to suppress China’s aspirations — and its expanding might.
Perhaps this can be an empirically denied argument against a Chinese Hegemony DA.
While teaching at two camps this summer, I found the dichotomy between combat and non-combat troops to be too simplistic. I’m glad I’m not the only one: