1AC – Plan
The United States should legalize nearly all marihuana in the United States. The
process of legalization should at least include the United States limiting the
United States Congress’ commerce clause authority to prohibit marihuana.
1AC Prohibition
Contention 1 is Prohibition
Scenario 1 is Harm Reduction:
The prohibitionist model remains the global norm for drug policy—this prevents
effective Federal legalization sends a global signal in favor of ending drug
prohibition—causes a shift in other countries towards harm reduction strategies
Joshua D. Wild, “The Uncomfortable Truth about the United States’ Role in the Failure of the Global War on Drugs and How It is
Going to Fix It,” SUFFOLK TRANSNATIONAL LAW REVIEW v. 36, Summer 2013, p. 437-446
the global drug
problem was and still is as a set of interlinked health and social challenges to be managed, not a war
to be won. n78 The U.S. has worked strenuously for the past fifty years to ensure that all countries
adopt its rigid, prohibitionist approach to drug policy, essentially repressing the potential for
alternative policy development and experimentation. n79 This was an expensive mistake that the U.S.
The War on Drugs' demise started when the bellicose analogy was created. n77 The correct classification of
unfortunately cannot take back. n80 The current emergence from the economic recession of 2008-2009 has set the stage for a
generational, political and cultural shift, placing the U.S. in a unique moment in its history; the necessary sociopolitical context to
revoke its prohibitionist ideals and replace them with more modern policies grounded in health, science and humanity. n81 The
U.S. can remedy its mistake by using its considerable diplomatic influence and international
presence to foster reform in other countries. n82 One way to do this is by capitalizing [*438] on this unique moment
in its existence and experimenting with models of legal regulation, specifically with marijuana because nearly half
of U.S. citizens favor legalization of it. n83 This will help redeem our image internationally and help repair
foreign relations because the monumental scope of the international marijuana market is largely created by the exorbitant
U.S. demand for the drug which partially stems from the illegality of the market. n84 B. Step 1: Recognize the Ineffectiveness of The
Global War on Drugs and Consider Alternatives An objective way to gauge the effectiveness of a drug policy is to examine how the
policy manages the most toxic drugs and the problems associated with them. n85 With that in mind, at the global level,
having one in five intravenous drug users have HIV and one in every two users having Hepatitis C
is clearly an epidemic and not the result of effective drug control policies. n86 The threat of arrest and
punishment as a deterrent from people using drugs is sound in theory, but in practice this hypothesis is tenuous. n87 Countries
that have enacted harsh, punitive laws have higher levels of drug use and related problems than
countries with more tolerant approaches. n88 Additionally, the countries that have experimented with
forms of legal regulation outside of punitive approaches have not seen rises in drug use and
dependence [*439] rates. n89 Therefore, one sensible first step in placing this issue back into a manageable position is for
national governments to encourage other governments to experiment with models of legal regulation of
drugs which fit their context. n90 This will in turn, undermine the criminal market, enhance national security, and allow other
countries to learn from their application. n91 1. Easier to Say Than Do - A Suggestion for Overcoming Difficulties Associated With
Legal Regulation For this movement to be successful and effectively manage the epidemic at hand there must be a broad
consensus around the world that the current drug control policies are morally harmful. n92 This consensus however is precluded by
the stigma and fear associated with more toxic drugs such as heroin. n93 This note does not propose that heroin and other toxic
drugs should be legalized but instead suggests that society and drug policies tend to consolidate and classify all illicit drugs as
equally dangerous. n94 This in turn restrains any progressive debate about experimenting with the regulation of different drugs
under different standards. n95 [*440] Regardless of these false dichotomies, which often restrain progressive debate, it is difficult
not to give credence to the idea of marijuana being socially acceptable when it has been by far the most widely produced and
consumed illicit drug. n96 There is between 125 and 203 million users worldwide and no indication of that number declining. n97
With this many users, it is reasonable to conclude that if the international community could reach a consensus about the moral
noxiousness of any drug control policy, the repression of marijuana would likely be it. n98 Marijuana, arguably socially
acceptable, represents a simple mechanism to enter into the experimentation process with the
legal regulation of drugs. n99 Without advocating for the UN to adopt new commissions or encouraging drastic moves such
as the decriminalization of all illicit substances, the global decriminalization of marijuana would be a relatively minor adjustment
compared to the monumental impact. n100 If national governments were to decriminalize marijuana, the scope of this movement
would essentially eradicate the public health problem of marijuana abuse and the associated criminality because of its illegal status.
n101 Public health problems can be remedied because it will afford governments the ability to regulate the market and control the
quality and price of the drug, essentially removing toxic impurities and setting a price that will diminish an illegal market. n102 This
will in turn diminish the criminal market [*441] by eradicating the need for users to commit crimes to procure marijuana and removing
the economic incentive for other countries to get involved in the drug's market. n103 Without arguing that this is the panacea for the
global war on drugs, proponents of legalization can aptly point to the archaic drug control policies in place and this macro approach
as an effective way to tackle the problem now. n104 C. Step 2: Real Reform - the U.S. Needs to Stand at the Forefront
of Drug Policy Reformation The U.S. wields considerable influence over the rest of the world, so it
is no surprise that its call for the development and maintenance of prohibitive, punitive drug
policies resulted in a majority of the international community following. n105 Conversely, if the U.S.
leads the call for the development and maintenance of more tolerant drug policies grounded in
health, humanity and science, a majority of the international community will also follow. n106 Cultural
shifts do not take place overnight, and the idea of complete U.S. drug policy reformation is too aggressive and stark in contrast to
succeed against modern bureaucracy and political alliances. n107 On the other hand, a more moderate, piecemeal approach could
effectively act as a catalyst for this transformation while simultaneously serving as a case study for opponents of legal regulation.
n108 [*442] If the U.S. is serious about addressing the ineffectiveness of the War on Drugs, then the
federal government must remove marijuana from its list of criminally banned substances. n109 The
tone of the Obama administration is a significant step in this direction. n110 President Obama has explicitly acknowledged the need
to treat drugs as more of a public health problem, as well as the validity of debate on alternatives, but he does not favor drug
legalization. n111 This progressive rhetoric is a significant step in the right direction, but until there is
some real reform confronting the issue, reducing punitive measures and supporting other countries to develop drug
policies that suit their context, there is still an abdication of policy responsibility. n112 1. Starting Small - Potential
Positive Effects of Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana in the U.S. If marijuana was legal in the U.S., it would function similarly to
the market of legal substances such as liquor, coffee and tobacco. n113 Individual and corporate participants in the market would
pay taxes, increasing revenues and saving the government from the exorbitant cost of trying to enforce prohibition laws. n114
Consumers' human rights would be promoted through self-determination, autonomy and access to more accurate information about
the product they are consuming. n115 Additionally, case studies and research suggest that the decriminalization or legalization
[*443] of marijuana reduces the drugs' consumption and does not necessarily result in a more favorable attitude towards it. n116
The legal regulation of marijuana would relieve the current displaced burden the drug places on law enforcement, domestically and
internationally. n117 In the U.S., law enforcement could refocus their efforts away from reducing the marijuana market per se and
instead towards reducing harm to individuals, communities and national security. n118 Abroad, U.S. international
relations would improve because of the reduced levels of corruption and violence at home and
afar. n119 The precarious position repressive policies place on foreign governments when they have to destroy
the livelihoods of agricultural workers would be reduced. n120 Additionally, legalization and regulation
would provide assistance to governments in regaining some degree of control over the regions
dominated by drug dealers and terrorist groups because those groups would lose a major source
of funding for their organizations. n121 2. Health Concerns? - Marijuana in Comparison to Other Similar Legal
Substances The federal government, acknowledging the risks inherent in alcohol and tobacco, argues that adding a third substance
to that mix cannot be beneficial. n122 Adding anything to a class of [*444] dangerous substances is likely never going to be
beneficial; however marijuana would be incorrectly classified if it was equated with those two substances. n123 Marijuana is far less
toxic and addictive than alcohol and tobacco. n124 Long term use of marijuana is far less damaging than long term alcohol or
tobacco use. n125 Alcohol use contributes to aggressive and reckless behavior, acts of violence and serious injuries while
marijuana actually reduces likelihood of aggressive behavior or violence during intoxication and is seldom associated with
emergency room visits. n126 As with most things in life, there can be no guarantee that the legalization or decriminalization of
marijuana would lead the U.S. to a better socio-economical position in the future. n127 Two things however, are certain: that the
legalization of marijuana in the U.S. would dramatically reduce most of the costs associated with the current drug policies,
domestically and internationally, and [*445] if the U.S. is serious about its objective of considering the costs
of drug control measures, then it is vital and rational for the legalization option is considered . n128
D. Why the Time is Ripe for U.S. Drug Policy Reformation The political atmosphere at the end of
World War I and II was leverage for the U.S., emerging as the dominant political, economic and military
power. n129 This leverage allowed it to shape a prohibitive drug control regime that until now has
remained in perpetuity. n130 Today, we stand in a unique moment inside of U.S. history. n131 The
generational, political and cultural shifts that accompanied the U.S. emergence from the "Great
Recession" resulted in a sociopolitical climate that may be what is necessary for real reform. n132
Politically, marijuana has become a hot issue; economically, the marijuana industry is bolstering a faltering economy and socially,
marijuana is poised to transform the way we live and view medicine. n133 The public disdain for the widespread problems
prohibition caused in the early 20th century resulted in the end of alcohol prohibition during the Great Depression. n134 If history
does actually repeat itself than the Great recession may have been much more telling than expected. n135 V. Conclusion The U.S.
and its prohibitionist ideals exacerbated the failure of both the international and its own domestic drug policies. n136 As a result ,
the U.S. should accept accountability for its mistakes by reforming its drug policies in a way that
will help [*446] place the global drug market back into a manageable position. n137 Marijuana is an
actionable, evidence based mechanism for constructive legal and policy reform that through a domino effect
can transform the global drug prohibition regime . n138 The generational, political and cultural shifts that
accompanied the U.S. emergence from the "Great Recession" have resulted in a sociopolitical climate ready for real reform. n139
The U.S. will capitalize on this unique moment by removing marijuana from the list of federally banned substances,
setting the stage for future international and domestic drug policies that are actually effective. n140
Global prohibition has massively undermined public health efforts to deal with
the spread of diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis
Steven Rolles, senior policy analyst, George Murkin, Martin Powell, Danny Kushlick, founder, and Jane Slater, Transform Drug
Policy Foundation, THE ALTERNATIVE WORLD DRUG REPORT: COUNTING THE CSTS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS, 2012, p. 912.
5. Threatening public health, spreading disease and death While the war on drugs has primarily been
promoted as a way of protecting health, it has in reality achieved the opposite. It has not only failed in its key aim of reducing or
eliminating drug use, but has
increased risks and created new health harms – all while establishing political
obstacles to effective public health interventions that might reduce them. • Prevention
and harm reduction messages are undermined by criminalisation of target populations, leading to
distrust and stigmatisation • Criminalisation encourages high-risk behaviours, such as injecting in
and practical
unhygienic, unsupervised environments, poly-drug use and bingeing • Enforcement
tilts the market towards more
high-risk , new “designer” drugs, or domestically
manufactured drugs (“krokadil”, for instance) • Illegally produced and supplied drugs are of unknown strength and purity,
increasing the risk of overdose, poisoning and infection • The emotive politics of the drug war, and
stigmatisation of drug users, has created obstacles to provision of effective harm reduction, which despite
potent but profitable drug products. It can also fuel the emergence of
proven cost-effectiveness
remains unavailable in many parts of the world. This contributes to increased overdose
fuels the spread of HIV/ AIDS , hepatitis , and tuberculosis among people who inject drugs • The
growing population of people who use drugs in prisons has created a particularly acute health
crisis, as prisons are high-risk environments, inadequately equipped to deal with the challenges they face • The development
impacts of the war on drugs have had much wider negative impacts on health service provision • Drugwar politics have had a chilling effect on provision of opiates for pain control and palliative care,
with over five billion people having little or no access There is an absence of evidence that either
supply- or user-level enforcement interventions have reduced or eliminated use. Instead, drug-related risk is
deaths, and
increased and new harms created – with the greatest burden carried by the most vulnerable populations.
Unchecked AIDS spread causes extinction
(WAIF) Washington AIDS International Foundation, staff, 2004. Available from the World Wide Web at: www.waifaction.org/,
accessed 5-27-09.
Virtually every
nation in the world has been severely hit by the plague of AIDS; we are experiencing an
extinction-causing event. There are no vaccines , no cures , and no group that is not vulnerable .
And, because it is spread largely by sex and by mother-to-child contact, and to a smaller degree by blood contact, it is hitting those
of childbearing age the hardest. This is a silent killer. Without testing, it can go undetected for many years,
even as the carrier transmits it to others. Unfortunately, we know only the most advanced cases in most of the countries of the
world. Many millions of others may be infected, but in the latent stage. WAIF is committed to educate the public about the
emergency of the AIDS epidemic.
Tuberculosis causes extinction—mutations and empirics
Ethan Huff 2/3/14 “Sudden collapse of Harappan civilization may foreshadow superbug threat to modern humans”
http://www.naturalnews.com/043757_harappan_civilization_superbugs_antibiotic_resistance.html#
The mystery surrounding the sudden collapse of the ancient city of Harappa, a major urban center that was a prominent feature of
the now defunct Indus civilization, recently became a little bit less mysterious thanks to new research out of Appalachian State
University. An international team of climatologists, archaeologists and biologists found that rampant disease, among other things,
played a major role in the swift decline of this primordial people group -- and the same thing could happen to modern humanity as a
result of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs," believe some. What exists from the historical record shows that Harappa flourished even
before the Indus civilization as a whole reached its peak, spanning 1 million square kilometers in what is now Pakistan and India.
Scholars say the city thrived primarily between the years of 2600 and 1700 B.C. but suddenly collapsed for reasons that up until
now have remained elusive due to a lack of reliable records and other concrete evidence. But we now know that the
uncontrolled spread of disease played a significant role in the downfall of Harappa, as did the violence
and chaos that erupted as a result of a widening social hierarchy. Specifically, the new research found that a combination of
socioeconomic inequality and disease -- tuberculosis and leprosy, which were new at the time, are believed to
have spread quickly during the final days before the collapse -- were largely to blame for the city's
ultimate demise. "In this case, it appears that the rapid urbanization process in Indus cities, and the increasingly large amount of
culture contact, brought new challenges to the human population," says Gwen Robbins Schug, one of the lead researchers involved
with the project. "Infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis were probably transmitted across an interaction sphere that
spanned Middle and South Asia." Rapid urbanization spawned disease spread that killed
off entire
civilization A recent exhumation of remains from Harappa revealed that, toward the end of the city's existence, violence and
disease had reached epic proportions. Because of this, Harappa was essentially being evacuated in droves by its residents during
the final days leading up to its collapse, a previously unknown fact about the civilization that came as a surprise to historians. "The
collapse of the Indus civilization and the reorganization of its human population has been controversial for a long time," says Schug.
Though the exact cause of all the violence and corresponding disease that ravished Harappa is still somewhat shrouded in mystery,
experts now know that a period of rapid urbanization definitely precluded its undoing. Much like what appears to be occurring in
modern society, Harappa "advanced" too quickly and eventually imploded on itself. "The evidence from Harappa offers insights into
how social and biological challenges impacted past societies facing rapid population growth, climate change and environmental
degradation," adds Schug, as quoted by Science Daily. "Unfortunately, in this case, increasing levels of violence and disease
accompanied massive levels of migration and resource stress and disproportionate impacts were felt by the
most vulnerable members of society." Drug-resistant 'superbugs' threaten to kill off modern civilization There is a tendency when
looking at ancient history through the lens of today to assume that what happened to them could never happen to us. Modern
humanity is simply far too advanced to ever just collapse in on itself, goes the assumption. And yet history also has a seemingly
sinister way of repeating itself when you least expect it, in modern times with the threat of drug-resistant "superbugs"
brought about as a result of so-called advancements in medicine.
China needs to shift to a harm reduction model to avoid economic and social
instability—acting now is key
Verity Robins, “China’s Flawed Drugs Policy,” Foreign Policy Centre, 6—22—11, http://fpc.org.uk/articles/514, accessed 12-2014.
China has woken up to its drug problem, but it is failing woefully in trying to tackle it. Nestled between two major heroin-producing
regions, the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran), China has
long been a transit path for drugs headed toward the rest of the world. Along an ever-expanding network of routes that lead to
China's international seaports, domestic heroin use is soaring. No longer just a transit country, it now has a sizable user population
of its own. The
rise in domestic heroin addiction has had disastrous social consequences, with an
increase in Chinese drug cultivation and organised criminal activity, as well as a rise in intravenous
drug use and a spiralling HIV/AIDS epidemic. China's role as a drugs conduit has increased considerably over the
past two decades. Throughout the 20th century, opium and later heroin, from the Golden Triangle, was smuggled to Thailand's
seaports and then on to satiate drug markets throughout the world. More effective law enforcement and a stricter drug policy in
Thailand in the late 1980s and early 90s reduced the state as an effective trafficking route. Concurrently, Burmese drug lord Khun
Sa, the prime heroin producer and distributer along the Thai-Burmese border, surrendered to the Burmese authorities. With the
collapse of Khun Sa's army, Burma's foremost heroin trafficking route into Thailand was disrupted. Consequently, China's role as a
narcotics conduit became even more crucial. Well over half the heroin produced in the Golden Triangle now travels through China,
wending its way through southern provinces Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong towards Hong Kong. This shift in regional drug trade
routes coincided with rapid economic development in China's southwest. More robust roads allow for faster and easier
transportation of illicit drugs, while an increased fiscal and technological ability to refine heroin locally has driven down its market
value and increased local consumption. By 1989, the HIV virus was detected amongst injecting drug users in China's most southwesterly province Yunnan. Needle sharing drove the epidemic, and HIV/AIDS rapidly spread to drug users in neighbouring
provinces and along trafficking routes. At the turn of the century, HIV infections had been reported in all 31 provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities, with drug users accounting for 60-70 per cent of reported cases. While the Chinese government was
slow to engage substantively with a generalised AIDS epidemic in the country, a new administration taking office in 2003 under
President Hu Jintao accelerated the commitment to and implementation of evidence-based HIV policies. Having woken up to the
seriousness of its HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Chinese government sought increasingly progressive means to combat the crisis, calling
on a range of outside actors to implement new and innovative pilot projects. During the 2000s, the government seemingly revoked
its zero-tolerance attitude towards drug users, introducing needle exchange programmes and controlled methadone maintenance
treatments in the most affected areas. While the Chinese government continues to take a pragmatic
approach to its HIV/AIDS crisis, the good work of these projects is offset by the 2008 Narcotics Law
that vastly emphasises law enforcement over medical treatment in the government's response to drug use.
