Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Obama Good DA
Obama Good DA........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1
Party Time: 1NC.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2
Party Time: 1NC.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3
Overview:....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4
Obama Wins: Wall......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5
Obama Wins: Wall......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6
AT: Uniqueness O/W Link..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7
Links ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8
Plan Popular Link.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9
Solar Power Popular Link.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................10
Geothermal Power Popular Link...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................11
Brazilian Ethanol Link .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................12
Nuclear Power Unpopular Link................................................................................................................................................................................................................................13
Do Nothing Congress Link.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................14
Oil Lobbies Link ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................15
McCain Likes Alternative Energy............................................................................................................................................................................................................................16
Nuclear Power Popular.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................17
McCain supports Nuke Power..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................18
Internal Links............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................19
Coattails Internal.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................20
Bush Matters – Internal.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................21
Bush Matters – Internal.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................22
Spending – Internal ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................23
Voting Blocks............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................24
Latinos Key...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................25
Independents key......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................26
Independents outweigh Hard Right .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................27
Everyone is key- Goldilocks. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................28
Women/Seniors.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................29
Urban Workers.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................30
Religious Right = Dead.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................31
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................31
Battleground States Internal .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................32
Moderates key ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................33
Alternative Energy = Election Issue.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................34
Climate/Environment key 2008 Election Issue.........................................................................................................................................................................................................35
Iran Strikes Bad ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................36
Sweeter 1NC Impact ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................37
Prolif ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................38
Prolif ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................39
Turkish Relations......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................40
Oil Spikes..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................41
Other Impacts............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................42
Tax Cuts Bad 1NC....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................43
Tax Cuts Bad 1NC....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................44
Yucca Mountain Bad 1NC .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................45
CTBT Good 1NC .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................46
CTBT Good—Terrorism...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................47
CTBT Good—IMS...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................48
CTBT Good—IMS...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................49
CTBT Good—Indo-Pak war.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................50
CTBT Good—Indo-Pak............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................51
Aff Impact Turns ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................52
Iran Strikes Good .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................53
Iran Strikes Good......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................54
Iran Strikes Good......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................55
AT: Oil Scenario........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................56
Tax Cuts Good..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................57
Tax Cuts Good..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................58
Tax Cuts Good..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................59
Tax Cuts Good: Evidence comparison......................................................................................................................................................................................................................60
Currency Dump Turn................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................61
Yucca Mountain Good..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................62
Yucca Mountain Good..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................63
Senate Elections DA: Uniqueness: Democrats win..................................................................................................................................................................................................64
Senate Elections DA: Uniqueness: Democrats win..................................................................................................................................................................................................65
Aff: Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link....................................................................................................................................................................................................................66
Aff: Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................67
Aff: Elections Improbable ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................68
Non Unique: McCain wins.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................69
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Overview:
Disad outweighs case – If McCain can reach out to the moderates through the plan, he’ll attack Iran early in
his presidency. A US-Iran war has massive ramifications
Magnitude: Only Middle Eastern war will lead to nuclear war –instability avoids usual fears of reprisal, and
would lead to extinction
Nassar 2
Bahig Nassar, Arab Co-ordinating Centre of Non-Governmental Organizations, and Afro-Asian People’s Solidary Organization, 11/25/02, keynote paper for Cordoba
Dialogue on Peace and Human Rights in Europe and the Middle East, http://www.inesglobal.org/BahigNassar.htm
Wars in the Middle East are of a new type. Formerly, the possession of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union had
prevented them, under the balance of the nuclear terror, from launching war against each other. In the Middle East, the possession of
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction leads to military clashes and wars. Instead of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the
United States and Israel are using military force to prevent others from acquiring them, while they insist on maintaining their own weapons to pose deadly threats to other
nations. But the production, proliferation and threat or use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear chemical and biological) are among the major global problems
which could lead, if left unchecked, to the extinction of life on earth. Different from the limited character of former wars, the current wars in
the Middle East manipulate global problems and escalate their dangers instead of solving them.
Timeframe: McCain would attack Iran immediately to rally his supporters. The plans impacts and solvency
are massively long term. [Explain]
Turns case -
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3. Models: Democrat will win the 2008 Presidential Election because Political Science Professor Alan
Lichtman’s “Keys Model” indicates six out of the 13 presidential keys have turned against the incumbent
party
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Susan Page, USA TODAY, May 3, 2007 http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-05-02-gop-landscape_N.htm
In one of the best-known formulas to predict presidential elections, devised in 1981 by historian Allan Lichtman, six of 13 "keys" have
turned against the GOP, enough to forecast defeat of the party that holds the White House.
The formula -- which takes into account economic data, midterm election results, foreign policy developments, domestic unrest and
candidates' charisma-- has accurately forecast the popular-vote winner in the past six elections.
Applied to previous contests, it points to the winner in every election back to 1860, according to Lichtman, a professor at American
University.
He and other analysts say the political landscape the year before a presidential election hasn't so overwhelmingly favored one party over the other in
a generation or more, at least since Reagan won a landslide re-election over Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984.
Democrats aren't assured a victory in 2008, but they almost certainly face an easier task ahead than their Republican opponents.
And – this model has successfully predicted the winner of every presidential election
Lichtman 5
Allan Lichtman, Professor of History at The American University and Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, “The Keys to the White House: Forecast for
2008”, June 12-15, 2005, p. http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Political/PDFs/ISF2005/Lichtman_Keys.pdf
The Keys to the White House are a historically-based prediction system that retrospectively account for the popular-vote winners of every
American presidential election from 1860 to 1980 and prospectively forecast well ahead of time the winners of every presidential election
from 1984 through 2004. The Keys give specificity to the theory that that presidential election results turn primarily on the performance of the party controlling the
White House and that politics as usual by the challenging candidate will have no impact on results. The Keys include no polling data and consider a much
wider range of performance indicators than economic concerns. Already, the Keys are lining up for 2008, demonstrating brighter prospects
for Democrats to recapture the White House than the conventional wisdom would have us believe.
4. Fundz - Obama will financially overwhelm McCain’s ability to win through TV ads
Preston June 24, 2008
Mark Preston CNN Political Editor. Updated June 24, 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/24/preston.obama.ads/index.html
Barack Obama's decision to forgo public financing for his presidential campaign provides him with the tools needed to implement a
"Shock and Awe" television ad strategy designed to paralyze John McCain's campaign, an expert on political TV advertising said in an
interview with CNN.The better-funded Obama is likely to force McCain to spend money on TV ads in Arkansas, Georgia and North
Carolina, said Evan Tracey, CNN's consultant on political television advertising. At this point in the campaign, these are states that CNN projects McCain has
an edge over the Illinois Democrat, but by no means are these states safely in the Arizona Republican's column. Obama is expected to raise
three or four times the $85 million he would have received from the public financing system, providing him with a huge financial
advantage over McCain, who has opted to take the public funds. Watch Tracey discuss Obama's advantage » Tracey, chief operating officer of
TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, notes that Obama used a similar advertising strategy against Hillary Clinton in the battle for the
Democratic presidential nomination. Obama spent $10 million in Pennsylvania on TV ads -- a state Clinton was heavily favored to win and
did so by 10 percentage points. Obama's decision to pour millions of dollars into Pennsylvania forced Clinton to spend more money in the
state than she would have wanted to in order to secure a convincing victory. But it came at a cost, because she had less money to dedicate
to the remaining primary contests including North Carolina and Indiana. She lost North Carolina by a wide margin and won Indiana only by two percentage
points. Now, as we turn our full attention to the McCain-Obama match up, Tracey explains how the two candidates plan to use television advertising to help win their
respective primaries, and predicts their general election strategies heading into November.
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6. Game over: Presidential historians say that McCain will lose since he’s tied to Bush polices
Kuhn 6/15
David Paul Kuhn Politico.com Posted: 2008-06-15. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8BE81940-3048-5C12-006952400AA347AF
One week into the general election, the polls show a dead heat. But many presidential scholars doubt that John McCain stands much of a chance, if
any.
Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack
Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932.
“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland
Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year,
“Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s
in 1980. “McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the
Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of
sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson. “It is one of the worst political environments for the party in power since World War II,” added Alan
Abramowitz, a professor of public opinion and the presidency at Emory University. His forecasting model — which factors in gross domestic product,
whether a party has completed two terms in the White House and net presidential approval rating — gives McCain about the same odds as
Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Carter in 1980 — both of whom were handily defeated in elections that returned the presidency to the
previously out-of-power party. “It would be a pretty stunning upset if McCain won,” Abramowitz said. What’s more, Republicans have held the
presidency for all but 12 years since the South became solidly Republican in the realignment of 1968 — which is among the longest runs with one
party dominating in American history. “These things go in cycles,” said presidential historian Robert Dallek, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.
“The public gets tired of one approach to politics. There is always a measure of optimism in this country, so they turn to the other party.”
But the biggest obstacle in McCain’s path may be running in the same party as the most unpopular president America has had since at least
the advent of modern polling. Only Harry Truman and Nixon — both of whom were dogged by unpopular wars abroad and political
scandals at home — have been nearly as unpopular in their last year in office, and both men’s parties lost the presidency in the following election.
Though the Democratic-controlled Congress is nearly as unpopular as the president, Lichtman says the Democrats’ 2006 midterm wins
resemble the midterm congressional gains of the out-party in 1966 and 1974, which both preceded a retaking of the White House two years
later. One of the few bright spots historians noted is that the public generally does not view McCain as a traditional Republican. And, as Republicans frequently point out,
McCain is not an incumbent. “Open-seat elections are somewhat different, so the referendum aspect is somewhat muted,” said James Campbell, a
professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in campaigns and elections. “McCain would be in much better shape if Bush’s
approval rating were at 45 to 50 percent,” Campbell continued. “But the history is that in-party candidates are not penalized or rewarded to the
same degree as incumbents.” Campbell still casts McCain as the underdog. But he said McCain might have more appeal to moderates than Obama if the electorate
decides McCain is “center right” while Obama is “far left.” Democrats have been repeatedly undone when their nominee was viewed as too liberal,
and even as polls show a rise in the number of self-identified Democrats, there has been no corresponding increase in the number of self-
identified liberals. Campbell also notes that McCain may benefit from the Democratic divisions that were on display in the primary, as Republicans did in 1968, when
Democratic divisions over the war in Vietnam dogged Humphrey and helped hand Nixon victory. Still, many historians remain extremely skeptical about McCain’s prospects.
“I can’t think of an upset where the underdog faced quite the odds that McCain faces in this election,” said Sidney Milkis, a professor of presidential
politics at the University of Virginia. Even "Truman didn’t face as difficult a political context as McCain.”
7. National Polls - Obama has a sizeable popular vote lead over McCain
Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2008, p. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll25-2008jun25,0,5763707.story
WASHINGTON -- Buoyed by enthusiasm among Democrats and public concern over the economy, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has captured a sizable lead over
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the opening of the general election campaign for president, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll has found.
In a two-man race between the major party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll conducted last
weekend. On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by an even larger
margin, 48% to 33%.
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2. Big mistake – All our evidence says that McCain will lose because he’s tied to unpopular Bush policies.
Plan solves that internal link meaning the plan can overcome the negative perceptions of McCain. This acts
as a link booster for our coattails links since they’ve conceded our warrants.
3. Prefer internal link specificity: None of our evidence rules out a chance of a McCain victory, our internal
is specific to environmental popular policies can help McCain swing the independents. The Uniqueness for
this goes our way since independents are slightly in favor of Obama
Britt June 5
Russ Britt, MarketWatch. Last Update: 5:39 PM ET Jun 5, 2008. http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId={CE5B4F19-5B24-466F-B30A-0B8466F97AEA}
"They are regular voters, they are frequent voters," Ciruli said. "They care about the economy and the war, but they also respect experience."
McCain has an uphill climb in that Obama has a head start on enlisting new voters. At this year's Colorado caucuses, it was estimated that Republican
participants had tripled, but Democrats had grown ten-fold. More than ever, the big electorate battleground will be over independent voters, Ciruli says.
"This election is going to be fought more in the middle - for those unaffiliated voters who are non-partisan," he said.
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Links
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These energy subsidies are completely out of step with a nation that now broadly accepts the need to end our collective “oil addiction”.
According to Democratic pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner, “the public overwhelmingly supports the development of alternative
energy, higher mileage standards, hybrids, and incentives to produce more energy-efficient appliances.”
Americans want freedom and self sufficiency from our energy policies; Americans, in the tradition of our “can-do” spirit, believe we
should be leading the world in clean, alternative energy. If the political will exists, they believe we can do anything; Americans want
accountability. They want their leaders to show they will do the right thing, put money to Good use and act accordingly themselves; They
see clean energy as a path to economic growth and new jobs; Democrats, Independents, and Republicans believe the evidence of global
warming is now clear and only strengthens the case for immediate action on energy independence; and, Americans overwhelmingly
support vigorous standards for clean alternative energy technologies and better mileage. They also support a cap and reduction on global
warming pollution.
But attitudes are more positive toward proposals that would actively promote energy conservation and the development of alternative
energy sources. In the February, 2006 Pew poll where 85 percent agreed that America was “addicted” to oil, the public strongly supported
the following proposals to address America’s energy supply: requiring better auto fuel efficiency (86 percent for/12 percent against);
increasing federal funding for research on wind, solar and hydrogen technology (82/14); tax cuts for companies to develop these
alternative energy sources (78/18); spending more on subway, rail and bus systems (68/27); and increasing federal funding for research on
ethanol (67/22).
The public’s especially strong interest in developing alternative energy sources is well-illustrated by a finding in a July, 2006 Los Angeles Times
poll. The LAT poll asked respondents to choose the best way among a number of options for reducing U.S. reliance on foreign oil. More
than half the respondents (52 percent) chose government investment in alternative energy sources, way ahead of the next most popular
option, relaxing environmental standards for oil and gas drilling (20 percent), which was followed by requiring stricter mileage standards for cars (eight
percent) and more nuclear power plants (six percent
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It is no wonder solar power has captured the public imagination. Panels that convert sunlight to electricity are winning supporters around
the world — from Europe, where gleaming arrays cloak skyscrapers and farmers’ fields, to Wall Street, where stock offerings for panel
makers have had a great ride, to California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Million Solar Roofs” initiative is promoted as building
a homegrown industry and fighting global warming.
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A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll asked a much more neutral question: Which one of the following actions do you most support
as a way of addressing the rise in energy and gas prices? Encourage the development of wind and solar power. Open up protected areas in
Alaska for oil and gas exploration. Encourage American consumers to conserve energy. Encourage off-shore exploration for oil and natural
gas. Encourage the construction of nuclear power facilities." Wind and solar was the winner, with Alaska second, conservation third and
exploration fourth. Nuclear power was last.
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Polls prove nuclear technology is popular with the majority of American public
Taylor ‘6 [James E., Environment and Climate News; “Public Favors Nuclear Power; Poll”; The Heartland Institute; 10-1-2006;
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19723]
Twice as many Americans support nuclear power as oppose it, according to a new poll by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times. In a
telephone poll of nearly 1,500 Americans conducted from July 28 through August 1, 61 percent of respondents said they support the increased use of nuclear power
as a way to contain projected global warming, while only 30 percent opposed it. The poll continues a trend of ever-increasing public support for nuclear
power as a clean, economical, and environmentally friendly power source. Global warming fears have swayed many former opponents to
support nuclear power. The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll results, published August 4, are in line with increasing support for nuclear power in
newspaper editorial departments. Shortly after the poll results were released, the Miami Herald and Kalamazoo Gazette published house editorials supporting
increased use of nuclear power.
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Internal Links
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Coattails Internal
Only a popular policy by Bush will prevent the Democrats for winning in 2008
Lichtman 5
Allan Lichtman, Professor of History at The American University and Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, The Keys to the White House, 2005, p. X-XI
Likewise, although President Bush will not be on the ticket in 2008, the fate of his would-be successor in the Republican Party will depend
upon the president's performance in his second term. If the Bush administration fails to meet the domestic and foreign policy challenges of
the next four years, voters will dismiss the Republicans, regardless of the Democratic nominee. Moreover, according to the Keys, the Demo-
crats will have structural advantages in 2008 that they lacked in 2004. The Republicans will not be fielding a sitting president, which results in
the loss of Key 3 and will likely confront a bruising battle for their party's nomination which forfeits Key 2. Thus, two Keys that the GOP
held in 2004 are in jeopardy for 2008, making a Democratic victory likely that year, despite the setbacks at the polls that Democrats have suffered thus
far in the twenty-first century. Democrats, moreover, need not worry about battling for their party's nomination; history shows that nomination
struggles within the out-party do not subvert its chances to recapture the White House. A vigorous challenging party usually has multiple
presidential contenders, each of whom professes to have the skills, personality, and policies needed to regain the White House. A spirited
out-party contest for the presidential nomination might even signify the vulnerability of the party in power, as candidates compete for what appears
to be a pro mising nomination. The greatest popular vote victory by a challenging party candidate in American history was achieved by Republican
Warren Harding in 1920 after a deadlocked convention nominated him as a compromise candidate on the tenth ballot.
A popular policy initiative would allow Bush to secure enough voters for McCain to win the election
Goldberg 7
Jonah Goldberg, Editor at large of National Review Online and syndicated columnist and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors, USA TODAY, September 4,
2007,
At home, Bush's options are far more constrained. But again, Clinton might be the model. The Democratic Congress is -- astonishingly -- even more
unpopular than President Bush. If Bush can pick some well-chosen fights with Congress, ideally over spending, he might at least bring
back disheartened members of his own political base. Bush might also borrow from Clinton's post-1994 playbook of proposing a lot of
small, very popular (and mostly insipid) programs and initiatives. Clinton had his school uniforms and V-chips. Surely the authors of compassionate
conservatism could conjure similar treacle.
Ideally, such proposals would unite a majority of Americans but divide moderate Democrats from the party's left-wing base (spare me the
rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth over the cruelty of "wedge issues").
A goal: Just change the climate
For example, paying inner-city students to get Good grades -- a proposal backed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich
alike -- might be a Good idea with the added benefit of possibly annoying teacher's unions.
Such ideas are hard to come up with, never mind sell, particularly given Bush's liabilities and the media climate generally. But the president needn't get such ideas
passed, he need only get them discussed in order to recalibrate the political climate more in his favor. It wouldn't be easy, but he still has
the biggest megaphone in the country. He also holds the veto pen. Bush seemed to have lost it in the Oval Office couch cushions for much of his presidency,
but the Democratic takeover inspired him to find it.
Given the Democrats' need to placate their own base in order to prove all that effort in '06 was worth it, Bush could have some fat
opportunities to rally the majority of Americans, or at least his own base, to the GOP side.
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If the
US presidential elections will in fact be a National Security election, as it is believed, they will be at the center of interest, concern and expectation of the whole
In this phase of the elections, attention is focused on
world because American national security has become international as a result of the type of threats to American security.
the questions of gender and color, since the competition between the African-American Senator Barack Obama (Illinois) and Senator Hillary Clinton (New York), the former First Lady,
represents a wonderful historical development for the US and the world. There is a great deal of enthusiasm reinforced by the potential precedent of putting a woman or a black man in the White
House. The momentum is gathering for "change" in the sense of removing Republicans from the Presidency so that the Democrats will have both the presidency and the majority in Congress. Angry
voices about the US' involvement in the war on Iraq are growing louder, while there is a rising resentment toward president George W Bush and his era. But all that is taking place in the context of
politics and is a far cry from scrutinizing policy. So
when the storm of the primaries calms down, the American conversation will surely turn from demanding
"change" to examining the quality of that change at a time of huge challenges
to American national security. At that time, experience for instance, might win
over enthusiasm for untested new leadership, especially if major events occur in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran, or if there is a big major terrorist attack
inside or outside the US. On the other hand, the surprise might come from the new generation and the desire for vital and fresh leadership, especially if the economy deteriorates and becomes the
force behind the elections, instead of national security. In any case, thenext president of the US will not come to office only as a result of voting within the US,
but also, as a result of events happening outside the country. The contribution of traditional powers and states will be coupled with that of non-state actors, such as militias
and regional and international terrorist movements. It could be said today that George W. Bush indeed succeeded in the crux of his strategic policy to guarantee US national security, i.e. to take
terrorist attacks, as he says, away from American cities. He has justified the war on Iraq stating that it took the battle against terror faraway from American
territory. Since terror has not struck the United States since the Iraq war, Mr. Bush can claim that his policy is the right one.
Such a claim will not automatically lead voters, who are angry at the war in Iraq, to a surprising embrace of the "achievements" of this president who is hated by about half of Americans. The debate
on this point is serious and inconclusive; neither side can prove whether protecting American soil resulted from the "invitation" by Bush to Al-Qaeda and its like to join battle in Iraq- which they did.
Logically, and regardless of the "morality" of using Iraq and its people as a substitute arena for the war on terror instead of US cities, there have not been any attacks on American cities since the Iraq
war. From this narrow standpoint, Bush
can say that he has succeeded in protecting US security within the country's borders. And this is a useful
basis for anyone who is close to Bush's policy on Iraq, namely Senator John McCain of Arizona. McCain, 71, fought in the service of his country in Vietnam and
endured torture; he fought before for the White House and ran against Bush. In 2002, he voted for the invasion of Iraq and supported the recent surge of US troops. He is firmly against withdrawal
from Iraq in defeat or surrenders and opposes setting a timetable for the withdrawal. As
for Iran, McCain supports an alliance with Europe to impose economic and diplomatic
sanctions. He says that there is no such thing as unconditional diplomacy and that the military option should remain on the table with Iran. He
insists on succeeding in Iraq and not bowing to Iran; he points to Iran's proxy wars with the US in Iraq and says that the mullahs in Iran have not paid the
price for frustrating US efforts. McCain rejects the idea of relieving Iran and Syria of responsibility for harming Lebanese sovereignty and arming Hezbullah and
other militias against the Lebanese State. He believes in the necessity of ending impunity of those who adopted political assassinations as a means to intervene in the
domestic affairs of other states. He holds Iran responsible for funding Hamas and Hezbullah and providing weapons to the latter via Syria; he is demanding that Tehran and
Damascus immediately halt their intervention in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs. He supports the establishment of a Palestinian State and affirms that there will be no
solution but a "political one." He is very firm in his pledge to fight terror in all its forms, wherever it is and whenever it takes place.These positions render him closer
to a "continuity" of Bush's policy. If the surge in Iraq continues to work, if US cities are not victIMS of a terror attack, and if Bush's policy toward Iran succeeds-either
by convincing it to give up its provocative policies or by standing up to it- this will boost McCain's chances as a serious "US national security candidate."
And, even though McCain is distancing himself, Bush’s foreign policy decisions still influence to voters.
Unpopular policies cause McCain to lose the general election.
Hames 2/4. (Tim, Chief Leader Writer @ The Times and former lecturer in politics @ Oxford University. “Goodbye, George. Oh, back so soon? Whoever wins in the US
tomorrow, the result will be continuity.” The Times (London). Lexis.)
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Spending – Internal
Bush maintaining fiscal responsibility is key to 2008 GOP victory
Bloomberg News “Bush, Democrats Seek `Very Big Fight' With Each Other on Budget” 7/9/2007
President George W. Bush and congressional Democrats are headed for their first showdown over the federal budget. For both sides, more than
money is at stake. Bush, who only vetoed one piece of legislation passed by the Republican Congress in his first six years in office, is now threatening to reject
almost every spending bill sent to him by the Democratic-controlled Congress unless lawmakers abandon plans to spend $23 billion more
than he requested. While the amount involved is less than 1 percent of the $2.9 trillion federal budget, the political stakes are greater. A little more than 16
months before the 2008 elections, Democrats and Republicans alike figure a fight may be in their interests. ``It's a very big fight over a
fairly small sum of money,'' says Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, an Arlington, Virginia-based nonpartisan group that advocates a balanced
budget. ``It has a lot of political significance in terms of the signals being sent.'' Bush and the Republicans, stung by criticism that they
presided over a surge in government spending, are looking to rehabilitate themselves among core supporters by holding the line on the
budget. Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to show they can deliver on promises to shore up education, health care and a host of other initiatives. More Than Expected
Other consequences might only become clear over time. The additional spending proposed by the Democrats would barely affect a deficit the Congressional Budget Office says might exceed $220
billion next year, though it may end up costing more than expected if it causes agency budgets to grow faster over time. Bush, 61, has pledged to put the budget on course to be balanced by 2012. The
deficit in 2006 was $248 billion. Unlike other measures such as the immigration legislation that died last month in the Senate, the annual spending bills must pass to keep the government's doors
open. And neither Bush nor the Democrats are eager for a repeat of the budget fights of 1995, when the federal government partially shut down twice after President Bill Clinton refused
congressional Republicans' demands to pare taxes and spending by hundred of billions of dollars. Still, with both sides spoiling for a fight, there's a chance things could spin out of control. ``This
is going to be a very serious showdown,'' says Stephen McMillin, deputy director of Bush's Office of Management and Budget. ``The differences could not
be more stark.'' `A Hell of a Difference' House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, dismisses the administration's veto threats. His
party's budget, he says, will ``make a hell of a difference in people's lives, but it has virtually no difference on the deficit.'' The fight will unfold during the coming
months as Democrats begin sending Bush the 12 annual spending bills, and may consume much of the rest of this year's legislative agenda.
It will play out at the margins of the federal budget, as the vast majority of spending has become politically all but untouchable. Defense and homeland-security spending, entitlements such as Social
Security and Medicare, and interest payments on the national debt now consume more than 80 percent of the government budget. The remainder pays for domestic programs ranging from the space
program to national parks and must be approved annually by Congress. Bush submitted a plan in February that would cut spending on those programs by 0.3 percent, according to a Congressional
Budget Office estimate. Falling Short Democrats say the proposal falls short of what's needed just to maintain current services, and want to spend 5 percent more, with much of the increase slated
for education, veterans and health-care programs. Democrats say the proposed increase is the minimum needed to shore up programs eroded by a dozen years of Republican budgets. ``We're not
The Republicans, he
making humungous new investments,'' says Obey, 68. ``I've never had anybody in my district say, `Why don't you guys get your act together and cut cancer research?'''
says, are attempting to block the new spending because they've ``blown the budget sky-high and now are looking for a way on the cheap to
recover their image.'' Since Bush took office in 2001, federal spending has increased 32 percent, and the budget is now equivalent to 20.3 percent of gross domestic product, the most since
1996. Pet Projects The Republicans' control of Congress, which ended in November, was marked by an explosion in pet-project spending, the creation of a costly prescription-drug entitlement
program and a string of budget deficits that peaked at $413 billion in 2004. House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, says there's
a need for the party to re-
establish its credibility with fiscal conservatives. ``For Republicans, who have a tarnished fiscal- responsibility image in the last election, it gives us an
opportunity to show people that we really are who we said we are,'' Boehner, 57, said in an interview. ``We're here for a smaller, less costly and more accountable
government.'' Each side has taken steps that may escalate the battle. The Bush administration replaced OMB Director Rob Portman, who had Good relations with Democrats, with a former
congressman from Iowa, Jim Nussle, 47, who has a reputation for partisan combativeness; he once appeared on the floor of the House with a paper bag over his head to protest an ethics scandal
involving Democrats. `Belly-Bumping' Obey called Nussle's appointment to the budget job an ``act of confrontation,'' saying the administration is replacing someone ``who at least talks the
moderation game with someone who has been a belly-bumping, hard-line conservative for a long time.'' Senate Democrats have raised the specter of difficult confirmation hearings for Nussle. ``A
number of members have spoken with me about their very real concerns about his nomination,'' says Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, 59, a North Dakota Democrat. They've
``expressed serious reservations about Mr. Nussle's reputation for confrontation.'' Conrad said in a statement July 5 that he ``anticipates'' that Nussle's confirmation hearings will take place this
month. Sean Kevelighan, the OMB spokesman, said last week that Nussle wouldn't be available for comment until he is confirmed. In his weekly radio address July 7, Bush urged Congress to
confirm Nussle, who he said would ``be a strong advocate for protecting our tax dollars here in Washington.'' Bush also renewed his threat to veto any appropriations measure that contains the ``failed
tax-and-spend policies of the past.'' Policy Changes The Democrats, meanwhile, have laced the spending bills with policy changes that they know the
White House won't accept. On June 21, one day after Bush vetoed legislation expanding federal support of embryonic stem-cell research, Democrats attached similar provisions to a
health-care spending bill. They ignored his promises to veto any legislation loosening federal abortion restrictions, passing a foreign-aid spending
bill that would allow the government to provide contraceptives to organizations that actively support abortion rights. Other changes would relax
trade restrictions with Cuba and extend employment benefits to homosexual partners of federal employees. Each has drawn a separate veto threat. Bush and the
Republicans ``should hope'' the Democrats stoke the conflict even more, says Patrick Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who heads the
Club for Growth, a Washington-based group that backs small-government candidates. ``The only way Republicans are going to make progress'' this year ``is if the
president vetoes the bills and has high- profile fights over spending,'' he says. ``It's very, very important that they have this fight.''
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Voting Blocks
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Latinos Key
Latino’s are crucial to the election
Adler, Martinez and Martin 6/28
BEN ADLER & GEBE MARTINEZ & JONATHAN MARTIN | 6/28/08 7:22 PM EST. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11418.html
Recognizing the growing political power of the nation’s largest minority, John McCain and Barack Obama both sought to woo Latinos in
back-to-back speeches on Saturday — and it’s clear each candidate has some work to do to earn their favor.
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Independents key
Independents are McCain’s only hope
The Sunday Times June 8, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4085815.ece
When you look at McCain’s campaign and ask yourself where he could bring out new voters in the same way, you come up empty. Bush
won in 2004 by marshalling evangelical voters. McCain cannot do the same thing. Without them even John Kerry would have won easily. Security mums?
It’s possible, but McCain does not have that strong an appeal to women. Veter-ans? They may well help McCain in a state such as Virginia or
Ohio. Perhaps McCain’s most promising advantage will come from independent and moderate voters intent on balancing what looks like a
Democratic sweep in the House and Senate. He could appeal to them by portraying hIMSelf as a conservative balance to a liberal
Congress. The trouble is that tactical voting has limited traction in a year where change and a desire to throw the bums out dominate the atmosphere.
"They are regular voters, they are frequent voters," Ciruli said. "They care about the economy and the war, but they also respect experience."
McCain has an uphill climb in that Obama has a head start on enlisting new voters. At this year's Colorado caucuses, it was estimated that Republican
participants had tripled, but Democrats had grown ten-fold. More than ever, the big electorate battleground will be over independent voters, Ciruli says.
"This election is going to be fought more in the middle - for those unaffiliated voters who are non-partisan," he said.
WASHINGTON — The first wave in a flood of spending by independent groups in the general election race for the White House came Tuesday
with a TV ad blasting Republican John McCain for his support of the Iraq war.
The spot was paid for by the liberal MoveOn.org Political Action and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
— two of the many outside groups and labor unions poised to spend millions to help elect Democrat Barack Obama.
POLITICS BLOG: Rate the MoveOn ad The $540,000 ad campaign is running nationwide on cable and in local TV markets in the battleground states of Ohio, Wisconsin
and Michigan. Outside groups have spent more than $25 million since Jan. 1, 2007, on "independent expenditures," and more than 70% has gone
toward Democratic candidates, according to an analysis by USA TODAY of campaign-finance data. That's nearly half of what was spent by these groups
in 2004.
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Recent figures show that it's now 41% Democrats and 31% Republicans, Rasmussen said.
"If John McCain wants to be president, he has to let Barack Obama unify the Republican base for him," Rasmussen said.
Galen, the Republican strategist, says McCain won't need all the Bush voters, though. McCain conceivably could ignore the 5% to 7% of the
vote that hard-right evangelicals comprise in favor of the 15% to 20% in moderate Republicans and independents believed to be there for
the taking.