This law calls for the rehabilitation of illicit drug users and for their treatment as patients rather than as criminals, yet the law also
allows for the incarceration - without trial or judicial oversight – of individuals suspected by police of drug use for up to six years in
drug detention centres. To allow for this, the 2008 Narcotics Law considerably enhances police power to randomly search people for
possession of drugs, and to subject them to urine tests for drug use without reasonable suspicion of crime. The law also
empowers the police, rather than medical professionals, to make judgements on the nature of the suspected users' addiction,
and to subsequently assign alleged drug users to detention centres. According to Human Rights Watch, whilst in
detention centres suspected drug users receive no medical care, no support for quitting drugs, and no skills training for re-entering
society upon release. In the name of treatment, suspected drug users are confined under "horrific conditions, subject to cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment, and forced to engage in unpaid labour". Not only is this law ineffective in tackling
China's growing drug problem and rehabilitating its users, but incarceration of suspected addicts
in detention centres represents a serious breach of the basic human rights guaranteed by both China's
domestic and international legal commitments. Furthermore, the law is a counter productive policy for combating
HIV/AIDS in China. The threat of forcible detention only discourages users from seeking
professional help to tackle their addictions, and from utilising needle exchange programmes for fear of incarceration. The
result is to encourage "underground" illicit drug use that leads to needle sharing and hence the
spread of HIV/AIDS. Effective tackling of illicit drug use requires developing voluntary, outpatient
treatment based upon effective, proven approaches to drug addiction. Specific reform of the law should reverse the
expanded police powers to detain suspected users without trial, and implement specific procedural mechanisms to protect the
health and human rights of drug users in a standardised and appropriate way. The Chinese government has sought to work with
outside actors in combating its HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly in its most affected province Yunnan. The UK Department for
International Development (DfID) has been engaged in HIV/AIDS prevention throughout southwest China since the launch of the
China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Programme in 2001. DfID's Multilateral Aid Review, published in March this year, cut all
future development aid to China. The discontinuation of DfID projects in southwest China will weaken efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS
and rehabilitate drug users in the region. It also lessens pressure on China to combat these issues in a reasonable and felicitous
way. The international donor community present in China must implement policies that reflect
realities on the ground by ensuring that the health care and treatment of drug users is at the core
of their HIV/AIDS policies. They should also use their position of influence to nudge Beijing to
rectify the flaws in the 2008 Narcotics Law with its negative implications for the human rights of suspected drug users, and
for combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. If the country's skyrocketing number of i ntra v enous drug users
and the resultant HIV/AIDS epidemic are left to fester , it could result in severe health
consequences, economic loss and social devastation . China still has time to act, but it should do
so now before it is too late.
Instability causes diversionary wars in the South China Sea
Cole 14
Taipei-based journalist and contributor to The Diplomat who focuses on military issues in Northeast Asia and in the
Taiwan Strait. He previously served as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Where Would Beijing
Use External Distractions?, J Michael, http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/where-would-beijing-use-external-distractions/
Throughout history, embattled governments have often resorted to external distractions to tap
into a restive population’s nationalist sentiment and thereby release, or redirect, pressures that otherwise could
have been turned against those in power.
Authoritarian regimes in particular, which deny their citizens the right to
used this device to ensure their
survival during periods of domestic upheaval or financial crisis. Would the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), whose legitimacy is so
punish the authorities through retributive democracy — that is, elections — have
contingent on social stability and economic growth, go down the same path if it felt that its hold on power were threatened by domestic instability? Building on the premise that
the many contradictions that are inherent to the extraordinarily complex Chinese experiment, and rampant corruption that undermines stability, will eventually catch up with the
CCP, we can legitimately ask how, and where, Beijing could manufacture external crises with opponents against whom nationalist fervor, a major characteristic of contemporary
China, can be channeled. In past decades, the CCP has on several occasions tapped into public outrage to distract a disgruntled population, often by encouraging (and when
necessary containing) protests against external opponents, namely Japan and the United States. While serving as a convenient outlet, domestic protests, even when they
turned violent (e.g., attacks on Japanese manufacturers), were about as far as the CCP would allow. This self-imposed restraint, which was prevalent during the 1980s, 1990s
and 2000s, was a function both of China’s focus on building its economy (contingent on stable relations with its neighbors) and perceived military weakness. Since then, China
has established itself as the world’s second-largest economy and now deploys, thanks to more than a decade of double-digit defense budget growth, a first-rate modern military.
Those impressive achievements have, however, fueled Chinese
nationalism, which has increasingly approached
the dangerous zone of hubris . For many, China is now a rightful regional hegemon demanding respect, which if denied
can — and should — be met with threats, if not the application of force. While it might be tempting to attribute China’s recent
assertiveness in the South and East China Seas to the emergence of Xi Jinping, Xi alone cannot make all the decisions; nationalism
is a component that cannot be dissociated from this new phase in Chinese expressions of its power. As then-Chinese foreign
minister Yang Jiechi is said to have told his counterparts at a tense regional forum in Hanoi in 2010, “There is one basic difference
among us. China is a big state and you are smaller countries.” This newfound assertiveness within its backyard
thus makes it more feasible that, in times of serious trouble at home, the Chinese leadership
could seek to deflect potentially destabilizing anger by exploiting some external distraction .
Doing so is always a calculated risk, and sometimes the gambit fails, as Slobodan Milosevic learned the hard way when he tapped
into the furies of nationalism to appease mounting public discontent with his bungled economic policies. For an external distraction
to achieve its objective (that is, taking attention away from domestic issues by redirecting anger at an outside actor), it must not
result in failure or military defeat. In other words, except for the most extreme circumstances, such as the imminent collapse of a
regime, the decision to externalize a domestic crisis is a rational one: adventurism must be certain to achieve success, which in turn
will translate into political gains for the embattled regime. Risk-taking is therefore proportional to the seriousness of the destabilizing
forces within. Rule No. 1 for External Distractions:
The greater the domestic instability, the more risks a regime
will be willing to take , given that the scope and, above all, the symbolism of the victory in an external scenario must also be
greater. With this in mind, we can then ask which external distraction scenarios would Beijing be the most likely to turn to should
domestic disturbances compel it to do so. That is not to say that anything like this will happen anytime soon. It is nevertheless not
unreasonable to imagine such a possibility. The intensifying crackdown on critics of the CCP, the detention of lawyers, journalists
and activists, unrest in Xinjiang, random acts of terrorism, accrued censorship — all point to growing instability. What follows is a
very succinct (and by no means exhaustive) list of disputes, in descending order of likelihood, which Beijing could use for external
distraction. 1. South China Sea The
S outh C hina S ea, an area where China is embroiled in several
territorial disputes with smaller claimants, is ripe for exploitation as an external distraction .
Nationalist sentiment, along with the sense that the entire body of water is part of China’s
indivisible territory and therefore a “ core interest ,” are sufficient enough to foster a will to fight
should some “incident,” timed to counter unrest back home, force China to react. Barring a U.S. intervention,
which for the time being seems unlikely, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has both the numerical and qualitative advantage
against any would be opponent or combination thereof. The Philippines and Vietnam, two countries which have skirmished with
China in recent years, are the likeliest candidates for external distractions, as the costs of a brief conflict would be low and the
likelihood of military success fairly high. For a quick popularity boost and low-risk distraction, these opponents would best serve
Beijing’s interests.
That goes nuclear
Goldstein 13
(Avery Goldstein, Professor of Global Politics and International Relations, Director of the Center for the Study of
Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania, “China’s Real and Present Danger”, Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct 2013,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139651/avery-goldstein/chinas-real-and-present-danger) gender edited
Uncertainty about what could lead either Beijing or Washington to risk war makes a crisis far
more likely, since neither side knows when, where, or just how hard it can push without the other
side pushing back. This situation bears some resemblance to that of the early Cold War, when it took a number of serious
crises for the two sides to feel each other out and learn the rules of the road. But today’s environment might be even
more dangerous.¶ The balance of nuclear and conventional military power between China and the
United States, for example, is much more lopsided than the one that existed between the Soviet Union and the
United States. Should Beijing and Washington find themselves in a conflict, the huge U.S. advantage in conventional
forces would increase the temptation for Washington to threaten to or actually use force.
Recognizing the temptation facing Washington, Beijing might in turn feel pressure to use its conventional
forces before they are destroyed. Although China could not reverse the military imbalance, it
might believe that quickly imposing high costs on the United States would be the best way to get
it to back off.¶ The fact that both sides have nuclear arsenals would help keep the situation in check, because both sides would
want to avoid actions that would invite nuclear retaliation. Indeed, if only nuclear considerations mattered, U.S.-Chinese crises
would be very stable and not worth worrying about too much. But the
two sides’ conventional forces complicate
matters and undermine the stability provided by nuclear deterrence. During a crisis, either side
might believe that using its conventional forces would confer bargaining leverage, manipulating
the other side’s fear of escalation through what the economist Thomas Schelling calls a “competition in risk-taking.” In a
crisis, China or the United States might believe that it valued what was at stake more than the other
and would therefore be willing to tolerate a higher level of risk. But because using conventional
forces would be only the first step in an unpredictable process subject to misperception ,
missteps, and miscalculation , there is no guarantee that brinkmanship [brinkspersonship] would
end before it led to an unanticipated nuclear catastrophe .¶ China, moreover, apparently believes
that nuclear deterrence opens the door to the safe use of conventional force . Since both countries would
fear a potential nuclear exchange, the Chinese seem to think that neither they nor the Americans would allow a military conflict to
escalate too far. Soviet leaders, by contrast, indicated that they would use whatever military means were necessary if war came -which is one reason why war never came. In addition, China’s official “no first use” nuclear policy, which guides the Chinese
military’s preparation and training for conflict, might reinforce Beijing’s confidence that limited war with the
United States would not mean courting nuclear escalation. As a result of its beliefs, Beijing might
be less cautious about taking steps that would risk triggering a crisis. And if a crisis ensued,
China might also be less cautious about firing the first shot .¶ Such beliefs are particularly
worrisome given recent developments in technology that have dramatically improved the
precision and effectiveness of conventional military capabilities. Their lethality might confer a
dramatic advantage to the side that attacks first, something that was generally not true of conventional military
operations in the main European theater of U.S.-Soviet confrontation. Moreover, because the sophisticated computer and satellite
systems that guide contemporary weapons are highly vulnerable to conventional military strikes or cyberattacks, today’s more
precise weapons might be effective only if they are used before an adversary has struck or
adopted countermeasures. If peacetime restraint were to give way to a search for advantage in a crisis, neither China
nor the United States could be confident about the durability of the systems managing its
advanced conventional weapons.¶ Under such circumstances, both Beijing and Washington would have
incentives to initiate an attack. China would feel particularly strong pressure , since its advanced
conventional weapons are more fully dependent on vulnerable computer networks , fixed radar
sites, and satellites. The effectiveness of U.S. advanced forces is less dependent on these most vulnerable systems. The
advantage held by the United States, however, might increase its temptation to strike first, especially
against China’s satellites, since it would be able to cope with Chinese retaliation in kind.