"If that's true, that's a trade you make every day," Galen said.
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LOS ANGELES (Menafn - MarketWatch) -- Conventional wisdom has it that Sen. Barack Obama needs to win over white working-class voters and
Sen. John McCain must energize the Republican Party's conservative base if either candidate hopes to take the White House come
November.
But it may not be that simple. While the word "change" is being thrown about frequently by the two presumptive nominees for the presidency, it's
bound to be more than just rhetoric when it comes to new electoral realities and winning over 2008 voters.
McCain and Obama have to reach as many demographic groups as possible to root out voters without allegiances, and in some cases voters
from other parties.
McCain and Obama could well end up overhauling their respective party platforms when it's all over, overlap each other in appealing to
various demographics, find new sources of votes and end up turning political logic on its ear when ballots are cast in November.
But consider how polls show the two are virtually neck-and-neck and have been for several weeks. With an unpopular Republican president in office, the nation at war and
the economy faltering, those poll numbers alone defy conventional wisdom, says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist.
"By any measure, [McCain] ought to be behind by 25 points," Galen said.
To be sure, early polls are notoriously unreliable, but the situation still illustrates how topsy-turvy the race could end up becoming.
Galen and other political watchers say Obama and McCain will have to convince more than just their respective blue-collar workers and
conservative evangelicals they should be president.
They'll have to reach as many demographic groups as possible in order to root out voters without allegiances, and in some cases they may
have to enlist voters from other parties.
And certain states may fall a different way than in the past, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and even possibly California.
Expanding the base
Obama, in particular, will have to enlist those voters that supported him in the primaries and caucuses and hope that young voters and others
are out there to help him continue to expand his base, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.
Obama managed to win states where an African-American candidate would seem an unlikely choice, including Iowa, Utah, Kansas and
Montana. He also raised more than $50 million more than Clinton through April through a well-managed Internet fundraising effort.
More than just the usual Democratic voters are needed for Obama to claim victory, although making sure they're in his corner wouldn't hurt. He'll need to
break out of the same strategies that hurt Al Gore and John Kerry in their failed 2000 and 2004 bids, respectively.
"If he tries to play the old let's-divide-the-pie-up game, he's going to lose," Coker said.
Obama has to make sure he wins back some of the voters who opted for Clinton. He'll need to try to win back such states as Ohio, Florida,
Michigan and Pennsylvania, said Scott Rasmussen, whose polling firm Rasmussen Reports has been filing daily updates on presidential poll numbers.
What he doesn't make up there, he'll have to win those Western states that now are up for grabs, including Colorado, New Mexico and
Nevada. There also are other regions such as Virginia that could now be in play, he says.
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Women/Seniors
Single Women will decide the election, my evidence is predictive
Halloran April 15
Liz HalloranUS NEWS Posted April 15, 2008. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/04/15/unmarried-women-are-the-soccer-moms-of-the-2008-
presidential-election.html
Every presidential campaign season pollsters slice and dice their numbers to come up with a new class of voters destined to be key
demographic deciders come Election Day—from the "soccer moms" of 2000, to the post-9/11 "security moms" and "Nascar dads" of 2004.
This year, according to national poll results released this morning, the country could witness the historic emergence of a new and powerful voting
bloc: low-wage, change-seeking, concerned-about the country-but-still-hopeful unmarried women who lean strongly Democratic.
It's a mouthful, but bottom line, what the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research says it found in its recent survey of
American women was that unmarried women are not only the fastest growing voting demographic but are poised to become as important
to the Democrats' ability to capture the presidency as white Evangelical Christians have been to Republicans.
"The road to the White House is paved with the votes of unmarried women," says Page Gardner, president of Women's Voices, Women Vote Action Fund,
which sponsored the poll. These women, the pollsters say, represent the most profound demographic change in the nation, and the number of
unmarried women who are turning out to vote is growing at two times the rate of married women of voting age.
Their survey found that unmarried women now represent 26 percent of the electorate, essentially pulling even with married women, and
outstripping the potential voting influence of blacks and Hispanics combined, Gardner says. And that's Good news for Democrats—66
percent of the unmarried women surveyed said they planned to mark their ballots for a Democrat on Election Day. That's 13 points more than
married women who said they'll vote for a Democrat.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, says Obama will need to convince two-thirds of Hispanics to follow him. But
that may be the easy part, he says.
"For Obama, it isn't just the white working class. It's women," Sabato said. "A Democrat needs a huge majority of women." Clinton appealed to
large numbers of women, particularly those over 30, and now Obama will have to convince them to come back into the fold. The group
makes up as much as 53% of the electorate in any given contest, Sabato said. Sabato contends the working-class demographic may not have the
clout among Democrats it once had. Large portions of the group defected from the party to become Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, and
many have yet to return. "They're just not that important to the Democratic Party anymore," he said. "I would put white working-class [voters]
way down the list." All Obama needs to make sure of is that he gets at least 42% to 43% of the white vote, Sabato said.
McCain's praise of Clinton in his speech Tuesday night was seen as a move on his part to appeal to the older women voters who could
swing either way. Getting a chunk of that group will be necessary to win, as well as the vast majority of the senior crowd, says Denver pollster
Floyd Ciruli.
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Urban Workers
Urban workers are McCain’s core voting block
Britt June 5
Russ Britt, MarketWatch. Last Update: 5:39 PM ET Jun 5, 2008. http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId={CE5B4F19-5B24-466F-B30A-0B8466F97AEA}
For McCain, however, winning the white working-class is much more critical. Reagan Democrats - if they can still be called that - have
become an essential component for a Republican's hopes in any election.
Further, if McCain can capture at least 40% of the Hispanic vote, it could bolster his chances in California and other regions that are heavily
Latino. There remains a significant challenge for McCain in making sure the Republican base is there for him in November, said pollster
Rasmussen. Over the last four years, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans has become lopsided after being nearly even for decades. Until 2004,
each comprised roughly 37% of the electorate.
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Just three years ago, the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement could almost see the Promised Land. White evangelical Protestants
looked like perhaps the most potent voting bloc in America. They turned out for President George W. Bush in record numbers, supporting him for re-election by a ratio of
four to one. Republican strategists predicted that religious traditionalists would help bring about an era of dominance for their party. Spokesmen for the Christian
conservative movement warned of the wrath of “values voters.” James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, was poised to play kingmaker in 2008, at least in the
Republican primary. And thanks to President Bush, the Supreme Court appeared just one vote away from answering the prayers of evangelical activists by overturning Roe v.
Wade.
Today the movement shows signs of coming apart beneath its leaders. It is not merely that none of the 2008 Republican front-runners come
close to measuring up to President Bush in the eyes of the evangelical faithful, although it would be hard to find a cast of characters more
ill fit for those shoes: a lapsed-Catholic big-city mayor; a Massachusetts Mormon; a church-skipping Hollywood character actor; and a
political renegade known for crossing swords with the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Nor is the problem simply that the Democratic
presidential front-runners — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards — sound like a bunch of tent-revival
Bible thumpers compared with the Republicans.
Historical trends prove that the religious right has lost its power
Kirkpatrick 7
David D. Kirkpatrick is a correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. October 28, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html
The engineers of the momentous 1980s takeover that expunged political and theological moderates from the Southern Baptist Convention
are retiring or dying off, too. And in September, when I called a spokesman for the ailing Presbyterian televangelist D. James Kennedy, another pillar of the Christian
conservative movement, I learned that Kennedy had “gone home to the Lord” at 2 a.m. that morning.
Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the
movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a
focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as
about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health
and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.
The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the
leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion
of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People
who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”
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Moderates key
Moderates are a crucial constituency in swing states.
Lukasiak 08
PaulLukasiak. Independent researcher who blogs about elections. on Thu, 2008-02-28 16:29.
http://www.correntewire.com/count_whose_vote_2_independents_vs_moderates. Count Whose Vote 2: Independents vs Moderates
Yet exit
polling data reveals that the “Moderate” demographic is much larger than “Independents”. And there is no correlation between the
voting patterns of “Independents” and “Moderates”. And “Moderate” voter are the key constituency that will be crucial in swing states in
November.