Scenario 2 is the Environment:
Unregulated marijuana cultivation has a massive environmental impact—federal
legalization is key to enable regulatory oversight
Zuckerman 13 (Seth, journalist, 10-31-13, "Is Pot-Growing Bad for the Environment?" The Nation)
www.thenation.com/article/176955/pot-growing-bad-environment?page=0,2
As cannabis production has ramped up in Northern California to meet the demand for medical and blackmarket marijuana, the ecological impacts of its cultivation have ballooned . From shrunken, muddy
streams to rivers choked with algae and wild lands tainted with chemical poisons, large-scale
cannabis agriculture is emerging as a significant threat to the victories that have been won in the region to
protect wilderness, keep toxic chemicals out of the environment, and rebuild salmon runs that had once provided the
backbone of a coast-wide fishing industry. River advocate Scott Greacen has spent most of his career fighting dams and the
timber industry, but now he’s widened his focus to include the costs of reckless marijuana growing. Last year was a time of regionwide rebound for threatened salmon runs, but one of his colleagues walked his neighborhood creek and sent a downbeat report that
only a few spawning fish had returned. Even more alarming was the condition of the creek bed: coated with silt and mud, a sign that
the water quality in this stream was going downhill. “The problem with the weed industry is that its impacts are
severe, it’s not effectively regulated, and it’s growing so rapidly,” says Greacen, executive director of
Friends of the Eel River, which runs through the heart of the marijuana belt. That lack of regulation sets marijuana’s
impacts apart from those that stem from legal farming or logging, yet the 76-year-old federal
prohibition on cannabis has thwarted attempts to hold its production to any kind of
environmental standard . As a result, the ecological impact of an ounce of pot varies
tremendously, depending on whether it was produced by squatters in national forests, hydroponic
operators in homes and warehouses, industrial-scale operations on private land, or conscientious
mom-and-pop farmers. Consumers could exert market power through their choices, if only they
had a reliable, widely accepted certification program, like the ones that guarantee the integrity of organic
agriculture. But thanks to the prohibition on pot, no such certification program exists for cannabis
products. To understand how raising some dried flowers—the prized part of the cannabis plant—can damage the
local ecosystem, you first have to grasp the skyrocketing scale of backwoods agriculture on the
redwood coast. Last fall, Scott Bauer of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife turned a
mapping crew loose on satellite photos of two adjoining creeks. In the Staten Island–sized area
that drains into those streams, his team identified more than 1,000 cannabis farms, estimated to
produce some 40,000 small-tree-sized plants annually. Bauer holds up the maps, where each greenhouse is marked in blue and
each outdoor marijuana garden in red, with dots that correspond to the size of the operation. It looks like the landscape has a severe
case of Technicolor acne. “In the last couple of years,
the increase has been exponential ,” Bauer says. “On the screen,
you can toggle back and forth between the 2010 aerial photo and the one from 2012. Where there had been one or two sites, now there are ten.” Each of those sites represents
industrial development in a mostly wild landscape, with the hilly terrain flattened and cleared. “When someone shaves off a mountaintop and sets a facility on it,” Bauer says,
“that’s never changing. The topsoil is gone.” The displaced soil is then spread by bulldozer to build up a larger flat pad for greenhouses and other farm buildings. But heavy
winter rains wash some of the soil into streams, Bauer explains, where it sullies the salmon’s spawning gravels and fills in the pools where salmon fry spend the summer.
Ironically, these are the very impacts that resulted from the worst logging practices of the last century. “We got logging to the point that the rules are pretty tight,” Bauer says,
“and now there’s this whole new industry where nobody has any idea what they’re doing. You see guys building roads who have never even used a Cat [Caterpillar tractor].
We’re going backwards.” Then there’s irrigation. A hefty cannabis plant needs several gallons of water per day in the rainless summer growing season, which doesn’t sound like
much until you multiply it by thousands of plants and consider that many of the streams in the area naturally dwindle each August and September. In the summer of 2012, the
two creeks that Bauer’s team mapped got so low that they turned into a series of disconnected pools with no water flowing between them, trapping the young fish in shrinking
ponds. “It’s a serious issue for the coho salmon,” Bauer says. “How is this species going to recover if there’s no water?” The effects extend beyond salmon. During several law
enforcement raids last year, Bauer surveyed the creeks supplying marijuana farms to document the environmental violations occurring there. Each time, he says, he found a
sensitive salamander species above the grower’s water intakes, but none below them, where the irrigation pipes had left little water in the creek. On one of these raids, he
chastised the grower, who was camped out onsite and hailed from the East Coast, new to the four- to six-month dry season that comes with California’s Mediterranean climate.
“I told him, ‘You’re taking most of the flow, man,’ ” Bauer recalls. “’It’s just a little tiny creek, and you’ve got three other growers downstream. If you’re all taking 20 or 30 percent,
pretty soon there’s nothing left for the fish.’ So he says, ‘I didn’t think about that.’ ” While some growers raise their pot organically, many do not. “Once you get to a certain scale,
it’s really hard to operate in a sustainable way,” Greacen says. “Among other things, you’ve got a monoculture, and monocultures invite pests.” Spider mites turn out to be a
particular challenge for greenhouse growers. Tony Silvaggio, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and a scholar at the campus’s year-old Humboldt Institute for
Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research, found that potent poisons such as Avid and Floramite are sold in small vials under the counter at grower supply stores, in defiance of a
state law that requires they be sold only to holders of a pesticide applicator’s license. Nor are just the workers at risk: the miticides have been tested for use on decorative
plants, but not for their impacts if smoked. Otherwise ecologically minded growers can be driven to spray with commercial pesticides, Silvaggio has found in his research. “After
you’ve worked for months, if you have an outbreak of mites in your last few weeks when the buds are going, you’ve got to do something—otherwise you lose everything,” he
says. Outdoor growers face another threat: rats, which are drawn to the aromatic, sticky foliage of the cannabis plant. Raids at growing sites typically find packages of the longacting rodent poison warfarin, which has begun making its way up the food chain to predators such as the rare, weasel-like fisher. A study last year in the online scientific journal
PLOS One found that more than 70 percent of fishers have rat poison in their bloodstream, and attributed four fisher deaths to internal bleeding triggered by the poison they
absorbed through their prey. Deep in the back-country, Silvaggio says, growers shoot or poison bears to keep them from raiding their encampments. The final blow to
environmental health from outdoor growing comes from fertilizers. Growers dump their used potting soil, enriched with unabsorbed fertilizers, in places where it washes into
nearby streams and is suspected of triggering blooms of toxic algae. The deaths of four dogs on Eel River tributaries have been linked to the algae, which the dogs ingest after
swimming in the river and then licking their fur. The cannabis industry—or what Silvaggio calls the “marijuana-industrial complex”—has been building toward this collision with
the environment ever since California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana under state law. Seven years later, the legislature
passed Senate Bill 420, which allows patients growing pot with a doctor’s blessing to form collectives and sell their herbal remedy to fellow patients. Thus were born the
storefront dispensaries, which grew so common that they came to outnumber Starbucks outlets in Los Angeles. From the growers’ point of view, a 100-plant operation no longer
had to be hidden, because its existence couldn’t be presumed illegal under state law. So most growers stopped hiding their plants in discreet back-country clearings or buried
shipping containers and instead put them out in the open. As large grows became less risky, they proliferated—and so did their effects on the environment. Google Earth posted
satellite photos taken in August 2012, when most outdoor pot gardens were nearing their peak. Working with Silvaggio, a graduate student identified large growing sites in the
area, and posted a Google Earth flyover tour of the region that makes it clear that the two creeks Bauer’s team studied are representative of the situation across the region. With
all of the disturbance from burgeoning backwoods marijuana gardens, it might seem that raising cannabis indoors would be the answer. Indoor growers can tap into municipal
water supplies and don’t have to clear land or build roads to farms on hilltop hideaways. But indoor growing is responsible instead for a more insidious brand of damage: an
outsize carbon footprint to power the electric-intensive lights, fans and pumps that it takes to raise plants inside. A dining-table-size hydroponic unit yielding five one-pound
crops per year would consume as much electricity as the average US home, according to a 2012 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy. All told, the carbon footprint
of a single gram of cannabis is the same as driving seventeen miles in a Honda Civic. In addition, says Kristin Nevedal, president of the Emerald Growers Association, “the
tendency indoors is to lean toward chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides to stabilize the man-made environment, because you don’t have the natural beneficials that are
found outdoors.” Nevertheless, the appeal of indoor growing is strong, explains Sharon (not her real name), a single mother who used to raise marijuana in the sunshine but
moved her operation indoors after she split up with her husband. Under her 3,000 watts of electric light, she raises numerous smaller plants in a space the size of two sheets of
plywood, using far less physical effort than when she raised large plants outdoors. “It’s a very mommy-friendly business that provides a dependable, year-round income,” she
says. Sharon harvests small batches of marijuana year-round, which fetch a few hundred dollars more per pound than outdoor-grown cannabis because of consumers’
preferences. Sharon’s growing operation supports her and her teenage daughter in the rural area where she settled more than two decades ago. Add up the energy used by
indoor growers, from those on Sharon’s scale to the converted warehouses favored by urban dispensaries, and the impact is significant—estimated at 3 percent of the state’s
total power bill, or the electricity consumed by 1 million homes. On a local level, indoor cannabis production is blocking climate stabilization efforts in the coastal city of Arcata,
which aimed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over twelve years. But during the first half of that period, while electricity consumption was flat or declining
slightly statewide, Arcata’s household electrical use grew by 25 percent. City staff traced the increase to more than 600 houses that were using at least triple the electricity of the
average home—a level consistent with a commercial cannabis operation. The city has borne other costs, too, besides simply missing its climate goals. Inexpertly wired grow
houses catch fire, and the conversion of residential units to indoor hothouses has cut into the city’s supply of affordable housing. Last November, city voters approved a stiff tax
on jumbo electricity consumers. Now the city council is working with other Humboldt County local governments to pass a similar tax so that growers can’t evade the fee simply
by fleeing the city limits, says City Councilman Michael Winkler. “We don’t want any place in Humboldt County to be a cheaper place to grow than any other. And since this is
the Silicon Valley of marijuana growing, there are a lot of reasons why people would want to stay here if they’re doing this,” he says. “My goal is to make it expensive enough to
get large-scale marijuana growing out of the neighborhoods.” A tax on excessive electricity use may seem like an indirect way of curbing household cannabis cultivation, but the
city had to back away from its more direct approach—a zoning ordinance—when the federal government threatened to prosecute local officials throughout the state if they
sanctioned an activity that is categorically forbidden under US law.