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Energy and climate will be a front-burner issue in the 2008 presidential election
Daniel Kammen, Professor in the Energy and Resources Group and in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, San Francisco
Chronicle, May 18, 2008, p. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/18/IN3R10MGSK.DTL
The Democratic presidential candidates have each committed to a national energy portfolio of at least 25 percent of electricity from clean
energy sources by 2025, and all three candidates are in favor of cap-and-trade systems to build greenhouse gas markets. It is vital, but
politically challenging, to make sure that all emissions credits are auctioned, not given away to large polluters. We are now in a moment -
perhaps a first - where a growing view exists that energy and climate could be front-burner issues for candidates and voters. The time is
right to focus on the energy system we want, not on the one we had, and sadly, still have.
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Prolif
Iran Strikes Collapse the NPT
Prather in 2005
[Gordon - policy-implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration,
the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army – February 28, “June Aggression Against Iran,”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/prather/prather13.html]
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," President Bush said as he emerged from talks with European Union leaders.
Ridiculous? Let's hope so. For, according to Sirus Naseri, a senior member of Iran's delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose Board of Governors meets
next week in Vienna: "To even imply that a nuclear weapon state would attack [IAEA] Safeguarded facilities of a non-nuclear weapon state
pokes a hole right in the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it deserves to be rejected severely." And of course, Naseri is right. It
was bad enough back in 1981 when the Israelis – not a "party" to the NPT – attacked and destroyed Osiraq, a French-supplied Safeguarded research
reactor in Iraq. The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the military attack by Israel, which it considered to be "in clear violation of the Charter of the
United Nations and the norms of international conduct." Furthermore, the attack was "a serious threat to the entire safeguards regime of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, which is the foundation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons." You see, the IAEA was made the
international "safeguards" inspectorate by Article III of the NPT. The key to preventing nuke proliferation is the international control of the production,
processing, transformation and disposition of certain "nuclear" materials. In return for a promise not to acquire or seek to acquire nukes, the NPT
recognizes the "inalienable right" of all signatories to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy. But all NPT-proscribed "nuclear" materials – as well as the facilities in
which they are stored, processed, transformed or consumed – have to be made subject to an IAEA Safeguards Agreement. In the event the IAEA discovers "nuclear"
materials and/or activities that should have been "declared" but were not, it reports that failure to the IAEA Board of Governors. In the event the IAEA discovers the
"diversion" of nuclear materials – a violation of the NPT, itself – the IAEA Board may refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council for possible action. More than a year
ago, Iran voluntarily signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, vastly expanding the authority of IAEA inspectors to go anywhere and see anything.
Director General Mohamed ElBaradei reported to the IAEA Board of Governors at their last meeting that after a year-long exhaustive and intrusive inspection, he has found
no evidence that Iran has ever attempted to acquire nukes or the makings thereof. Hence, there are no violations of the NPT to report to the Security Council. Well, the neo-
crazies have gone ballistic. That's twice – first Iraq and now Iran – ElBaradei has given the lie to their charges that Islamic states had clandestine nuclear weapons programs
in violation the NPT. But, Bush is determined to get the "nuclear crisis" in Iran before the Security Council, somehow, so that he can get another ambiguous resolution that
he could then use to justify an attack – by the U.S. or Israel – on Iran's Safeguarded facilities. So what conceivable rationale could Bush manufacture? Well, later in the
U.S.-EU news conference Bush made this claim:
"The reason we're having these discussions is because [the Iranians] were caught enriching uranium after they had signed a treaty saying they wouldn't enrich uranium. These
discussions are occurring because they have breached a contract with the international community. They're the party that needs to be held to account, not any of us." Bush
manufactured all that. The EU-Iran agreement – which is being "monitored" by the IAEA – is not a "treaty." In any case, the Iranians were not "caught" enriching uranium.
As best the IAEA can determine, the Iranians have yet to enrich any uranium. The Iranians merely agreed to suspend for six months or so any attempt to do so. They did not –
initially – agree to suspend the manufacture of gas-centrifuges for enriching uranium. However, as a "confidence-building measure," they voluntarily agreed a few months
ago to suspend those activities, too. But, if the Europeans don't live up to their end of the agreement – and Bush is determined to see that they won't or can't – the Iranians
have announced that they intend to resume – probably in June – all the IAEA Safeguarded activities they have currently suspended. Maybe that's why the worst-kept
secret in Washington is that we – in cahoots with our "ally" Israel – are planning to "take out" those Safeguarded facilities in June.
So, bye-bye, NPT. Hello, mushroom-shaped clouds.
Collapse of the nonproliferation treaty in 1995 would increase significantly the prospects for the further spread of nuclear weapons around
the globe. Heightened perceptions of the likelihood of runaway proliferation, corrosion of the norm of nonproliferation, lessened assurance
about neighboring countries intentions, and a weakening of nuclear export controls are but some of the direct results of the treaty’s
breakdown. As a result, the world would become more dangerous, and all countries’ security—both former parties and outside critics—would be gradually undermined.
To elaborate, one direct impact of a breakdown of the NPT in 1995 would be to change international perceptions of the likelihood of widespread nuclear proliferation. More
specifically, over the nearly two decades since the NPT entered into force in 1970, perceptions held by government leaders, observers, and others about the prospects for the
spread of nuclear weapons have markedly changed. In the early 1960s, it was widely expected that there would be twenty to twenty-five nuclear-weapon states by the mid-
1070s. In the late 1980s, it is now widely assumed that such proliferation can be prevented. The very fact that more than 135 countries have renounced nuclear weapons by
adhering to the NPT has greatly contributed to this change of perception. Particularly, if the treaty’s collapse followed several highly visible nonproliferation breakdowns,
there would be many fears that the earlier predictions, though premature, were correct. Such fears would be further reinforced if after a failure to renew the treaty many
parties were reluctant to reaffirm otherwise their commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons.
This perception of the likelihood of more widespread proliferation could well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders of countries that had
renounced nuclear weapons would now be asking whether such renunciation would be reciprocated by other countries, especially their close neighbors. At the least, some
countries could be expected to hedge their bets by starting low-visibility programs to explore the steps needed to acquire nuclear weapons. In other countries that had
already been weighing the pros and cons of covert pursuit of nuclear weapons, a perception that many countries might soon move toward
nuclear weapons in the decades after 1995 could tip the balance for a national decision.
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Prolif
Prolif leads to Extinction
Utgoff in ‘02
(Victor, Deputy Director for Strategy, Forces and Resources at the Institute for Defense Analyses, Survival, “Proliferation, Missile Defense and American Ambitions”,
Volume 44, Number 2, Summer, p. 87-90)
the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain
First,
nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider
preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent's nuclear programme or defeat
the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as
biological weapons.
Second, as the world approaches complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over . Fifty or
more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances
of such weapons falling into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities.
Increased prospects for the occasional nuclear shootout
Worse still, in
a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons. And more frequent
opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used, unless the probability of use at any
opportunity is actually zero. To be sure, some theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in any confrontation between two states known to have reliable
nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero.' These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would
always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders
with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states known to possess
nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict. China and Russia fought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover,
logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had
them. Again, history provides counter-examples. Egypt attacked Israel in 1973 even though it saw Israel as a nuclear power at the time. Argentina invaded the Falkland
Islands and fought Britain's efforts to take them back, even though Britain had nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to
devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But
history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a 'victory or
destruction' policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat.' And Japan's war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing,
suggested 'Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?" If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use
of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat
of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually
talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and thorough assessments of all options from
all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in
intense and fast-moving crises between nuclear-armed states .6 Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret
the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior
decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not recognise clearly
where their personal or party interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully. They can refuse to
believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals
should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad
decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could
flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. 'These people are not willing to die for this interest'. 'No sane person would actually use such weapons'. 'Perhaps the opponent
will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons'. 'If I don't hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from
office, if not killed'. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a nuclear crisis or war, such words from others, or silently from within, might resonate too readily
with a harried leader. Thus, both history and human nature suggest that nuclear deterrence can be expected to fail from time to time, and we are fortunate it has not happened
yet. But the threat of nuclear war is not just a matter of a few weapons being used. It could get much worse. Once a conflict reaches the point where nuclear weapons are
employed, the stresses felt by the leaderships would rise enormously. These stresses can be expected to further degrade their decision-making. The pressures to force the
enemy to stop fighting or to surrender could argue for more forceful and decisive military action, which might be the right thing to do in the circumstances, but maybe not.
And the horrors of the carnage already suffered may be seen as justification for visiting the most devastating punishment possible on the enemy.' Again, history demonstrates
how intense conflict can lead the combatants to escalate violence to the maximum possible levels. In the Second World War, early promises not to bomb cities soon gave way
to essentially indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s led to the use of chemical weapons on both sides and exchanges of
missiles against each other's cities. And more recently, violence in the Middle East escalated in a few months from rocks and small arms to heavy weapons on one side, and
from police actions to air strikes and armoured attacks on the other. Escalation of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of
violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants beforehand.' Intense and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And such
anger can lead us t0 impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible.
In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a
substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a
world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a
while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.
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Turkish Relations
Strikes collapse Turkish Relations
REUTERS in 2005
[December 30, http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,392783,00.html]
Still, Erdogan has been demonstrably friendly towards Israel recently -- as evidenced by Erdogan's recent phone call to Ariel Sharon, congratulating the prime minister on his
recent recovery from a mild stroke. In the past, relations between Erdogan and Sharon have been reserved, but recently the two have grown closer. Nevertheless, Turkey's
government has distanced itself from Sharon's threats to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon on his own if nobody else steps up to
the task.
The Turkish government has also repeatedly stated that it opposes military action against both Iran and Syria. The key political motivation
here is that -- at least when it comes to the Kurdish question -- Turkey, Syria and Iran all agree on one thing: they are opposed to the
creation of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.
In developing this relationship, Turkey's special ties with the region again appeared to be an important asset for U.S. policy. Turkey had a lot to
offer: Not only did Turkey have strong political, cultural and economic connections to the region, but it had also accumulated a significant intelligence capability in the
region. Moreover, the large experience Turkey accumulated in fighting Terrorism would be made available in expanding the global war on Terrorism to this region.[43] As a
result, after the locus of interest shifted to a possible operation against Afghanistan, and then to assuring the collaboration of the countries
in Central Asia, Turkish analysts soon discovered that Turkey's geo-strategic importance was once again on the rise. It was thought that, thanks
to its geography's allowing easy access to the region, and its strong ties with the countries there, Turkey could play a pivotal role in the conduct of U.S.
military operations in Afghanistan, and reshaping the politics in Central Asia: "Turkey is situated in a critical geographic position on and
around which continuous and multidimensional power struggles with a potential to affect balance of power at world scale take place. The
arcs that could be used by world powers in all sort of conflicts pass through Turkey. Turkish territory, airspace and seas are not only a necessary element to any force
projection in the regions stretching from Europe and Asia to the Middle East, Persian Gulf, and Africa, but also make it possible to control its neighborhood... All these
features made Turkey a center that must be controlled and acquired by those aspiring to be world powers... In the new process, Turkey's importance has increased in
American calculations. With a consistent policy, Turkey could capitalize on this to derive some practical benefits... Turkey has acquired a new
opportunity to enhance its role in Central Asia."[44]
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Oil Spikes
Iran strikes spark Terrorism and oil price spikes
McConnel in 2006
[Scott – Founder of the American Conservative - March 27, The American Conservative, “Mission Improbable,” http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_03_27/feature.html]
<It’s not only Brownback. Robert Kagan, the hawkish neoconservative author and Washington Post columnist who has the distinction of co-authoring dozens of articles and
editorials with The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, including the original pieces calling for war against Iraq, writes that the likely costs of a military strike against
Iran’s nuclear facilities “outweigh the benefits.”
That’s almost certainly true. While air strikes against Iran would have no assurance of eliminating that country’s hardened and dispersed nuclear
program, Iran would have many retaliatory cards to play through Shi’ite militias or terrorist groups in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Lebanon, Israel, and the Strait of Hormuz. Unless the U.S. is ready to accept, as an outcome of inconclusive air strikes, oil at $200 a barrel,
many more body bags coming home from Iraq, and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of God knows who, it must recognize
the military option is a very poor one. >
In April, the merchant bank Goldman Sachs warned that a ‘super-spike’ in oil prices might drive the cost of a barrel of crude up to $105, twice what
they are at the time I’m writing this in early June. $105 would also be six times the average price between 1987 and 2000.
The bank referred to a ‘spike’ because prices could not stay at the $100 level for more than a few months without causing the collapse of
the world economy. This would happen because we would all be spending so much more to buy our oil that we would be unable to carry
on buying other things at the rate we do at present, particularly as the prices of other fuels would rise in step with that of oil.
As a result of the diversion of our spending, factories around the world would find they had spare capacity. They would lay off staff and
cancel expansion projects and, as construction work is so energy intensive, its cessation would cause oil demand to fall rapidly. This is exactly
what happened the last time its price went significantly above the $20 level in 1972 money. Millions of people would become unemployed and cut their spending to the bare
minimum, causing other people to lose their jobs too. A global depression could develop in which the lack of activity in the world economy could
cause the price of oil in today’s money to plummet from $100 back to around $15 a barrel again.
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Other Impacts
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"In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain
campaign," the Wall Street Journal reported. And how to make up for the lost revenues? Hmmm. McCain promises to cut earmarks; to eliminate waste, fraud,
and abuse; and to reduce the projected growth of Medicare; but he won't provide many numbers. As the WSJ deadpanned: "The cost will make it
difficult for him to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by the end of his first term." That's perhaps the understatement of the year. The 2009 budget calls
for a deficit of $407 billion on projected receipts of $2.7 trillion*, as this table shows. Essentially, McCain wants to cut revenues by about 15
percent from current levels, with nothing close to that in spending reductions, in a time when, even after spending excess Social Security payroll taxes, the deficit is
running at more than $400 billion. Here's some straight talk: McCain's fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.
High deficits will decrease the savings rate and destroy the financial system leading to an economic downturn
Reuters, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A ballooning budget deficit and low savings rate pose risks to the U.S. economy and the financial system, New York
Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.
"The current deterioration in the U.S. fiscal position and the acute decline in the net national savings rate represent risks to the financial
system and the economy as a whole," Geithner told the New York Banker's Association.
Geithner said such looming risks were made all the more worrying by the size of the U.S. current account deficit and the unprecedented scale
of financing needed to fund it.
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McCain spoke bluntly about the Bush administration's contributions to halting global warming, saying they "would be judged harshly" by history. "As far as what we've
done, in two words: not enough, not enough, not enough," he said. A key way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, would be to increase the use of nuclear
power. When asked after the forum how he proposed to dispose of high level nuclear waste, McCain said, "My preference is that we store it.
I always thought that Yucca Mountain was the right place to do it." "It's not a problem of technology. It's a problem of political will. We
have now the worst of all worlds, because we have nuclear waste sites around every nuclear power plant in America, which provides us
with the greatest challenge to our security," he said. "So I would try and resolve it and I would try to go back and revisit the Yucca
Mountain issue, but I would do everything in my power to resolve it."
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CTBT Good—Terrorism
Failure of US to ratify CTBT will enable terrorists to use nuclear weapons
Caldicott 2
Helen Caldicott, Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, 2002, p. XVII-XVIII
The Bush administration boycotted the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Conference (CTBT) at the United Nations in November 2001 and had the
audacity to remove its nameplate from its seat in the conference room. A week before, at a General Assembly meeting, the U.S. was the only country
to vote against placing the CTBT on the General Assembly's agenda for 2002. Washington has signed, but the Senate has not ratified the
treaty, which would ban all above- and below-ground nuclear testing. As a group of nongovernment organizations said, "Failure to act may lead to a
cascade of proliferation events that will enable future terrorists to use nuclear weapons."