Attempts in neighboring Mendocino County to issue permits
to outdoor growers meeting environmental and public-safety standards were foiled when federal
attorneys slapped county officials with similar warning—illustrating, yet again, the way prohibition
sabotages efforts to reduce the industry’s environmental damage. Indeed, observers cite federal
cannabis prohibition as the biggest impediment to curbing the impacts of marijuana cultivation ,
which continues to expand despite a decades-long federal policy of zero tolerance. “We don’t have a set of best
management practices for this industry, partly because of federal prohibition,” says researcher
Silvaggio. “If a grower comes to the county agricultural commissioner and asks, ‘What are the
practices I can use that can limit my impact?’, the county ag guy says, ‘I can’t talk to you about
that because we get federal money.’ ”
Lack of industry regulation causes widespread use of banned pesticides
Gabriel et al 13 (Mourad, Greta Wengert, Mark Higley, Shane Krogan, Warren Sargent, and Deana Clifford, 4-11-13, "Silent
Forests? Rodenticides on Illegal Marijuana Crops Harm Wildlife" Wildlife Society News) news.wildlife.org/twp/2013-spring/silentforests/
Problem Spreading Like Weeds Illegal
marijuana growing is not just a problem for wildlife. The High Sierra
Volunteer Trail Crew is a nonprofit trail-maintenance crew that has spent the past seven years
maintaining and cleaning trails throughout the Sierra Nevadas’ national forests. In the mid-2000s,
the group realized that risks associated with large-scale marijuana production throughout most, if
not all, California national forests threatened backcountry use of public lands. Since then, the trail
crew’s Environmental Reclamation Team (ERT) has remediated more than 600 large-scale
marijuana cultivation sites on public lands. The numbers are daunting , especially when
considering that these 600 sites were in only two of California’s 17 national forests and may constitute only a
fraction of the actual marijuana cultivation sites that exist in these forests. Tommy Lanier, Director of the
National Marijuana Initiative, a White House supported program, states that “60 percent to 70 percent of the national marijuana
seizures come from California annually, and of those totals, about 60 percent comes from public lands.” Based on data from
ERT-remediated sites, at least 50 percent of them have SGARs. Beyond finding anticoagulant
rodenticides, the team and other remediation groups frequently find and remove restricted and banned
pesticides including organo- phosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates as well as thousands
of pounds of nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Many of the discovered pesticides have been banned for use
in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, specifically certain carbamates, which gained notoriety
worldwide after an explosion of public awareness about their use to kill African wildlife. Unfortunately, these same malicious
uses are occurring in California, where marijuana cultivators place pourable carbamate pesticides
in opened tuna or sardine cans in order to kill black bears, gray foxes, raccoons, and other
carnivores that damage marijuana plants or raid food caches at grow-site encampments. In many cases, law enforcement
officers approaching grow sites observe wildlife exposed to what officers call “ wildlife bombs ” due to their high
potential for mass wildlife killing. For example, as federal and state officers approached a grow site in Northern
California, they discovered a black bear and her cubs seizing and convulsing as they slowly succumbed to the neurological effects
of these pesticides. Because toxicants are usually dispersed throughout cultivation sites, it is remarkably difficult to detect and
remove all pesticide threats.
Those cause endocrine disruption
Cappiello et al 14 (A, LC-MS Laboratory, DiSTeVA, University of Urbino, Piazza Rinascimento 6, 61029, Urbino, Italy, G Famiglini,
Palma P, V Termopoli, AM Lavezzi, L Matturri, May 2014, "Determination of selected endocrine disrupting compounds in human
fetal and newborn tissues by GC-MS." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24633505
Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) include organochlorine pesticides (OCPs),
organophosphate pesticides (OPPs), carbamate pesticides, and plasticizers, such as bisphenol A (BPA). They
persist in the environment because of their degradation resistance and bioaccumulate in the
body tissues of humans and other mammals. Many studies are focused on the possible correlation between in utero
exposure to EDCs and adverse health hazards in fetuses and newborns. In the last decade, environmental pollution has been
considered a possible trigger for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Sudden Intrauterine Unexplained Death Syndrome
(SIUDS), the most important death-causing syndromes in fetuses and newborns in developed countries. In this work, a rapid and
sensitive analytical method was developed to determine the level of OCPs and OPPs, carbamates, and phenols in human fetal and
newborn tissues (liver and brain) and to unveil the possible presence of non-targeted compounds. The target analytes where
selected on the basis of their documented presence in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, an intensive agricultural area in northern Italy.
A liquid-solid extraction procedure was applied on human and animal tissues and the extracts, after a solid phase extraction (SPE)
clean-up procedure, were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometric detector (GC-qMS). A GCTOFMS (time-of-flight) instrument, because of its higher full-scan sensitivity, was used for a parallel detection of non-targeted
compounds. Method validation included accuracy, precision, detection, and quantification limits (LODs; LOQs), and linearity
response using swine liver and lamb brain spiked at different concentrations in the range of 0.4-8000.0 ng/g. The method gave good
repeatability and extraction efficiency. Method LOQs ranged from 0.4-4.0 ng/g in the selected matrices. Good linearity was obtained
over four orders of magnitude starting from LOQs. Isotopically labeled internal standards were used for quantitative calculations.
The method was then successfully applied to the analysis of liver and brain tissues from SIUDS and SIDS victims coming from the
above mentioned region.
Endocrine disruption will destroy humanity
Togawa 99 (Tatsuo, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering – Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Technology in Society,
August)
Advanced technology provides a comfortable life for many people, but it also produces strong destructive forces that can cause
extinction of the human race if used accidentally or intentionally. As stated in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, hydrogen
bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.1 Nuclear weapons are not the only risks that arise from modem technologies.
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote in her book, Silent Spring [2], that the amount of the pesticide parathion used on California farms
alone at that time could provide a lethal dose for five to ten times the whole world's population. Destruction of the ozone layer, the
greenhouse effect, and chemical pollution by endocrine destructive chemicals began to appear as the result of
advanced technology, and they are now considered
race unless they are effectively controlled.
to be potential causes of extinction of the human
1AC Federalism
Contention 2 is Federalism
Raich represented the biggest ever expansion of Congress’ commerce powers,
destroying federalism, judicial review and allowing for state control of police
powers
Brandon J. Stoker 9, J.D. Candidate, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, “Note and Comment: Was
Gonzales v. Raich the Death Knell of Federalism? Assessing Meaningful Limits on Federal Intrastate Regulation in Light of U.S. v.
Nascimento”, 23 BYU J. Pub. L. 317, lexis
Gonzales v. Raich2 in 2005, it marked the first occasion in over a decade
that the Court broadly construed the Commerce Clause to permit federal regulation of intrastate
activity. More importantly, Raich signaled an abrupt end to the Rehnquist Court’s “federalism
revolution” by circumscribing three recent cases delineating meaningful limits on Congress’s
Commerce Clause powers.3 It represents the boldest assertion of congressional power to
When the Supreme Court decided
“regulate commerce . . . among the several states” in the history of the Court .4 Indeed, Raich and
its progeny threaten to undermine the delicate balance of federal and state power structurally
imbued in our constitutional republic by acquiescing to the unbridled exercise of federal power.
Though some have expressed skepticism about the ostensibly broad effect Raich might have on federalism jurisprudence, recent
circuit court cases decided pursuant to the standards set forth in Raich demonstrate federal
appropriation of “core” state powers,5 including, in particular, state police powers. This Comment
argues that the Supreme Court should limit Raich by reviving the limitation on congressional
regulation of noneconomic intrastate activity to circumstances where failure to regulate such
activity would undermine a broader regulatory program. The Court should also narrowly confine
Raich’s definition of “economic activity” to prevent lower courts from “piling inference upon
inference” to demonstrate otherwise tenuous connections to interstate commerce. This approach would not require the Court to
overrule Raich, but merely to enforce the clear standards articulated in United States v. Lopez6 and United States v. Morrison.7 Part
II provides background on the Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence between 1937 and 1994—a period of virtually
unchecked federal expansion—and the Rehnquist Court’s “federalism revolution” between 1995 and 2005
that reestablished limits on federal commerce powers. This section examines in particular how United States v.
Lopez and United States v. Morrison limited the scope and nature of activity within Congress’s
regulatory purview by (1) moving away from the “rational basis” test when evaluating Commerce Clause
challenges, (2) limiting regulation to quintessential “economic” activity, and (3) enforcing the
“essential” component of the broader regulatory regime exception. Part III explains how Raich largely
unraveled the progress made by the Rehnquist Court. First, the Court adopted a definition of
“economic” that fails to limit the scope of activity within Congress’s regulatory purview. Second,
the decision opens the door to federal regulation of noneconomic, intrastate activity that falls
within a broader regulatory scheme regardless of whether such activity is “essential” to the larger
regulatory program. Finally, the Court reasserted a “rational basis” test that effectively eliminates
judicial scrutiny of the actual aggregate effect of a regulated activity on interstate commerce,
inquiring rather “whether a ‘rational basis’ exists for so concluding.” 8 These standards have
reduced judicial review of Commerce Clause challenges to a rubberstamping exercise where the
regulated activity is rationally related to commerce. More important, they have rendered “as-applied” challenges to
otherwise valid statutes nearly impossible. Part IV considers one of the first casualties in the breakdown of
meaningful limits on federal commerce powers in Raich’s jurisprudential wake: appropriation of
state police powers through RICO prosecutions. This section contrasts two nearly identical cases in which federal
prosecutors charged local street gangs members with racketeering for engaging in intrastate, noneconomic criminal activity. The
Sixth Circuit reversed the federal conviction in United States v. Waucaush9 by applying the clear principles articulated in Morrison
and Lopez without the encumbrances of Raich. The First Circuit, however, affirmed the criminal convictions in United States v.
Nascimento10 by taking Raich to its logical end, which is to say, by not imposing meaningful limits on
the federal government’s prosecutorial powers under RICO . These cases aptly demonstrate how Raich
encourages judicial acquiescence to federal appropriation of traditional state powers by narrowly
limiting the force of judicial review.
That trades off with effective counter-terrorism
Erica Little 6, Legal Analyst for Heritage, Brian W. Walsh, Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies at Heritage, Federalizing “Gang Crime” is Counterproductive and Dangerous,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Crime/wm1221.cfm
Congress should discontinue its habit of expanding federal criminal law . The
phenomenon of overfederalization of crime undermines state and local accountability for law
enforcement, undermines more cooperative and creative efforts to fight crime (that is, allowing the states to
act as "laboratories of democracy"), and injures America's federalist system of government.¶ ¶ One of the more
concrete problems that comes with federal overcriminalization is the misallocation of scarce
More broadly,
federal law enforcement resources , which results in selective prosecution. New demands distract
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorneys, and other federal law enforcers from national
problems that undeniably require federal attention, such as the investigation and prosecution of
espionage and terrorism . Moreover, federal prosecution is more expensive than state-level
prosecution.
Lone wolf terrorism poses a unique threat- we need to use more federal
resources to prevent attacks
Majoran 14, Andrew Majoran (MS from the Transnational Security Studies program at Royal Holloway, University of London in
the United Kingdom, specializes in international security, counter-terrorism, multilateral defense, and maritime security), The
Mackenzie Institute, “Wolves Among Us: The Dangers Of Lone Wolf Terrorism”, July 5, 2014, acc 12/19,
http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/wolves-among-us-dangers-lone-wolf-terrorism/
In conclusion, Western
understanding of terrorism must evolve to ensure that the threat of lone wolf
terrorism is contained. For too long Western governments, media outlets, and general populations have
stereotyped terrorism as large recognizable extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram.
Although these terrorist groups do pose a threat to Western security, they have been hindered in
recent years by increased law enforcement, government presence, and counter-insurgency efforts.23 On the
other side of the terrorism spectrum, the societal focus on large terrorist groups has benefitted the
individual lone wolf terrorist efforts domestically and internationally. Lone wolves are difficult to
detect due to their isolationist nature and are seldom discovered until after their terrorist attacks have taken place. It is
evident that lone wolf terrorism is difficult to stop using traditional counter-terrorism tactics;
however, this does not mean that more cannot be done to prevent lone wolf terrorism from
continuing to grow. Measures such as monitoring of the internet, identifying overly aggressive
political activism publically, enhancement of weapon identification devices, the expansion of
CCTV in public areas, and the use of advanced biometrics to simplify surveillance and gather data
must be taken.24 It is evident that lone wolves pose a significant threat to the security of the West,
and they will continue to do so as long as we remain complacent. Lone wolf terrorism can be fought
effectively, but it requires us to move away from associating terrorism with large international terrorist groups and practicing
vigilance in our own communities.
They’ll use WMDs --- causes extinction
Gary A. Ackerman 14 & Lauren E. Pinson, Gary is Director of the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Lauren is
Senior Researcher and Project Manager for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses of Terrorism, An
Army of One: Assessing CBRN Pursuit and Use by Lone Wolves and Autonomous Cells, Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume
26, Issue 1
The first question to answer is whence the concerns about the nexus between CBRN weapons and isolated actors come and
whether these are overblown. The general threat of mass violence posed by lone wolves and small autonomous cells has been
detailed in accompanying issue contributions, but the potential use of CBRN weapons by such perpetrators presents some singular
features that either amplify or supplement the attributes of the more general case and so are deserving of particular attention. Chief
among these is the impact of rapid technological development. Recent and emerging advances in a variety of areas,
from synthetic biology 3 to nanoscale engineering, 4 have opened doors not only to new medicines
and materials, but also to new possibilities for malefactors to inflict harm on others . What is most
relevant in the context of lone actors and small autonomous cells is not so much the pace of new invention,
but rather the commercialization and consumerization of CBRN weapons-relevant technologies. This
process often entails an increase in the availability and safety of the technology, with a concurrent
diminution in the cost, volume, and technical knowledge required to operate it. Thus, for example,
whereas fifty years ago producing large quantities of certain chemical weapons might have been a
dangerous and inefficient affair requiring a large plant, expensive equipment, and several
chemical engineers, with the advent of chemical microreactors, 5 the same processes might be
accomplished far more cheaply and safely on a desktop assemblage, purchased commercially
and monitored by a single chemistry graduate student.¶ The rapid global spread and increased
user-friendliness of many technologies thus represents a potentially radical shift from the relatively
small scale of harm a single individual or small autonomous group could historically cause. 6 From
the limited reach and killing power of the sword, spear, and bow, to the introduction of dynamite and eventually the use of our own
infrastructures against us (as on September 11), the number of people that an individual who was
unsupported by a broader political entity could kill with a single action has increased from single
digits to thousands. Indeed, it has even been asserted that “over time … as the leverage provided by
technology increases, this threshold will finally reach its culmination—with the ability of one man
to declare war on the world and win .” 7 Nowhere is this trend more perceptible in the current age
than in the area of unconventional weapons.¶ These new technologies do not simply empower users on a purely
technical level. Globalization and the expansion of information networks provide new opportunities
for disaffected individuals in the farthest corners of the globe to become familiar with core
weapon concepts and to purchase equipment—online technical courses and eBay are undoubtedly a boon to
would-be purveyors of violence. Furthermore, even the most solipsistic misanthropes, people who would
never be able to function socially as part of an operational terrorist group, can find radicalizing influences or
legitimation for their beliefs in the maelstrom of virtual identities on the Internet .¶ All of this can
spawn, it is feared, a more deleterious breed of lone actors, what have been referred to in some quarters as
“super-empowered individuals.” 8 Conceptually, super-empowered individuals are atomistic game-changers, i.e., they
constitute a single (and often singular) individual who can shock the entire system (whether national,
regional, or global) by
relying only on their own resources . Their core characteristics are that they have superior
intelligence, the capacity to use complex communications or technology systems, and act as an individual or a “lone-wolf.” 9 The
end result, according to the pessimists, is that if one of these individuals chooses to attack the system, “the unprecedented nature of
his attack ensures that
no counter-measures are in place to prevent it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill
massive amounts of people, but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social systems that govern modern life.” 10 It
almost goes without saying that the same concerns attach to small autonomous cells, whose members'
capabilities and resources can be combined without appreciably increasing the operational footprint
presented to intelligence and law enforcement agencies seeking to detect such behavior .¶ With the
exception of the largest truck or aircraft bombs, the most likely means by which to accomplish this level of system
is through the use of CBRN agents as WMD . On the motivational side, therefore, lone actors
and small autonomous cells may ironically be more likely to select CBRN weapons than more
established terrorist groups—who are usually more conservative in their tactical orientation—
because the extreme asymmetry of these weapons may provide the only subjectively feasible option
for such actors to achieve their grandiose aims of deeply affecting the system . The inherent technical
perturbation
challenges presented by CBRN weapons may also make them attractive to self-assured individuals who may have a very different
risk tolerance than larger, traditional terrorist organizations that might have to be concerned with a variety of constituencies, from
state patrons to prospective recruits. 11 Many other factors beyond a “perceived potential to achieve mass casualties” might play
into the decision to pursue CBRN weapons in lieu of conventional explosives, 12 including a fetishistic fascination with these
weapons or the perception of direct referents in the would-be perpetrator's belief system.¶ Others are far more sanguine about the
capabilities of lone actors (or indeed non-state actors in general) with respect to their potential for using CBRN agents to cause
mass fatalities, arguing that the barriers to a successful large-scale CBRN attack remain high, even in today's networked, techsavvy environment. 13 Dolnik, for example, argues that even though homegrown cells are “less constrained” in motivations, more
challenging plots generally have an inverse relationship with capability, 14 while Michael Kenney cautions against making
presumptions about the ease with which individuals can learn to produce viable weapons using only the Internet. 15 However,
even most of these pundits concede that low-level CBR attacks emanating from this quarter will
probably lead to political, social, and economic disruption that extends well beyond the areas
immediately affected by the attack. This raises an essential point with respect to CBRN terrorism:
irrespective of the harm potential of CBRN weapons or an actor's capability (or lack thereof) to
successfully employ them on a catastrophic scale, these weapons invariably exert a stronger
psychological impact on audiences—the essence of terrorism—than the traditional gun and bomb. This
is surely not lost on those lone actors or autonomous cells who are as interested in getting
noticed as in causing casualties.¶ Proven Capability and Intent¶ While legitimate debate can be had as to the level of
potential threat posed by lone actors or small autonomous cells wielding CBRN weapons, possibly the best argument for engaging
in a substantive examination of the issue is the most concrete one of all—that these actors have already demonstrated
the motivation and capability to pursue and use CBRN weapons, in some cases even close to the
point of constituting a genuine WMD threat. In the context of bioterrorism, perhaps the most cogent illustration of this
is the case of Dr. Bruce Ivins, the perpetrator behind one of the most serious episodes of bioterrorism in living memory, the 2001
“anthrax letters,” which employed a highly virulent and sophisticated form of the agent and not only killed five and seriously sickened
17 people, but led to widespread disruption of the U.S. postal services and key government facilities. 16¶ Other historical cases of
CBRN pursuit and use by lone actors and small autonomous cells highlight the need for further exploration. Among the many extant
examples: 17¶ Thomas Lavy was caught at the Alaska-Canada border in 1993 with 130 grams of 7% pure ricin. It is unclear how
Lavy obtained the ricin, what he planned to do with it, and what motivated him.¶ In 1996, Diane Thompson deliberately infected
twelve coworkers with shigella dysenteriae type 2. Her motives were unclear. ¶ In 1998, Larry Wayne Harris, a white supremacist,
was charged with producing and stockpiling a biological agent—bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax.¶ In 1999, the
Justice Department (an autonomous cell sympathetic to the Animal Liberation Front) mailed over 100 razor blades dipped in rat
poison to individuals involved in the fur industry.¶ In 2000, Tsiugio Uchinshi was arrested for mailing samples of the mineral
monazite with trace amounts of radioactive thorium to several Japanese government agencies to persuade authorities to look into
potential uranium being smuggled to North Korea.¶ In 2002, Chen Zhengping put rat poison in a rival snack shop's products and
killed 42 people.¶ In 2005, 10 letters containing a radioactive substance were mailed to major organizations in Belgium including the
Royal Palace, NATO headquarters, and the U.S. embassy in Brussels. No injuries were reported. ¶ In 2011, federal agents arrested
four elderly men in Georgia who were plotting to use ricin and explosives to target federal buildings, Justice Department officials,
federal judges, and Internal Revenue Service agents.¶ Two recent events may signal an even greater interest in CBRN by lone
malefactors. First, based on one assessment of Norway's Anders Breivik's treatise, his references to CBRN weapons a) suggest
that CBRN weapons could be used on a tactical level and b) reveal (to perhaps previously uninformed audiences)
that even low-level CBRN weapons could achieve far-reaching impacts driven by fear. 18 Whether or not
Breivik would actually have sought or been able to pursue CBRN, he has garnered a following in several (often far-right) extremist
circles and his treatise might inspire other lone actors. Second, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released two issues of
magazine in 2012. Articles, on the one hand, call for lone wolf jihad attacks to target noncombatant populations and, on the other, permit the use of chemical and biological weapons. The
combination of such directives may very well influence the weapon selection of lone actor
jihadists in Western nations. 19¶
Inspire
Judicial review is key to federalism and SOP
Brandon J. Stoker 9, J.D. Candidate, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, “Note and Comment: Was
Gonzales v. Raich the Death Knell of Federalism? Assessing Meaningful Limits on Federal Intrastate Regulation in Light of U.S. v.
Nascimento”, 23 BYU J. Pub. L. 317, lexis
the Framers for warding off federal encroachment.
the Supreme Court as a final check on the national government, and frequently raised this
argument in ratification debates to ward off claims that the proposed constitution would facilitate a unitary government.20 Even
the early Court acknowledged the role of the judiciary in defining the limits of federal power vis-àvis the states.21 Historically, judicial intervention—rather than political safeguards—has been the
surest check on federal encroachment, though the Court’s willingness to impose limits on federal power fluctuates
The political process was not, however, the sole mechanism envisioned by
Indeed, they saw
according to the philosophical posture of the majority. Professor Erwin Chemerinsky explains that the Court vacillates between two
views about the underlying structure of American government: one that treats federalism as “empowerment” and another that treats
federalism as a fundamental limit on government power.22 The first model—federalism as empowerment—emphasizes the benefit
of having multiple levels of government deal with social and economic problems where the failures of one can be compensated by
the other.23 Those who view federalism as empowerment give the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment expansive
readings to facilitate federal action while leaving limitations on federal action to the political process and other constitutional
mechanisms, such as the separation of powers.24 Those who treat federalism as a limit on federal power, however, see it as the
Court’s responsibility to narrowly define the parameters of Congress’s Commerce Clause
powers.25 Since the Court plays an active role in safeguarding other aspects of our constitutional
framework— namely, separation of powers, checks and balances, and judicial review26—the
responsibility to preserve balance between federal and state power—an equally important component of the
Framers’ design— is no less incumbent upon the judicial branch.27 Indeed, proponents of limits see the Court’s
failure to fulfill this responsibility as a threat to our entire system of government,28 and thus read the
Tenth Amendment broadly to protect the prerogatives of state governments.29 The following provides a brief treatment of the
vacillating trends in the Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence. .¶ [FOOTNOTE n28 STARTS. Id. During the early twentieth century - a
period of judicial limitation - the Court took seriously its charge to limit federal commerce powers. See, e.g., A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v.
U.S, 295 U.S. 495, 548 (1935) ("[ Limiting
federal Commerce Clause powers is] essential to the maintenance of
our constitutional system . Otherwise, as we have said, there would be virtually no limit to the federal
power , and for all practical purposes we should have a completely centralized government .");
Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251, 276 (1918) ("The far reaching result of upholding the act cannot be more plainly indicated than by pointing out
that if
Congress can thus regulate matters entrusted to local authority by prohibition of the
movement of commodities in interstate commerce, all freedom of commerce will be at an end,
and the power of the states over local matters may be eliminated, and thus our system of
government be practically destroyed .") FOOTNOTE n28 ENDS].
SCOTUS key model
Michael P. Scharf et al., Counsel of Record, Brief of the Public International Law & Policy Group as Amicus Curiae in Support of
the Petitioners, Jamal Kiyemba, et. Al., v. Barack H. Obama, et al., SCOTUS, No. 08-1234, 12—09, p. 21-32.
DIALOGUE CONFIRMS THIS COURT’S LEADERSHIP IN PROMOTING
ADHERENCE TO RULE OF LAW IN TIMES OF CONFLICT.
PILPG’s on-the-ground experience demonstrating the leadership of this Court is confirmed by a
study of transnational judicial dialogue. Over the past halfcentury, the world’s constitutional courts have
been engaged in a rich and growing transnational judicial dialogue on a wide range of
constitutional law issues. See, e.g., Melissa A. Waters, Mediating Norms and Identity: The Role of Transnational Judicial
III. TRANSNATIONAL JUDICIAL
Dialogue in Creating and Enforcing International Law, 93 Geo. L.J. 487 (2005); Anne-Marie Slaughter, Judicial Globalization, 40 Va.
J. Int’l L. 1103 (2000). Courts
around the world consider , discuss , and cite foreign judicial decisions
not out of a sense of legal obligation, but out
of a developing sense that foreign decisions are valuable
resources in elucidating complex legal issues and suggesting new approaches to common
problems. See Waters, supra, at 493-94.
In this transnational judicial dialogue, the decisions of this Court have exercised a profound —
and profoundly positive — influence on the work of foreign and international courts. See generally
Constitutionalism and Rights: The Influence of the United States Constitution Abroad (Louis Henkin & Albert J. Rosenthal eds.,
1990); Anthony Lester, The Overseas Trade in the American Bill of Rights, 88 Colum. L. Rev. 537 (1988). As Anthony Lester of the
British House of Lords has noted, “there is a vigorous overseas trade in the Bill of Rights, in international
and constitutional litigation involving norms derived from American constitutional law. When life
or liberty is at stake, 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.” Id. at 541.
This Court’s overseas influence is not limited to the Bill of Rights. From Australia to India to Israel
to the United Kingdom, foreign courts have looked to the seminal decisions of this Court as
support for their own rulings upholding judicial review , enforcing separation of powers, and
providing a judicial check on the political branches.
Indeed, for foreign courts, this Court’s rulings in seminal cases such as Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137
(1803),4 Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 436 (1954),5 United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974),6 and Roper v. Simmons,
543 U.S. 551 take
on a special significance . Reliance on the moral authority of this Court can
provide invaluable support for those foreign courts struggling to establish their own legitimacy,
to shore up judicial authority against overreaching by powerful executives, and to develop a
strong rule of law within their own national legal systems.
This Court’s potential to positively influence the international rule of law is particularly
important in the nascent transnational judicial dialogue surrounding the war on terrorism and the
primacy of rule of law in times of conflict. As the world’s courts begin to grapple with the novel, complex, and delicate
legal issues surrounding the modern-day war on terrorism, and as states seek to develop judicial mechanisms to
address domestic conflicts, foreign governments and judiciaries are confronting similar challenges. In
particular, foreign governments and judiciaries must consider how to accommodate the legitimate
needs of the executive branch in times of war within the framework of the law. Although foreign
courts are just beginning to address these issues, it is already clear that they are looking to the experience of the
U.S., and to the precedent of this Court, for guidance on upholding the rule of law in times of
conflict. In recent years, courts in Israel, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have relied on the precedent of this Court in
decisions addressing the rights of detainees.8 In short, as a result of this Court’s robust influence on transnational judicial
dialogue, its decisions have proved extraordinarily important to the development of the rule of law
around the world.
International courts have similarly relied on the precedent of this Court in influential decisions. For
example, in the important and developing area of international criminal law, the international war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and
Rwanda both relied heavily on the precedent of this Court in their early opinions. In the first five years of the Yugoslav Tribunal, the
first in the modern iteration of the war crimes tribunals, the justices cited this Court at least seventeen times in decisions establishing
the fundamental legal principles under which the Tribunal would function.9 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda similarly
relied on this Court’s precedent, citing this Court at least twelve times in its first five years.10 The precedent of this Court has
provided a crucial foundation for international criminal law. The reliance on the precedent of this Court speaks to the Court’s
international leadership on the promotion of respect for the rule of law in times of conflict.
Specifically, South Sudan models U.S. federalism
Agok Manyang Agok 12/14, The New Sudan Vision, "Federalism: An Idea for South Sudan to Consider", 2014,
www.newsudanvision.com/sudan/2809-federalism-an-idea-for-south-sudan-to-consider
Nations which have attempted or adapted federalism include Canada, United States of America, Russia, Nigeria, Ethiopia,
South Africa, Australia, and Brazil among others. However,
since South Sudan is a presidential system as opposed to a
parliamentarian, it’s imperative to examine the United States federal system . Scholars and experts on governance tend to
agree that the United States system is a cooperative federal system. Dual federalism holds that the federal government and the state governments are co-equals, each sovereign. United States had shied away
from dual federalism because the system tends to creates power vacuum between the central government and the States. Cooperative federalism balances the need for federal oversight without oppressive
restraints on the individual state governments. In this model the federal government and the states’ governments share some responsibilities and assume independence for others. The military for example is a
federal responsibility while the National Guard is the state’s responsibility. ¶ With dual federalism, the federal government minimize its support for local programs while continuing to levy income tax on its citizens.
As a result, the State governments are usually forced to raise taxes on individual incomes in order to fund local programs left unfunded by the federal government. Both systems, however, have advantages and
The litmus test: United States versus other federal systems¶ Unlike most federal systems, the U.S. federal system has a
constitutionally spelled out system. It identifies responsibilities for both the central government
and the individual states. The express powers of the central government include the right to levy taxes, declare war, coin money and regulate interstate and foreign commerce (Article
disadvantages.¶
1, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution). In addition to the express powers, the federal government has implied power to pass any law “necessary and proper” for the execution of its express powers. Other powers
The U.S. constitution also sets
aside what it referred to as “reserved powers” (10th Amendment to the US constitution) for the state governments.
Additional shared powers between the federal and states government includes borrowing money
and enforcing laws.
called “inherent powers” include the ability of the federal government to acquire more territories whether through peaceful or other means.
Federalism prevents South Sudan collapse
Augustino Lucano 14, Upper Nile Times, "Federalism is Desirable in South Sudan", August 7,
upperniletimes.net/editorials/federalism-is-desirable-in-south-sudan/
South Sudan is highly diverse country with 64 tribes. There is a need for a fair system which helps
to serve our communities equitably. The current political crisis is disastrous with very poor
governance in the country and we need a better system. Doig (2012) explained that “Federalism is the most important
political device for the regulation and accommodation of the world’s most burning and devastating conflicts”
(p. 1).¶ Federalism is desirable in South Sudan because it will allow for sufficient growth in our country. We
need a political system which allows the citizens and the government to resolve problems. Nivola (2005)
described that “Federalism is a political system permitting a large measure of regional self-rule and gives the rulers and the ruled a ‘school of their
federalism will lead to
political reformation by removing the national government and resolving some of the contentious issues.
citizenship’, ‘a preserver of their liberties’, and ‘a vehicle for flexible response to their problems'” (p. 1). I believe that
Federalism will allow the South Sudan government to achieve and maintain
stability .¶ In addition, Doig (2012) described “Those who prefer a federal system of governance generally argue that this plan reduces the
dangers while increasing the benefits. Thus a
federal system may be helpful in encouraging and preserving
individual liberty, since citizens who feel aggrieved can appeal to more than one final authority, and they may also be able to move to a
different state or province” (p. 2).¶ Federalism is desirable in South Sudan because it encourages pluralism .
Federal systems will allow the South Sudan government to develop at the national, state, and local levels, giving the South Sudanese people more
access to leaders and opportunities to get involved in their government. Doig (2012) illustrated that “Federalism encourages each state or province to
devise its own strategies for economic development — strategies which may be more effective because they are based on a closer understanding of
local culture, resources and skills, and which, through the variety of different strategies tried by different states and provinces, may produce innovative
programs whose success can then be emulated by other regions & nations” (p. 2).¶ The
South Sudanese people will benefit
from federalism because it will ensure the separation of powers and prevents tyranny in South
Sudan . Even if one person or group took control of all the other branches of the federal government, federalism
ensures that governments would still function independently. Federalism , therefore, fulfills the vision of a
governmental structure that ensures liberty in South Sudan.
That escalates---every country has key interests at stake
Gaaki Kigambo 14, Ugandan journalist and a graduate of Carleton University and is currently a special correspondent for The
East African, Regional Tensions Complicate South Sudan’s Crisis, 2-28, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13597/regionaltensions-complicate-south-sudan-s-crisis
The deadly conflict in South Sudan, itself the culmination of a long-running power struggle within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, is
increasingly drawing in neighboring countries driven by disparate security and economic interests, further complicating the crisis
and efforts to reach a resolution. ¶ The U.N. has accused both sides of South Sudan’s split of committing human rights abuses in the conflict, which has so far claimed an
unknown number of lives, displaced an estimated 900,000 people both inside and outside the country and shows no signs of letting up. An agreement to cease hostilities
was violated even before its ink dried, jeopardizing an already faltering mediation process led by the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ¶ Uganda was the first of South Sudan’s neighbors to
intervene militarily, sending an estimated 4,500 soldiers to the country within four days of the outbreak of fighting there on Dec. 15. Uganda was compelled, Kampala insists, by a distress call
from South Sudan’s embattled President Salva Kiir and requests from the U.N., Washington and London to step in. ¶ One of the main aims of the intervention, Ugandan Defense Minister Crispus Kiyonga told
parliament, was to urgently prevent a potentially genocidal situation from emerging out of the political fallout between Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar. The conflict between their factions had rapidly
Uganda’s military presence in South
Sudan has unsettled its other neighbors, not least Sudan. There is no love lost between Museveni and longtime Sudanese President Omar almanifested itself along an age-old ethnic fault line between Kiir’s majority Dinka and Machar’s Nuer ethnic group. ¶ However,
Bashir, who have repeatedly accused each other of supporting rebel forces hostile to their governments. ¶ Bashir’s quick visit to Juba, South Sudan’s capital, three weeks after the conflict broke out was widely
Juba apparently spurned Khartoum’s suggestion to set
up a joint force to protect vital oil fields in Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states in the north of South Sudan, which have borne the brunt of the conflict.
Instead, South Sudan preferred to give that role to the Ugandan army. Bashir is now believed to be backing Machar, his longtime
ally. ¶ Analysts say Khartoum fears Uganda’s military involvement will further damage Sudan’s
economic ties with South Sudan, which have been significantly reduced since the South’s independence. Uganda, together with Kenya,
has been pushing a $250 million infrastructure project known as the Lamu-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor, which comprises a port, an oil pipeline, a railway line and a
highway, and which will depend for its success on South Sudan. Uganda needs the LAPSSET corridor to transport its newly discovered oil, as it would greatly reduce the distance the oil, which
must be heated at some expense for pipeline transit, would need to travel before it reaches the coast. ¶ Ethiopia, too, has reason to object to Uganda’s
military presence in South Sudan. Ugandan intelligence reports say Khartoum is now routing its support for Machar
through Eritrea, Ethiopia’s bitter rival, to cover up its involvement. Analysts say the Ethiopian
government also fears the South Sudan conflict could exacerbate tensions in Ethiopia’s Gambella
region, which borders Sudan and has a high concentration of Nuers, potentially resulting in a fullblown conflict. Indeed, the undercurrents of such an outbreak are already perceptible. This explains why
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who is the current chair of IGAD, asked Uganda to withdraw from South
Sudan, saying its presence risked regionalizing the conflict and pointedly declaring that “there are
other interests also from other sides.Ӧ Although Uganda has expressed willingness to withdraw , even
announcing a two-month withdrawal timeline, there is little appetite to actually do so in Kampala’s policymaking circles. For
one thing, Uganda perceives itself as the guarantor of state stability in South Sudan, which
remains in jeopardy. Renewed fighting has broken out in which Machar’s forces appear to be making gains, despite having initially been pushed out of nearly all the major centers in Unity,
interpreted as a public gesture that he was ready to cast his lot with South Sudan’s government. But
Upper Nile and Jonglei states by joint efforts of the South Sudanese and Ugandan troops. ¶ Moreover, Uganda’s withdrawal is conditioned on the deployment of the African Union’s African Capacity for Immediate
Response to Crisis (ACIRC), an outfit that is ideally supposed to rapidly respond to crises on the continent. Unfortunately, the African Union Peace and Security Council has yet to meet to work out modalities for
the deployment of ACIRC in South Sudan. A tough task awaits them in finding countries willing to contribute troops to the mission. As it is, IGAD long ago approved a force of 5,600 troops for South Sudan, but
has received none to date from its eight members. Indeed, only Uganda appears willing to contribute. The same is true of the U.N., which also agreed last year to augment its presence in this beleaguered nation
Uganda’s continued military presence in South Sudan
is further polarizing both sides of the conflict and directly obstructing the IGAD-led mediation, which holds the best
by 5,500 troops but has yet to implement its resolutions with more blue berets on the ground. ¶
hope for a long-term political solution. Kiir, who enjoys Uganda’s military support, has demonstrated little interest in the Addis Ababa process, while Machar has preconditioned any progress in Addis Ababa on the
Kampala is testing the patience
of South Sudan’s other neighbors, who might soon feel the need to join in the conflict in order to
safeguard their own interests. ¶ To break the current deadlock, IGAD must clarify the objectives of the current mediation and, together with the AU, pressure Uganda to withdraw
its forces from South Sudan, while also pushing both Kiir and Machar to engage meaningfully with the mediation process. In the absence of progress in Addis
Ababa, the risk of a regionalization of the conflict looms, further complicating any efforts to
resolve the crisis.
withdrawal of all foreign military forces as well as the release of all SPLM political figures detained since the outbreak of the conflict. Meanwhile,
Nuclear war
Caroline Glick 7, deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs of the Center for Security
Policy, “Condi's African holiday”, December 11, http://www.rightsidenews.com/20071211309/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/ourworld-condis-african-holiday.html
The Horn of Africa is a dangerous and strategically vital place. Small wars, which rage continuously, can easily
escalate into big wars. Local conflicts have regional and global aspects. All of the conflicts in this tinderbox,
which controls shipping lanes from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea, can potentially give rise to regional, and indeed
global conflagrations between competing regional actors and global powers.