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CTBT Good—IMS
US ratification of the CTBT only way to ensure the continuation of the International Monitoring System
New Scientist, June 8, 2002, “Someone to watch over Us”, p. Lexis
In a military-style nerve centre in Vienna, a bunch of scientists are watching over the entire planet. Giant computers process a torrent of data that pours in through secure
satellite links from seismic detectors all over the globe, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Today they have seen nothing unusual. Tomorrow could be different. But let's
hope not, for these are the scientists charged with spotting whether someone, somewhere has decided to explode a nuclear bomb. Their network is the International
Monitoring System, an unprecedented global surveillance system. Designed to warn of illicit nuclear tests, the IMS is not yet operating at
full strength. But when--or more importantly, if--it gets there, it will also be able to notify us almost instantly about a host of other large-
scale disasters. These range from natural events such as earthquakes, incoming meteorites and huge turbulent waves to human-made
disasters such as nuclear accidents. There's just one problem; the network may never reach its full potential. This week politicians are meeting in
Vienna to discuss the fate of the IMS. No one knows if it will survive. The future of the IMS is bound up with the survival of the increasingly
fragile-looking Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, designed to outlaw nuclear weapons tests. If the CTBT dies, the network that was built to
help enforce it will be in jeopardy too. Loss of the IMS would be a huge blow not just to the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, but also to
all the humanitarian and disaster relief agencies that might have used the system. For now, though, the plan remains as it was; to grow the network over
five years until it is processing 10 gigabytes of data each day. This will stream data in near real time from a global network of 170 seismic stations, 11 hydro-acoustic stations
monitoring underwater explosions, and 60 infrasound arrays listening for the low boom of atmospheric blasts, plus 40 radionuclide detectors that check the air daily for the
gases and radioactive particles released by nuclear tests. "It's the synergy that makes it powerful," says Peter Marshall of Britain's Atomic Weapons Establishment, who
headed the scientific panel that designed the IMS. If seismographs detect vibrations beneath the seabed, but hydroacoustic microphones do not hear
an explosion, then it is an earthquake, not a secret underwater nuclear test. But an unexplained infrasound rumble plus a gust of caesium at
a radionuclide detector could be an atmospheric bomb test. The radioactive signal without the infrasound, however, would sound the alarm
that someone was concealing a serious nuclear accident. It was when monitoring stations in Sweden picked up just such a signal in 1986
that the world was alerted to the Chernobyl accident. And that could be just a fringe benefit. Researchers are also confident that the
network will reveal global phenomena that they cannot now predict. All this is now in doubt because of uncertainty over the test ban treaty.
Agreed in 1996, the CTBT needs to be ratified by another 13 of the 44 nations with nuclear reactors before it comes into force. The most important nation of all, the US, has
already said it won't sign, and Israel is just one country likely to follow its lead. "The future of the CTBT verification system depends on the renewal of
political support from the US for the treaty itself," says Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, a think tank in Washington DC. And India and
Pakistan's current demonstration of the power that comes with the bomb might mean that even fewer states are likely to sign up.
IMS provides crucial data needed to distinguish between incoming meteors and nuclear weapons
New Scientist, July 20, 2002, “Ray of hope for test ban treaty”, p. Lexis
There's a suspicious flash over a remote part of the world. It looks like a rogue nuclear test and international panic breaks out. Yet it could
be a harmless meteor going pop in the upper atmosphere. Now researchers say they can tell the two apart using openly available infrasound
data. If they are right, it's Good news for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is currently languishing as the US refuses to sign, partly on the
grounds that it is not enforceable. American military satellites are almost certainly able to tell the difference between exploding meteors, known
as bolides, and nukes by looking at the radiation they give off. But the Pentagon doesn't release data from these satellites until weeks or
months after the event. One alternative is to listen in to low-frequency infrasound shock waves, which travel up to 1000 kilometres from
the site of a nuclear explosion. Dozens of infrasound stations are preparing to join the CTBT's enforcement network, so there is a pressing
need to be able to interpret the signals in real time. Now Elisabeth Blanc and colleagues at the French Atomic Energy Commission in Paris say they've solved the
problem. They analysed data on a bolide that landed in Tahiti in 2000, releasing as much energy as a nuclear bomb, equivalent to around 3 kilotons of TNT. In work accepted
at The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America they say they can reconstruct the path taken by an exploding meteor by combining infrasound from several nearby
stations. "An explosion is a point source while a meteorite is a moving source, producing infrasound for a few seconds," says Blanc. Meanwhile Doug ReVelle and colleagues
at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have shown that infrasound can be more reliable than satellite images. They point out that porous
meteorites can release up to ten times as much energy as hard rocks, making them look far brighter to satellites than expected for their size.
Terry Wallace, a seismologist at the University of Arizona who has testified to the US government on the possibility of verifying the CTBT, says the work
is important for the success of the treaty. It doesn't rely on high technology, so other countries don't have to depend on the US, he says.
"Infrasound is a very open technology."
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CTBT GOOD—IMS
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Left unchecked, this arms race will cause an accidental or even intentional nuclear exchange
Ahmed 1
Samina Ahmed, Research Fellow at Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, “Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: U.S. Policy Challenges,”
Foreign Policy in Focus, July, 2001, p. http://fpif.org/briefs/vol6/v6n28nuclear.html
Should future U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation entail a tacit U.S. acceptance of operational nuclear weapons in India, a retaliatory Pakistani deployment is inevitable.
Deliverable nuclear arsenals in South Asia would impair vital U.S. regional and global interests. The nonproliferation regime would
weaken as other states are encouraged to follow the South Asian example. If the U.S. pursues a policy of containing China through a nuclear-armed India,
heightened Sino-Indian tensions could result in a Sino-Indian nuclear arms race. Above all, the presence of operational nuclear arsenals in
India and Pakistan would increase the threat of an accidental, unauthorized, or even intentional nuclear exchange, damaging all U.S. interests in
the region: political, strategic, and commercial.
US ratification of CTBT needed to head off a further nuclear arms race in South Asia
Kashvili 00
GENERAL JOHN KASHVILI (RET.), SPECIAL ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR CTBT, TO THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT
FOR INTERNATIONANL PEACE NONPROLIFERATION CONFERENCE, Federal News Service, March 16, 2000, p. Lexis
The CTBT reinforces the strategic arms reduction process. It confirms that neither the United States nor Russia is making significant qualitative improvements
in its arsenal, which fosters the stable environment for further
reductions in nuclear arms. The CTBT can help head off a further nuclear arms race in South Asia, the place where the risk of nuclear war is
perhaps the highest now. India and Pakistan are bitter rivals who have fought three wars since independence in 1947, and who both conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
Persuading them to formalize their testing moratorium through the CTBT is a major goal of the international community. But it surely is
not easy asking them to give up a legal right to test if we desire to retain ours.
US ratification of the CTBT will cause India and Pakistan to sign on as well
LaVera 99
Damien LaVera, Programs and Communications Director at Lawyers Alliance for World Security,
“The Time for Senate Action on the CTBT is Now: A Response to Conservative Criticisms of the Treaty,” Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, June 22, 1999, p.
http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/ laws062299.htm
While Spring is correct to state that the Treaty will not enter into force in the immediate future, rapid ratification of the CTBT is in the vital national security
interest of the United States. The five nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China, have participated in a voluntary moratorium on
nuclear testing since 1995, and there have been no U.S. nuclear tests since 1992. Instead, these nations are working to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons by
strengthening the international norm against testing. U.S. ratification of the CTBT, which will likely encourage other signatories to ratify, would
bolster the anti-testing norm and help to increase the pressure on India and Pakistan to sign. In addition, the United States has participated in the
current moratorium without any verification regime. CTBT entry into force would benefit the United States by internationalizing and solidifying the
moratorium on testing and by instituting an effective global verification regime designed to assure CTBT compliance. The current
inclination of conservatives in the Senate to not ratify until enough other states have ratified is an abdication of U.S. leadership in the field
of nuclear non-proliferation and contrary to U.S. national security. In any case, both India and Pakistan indicated immediately after
conducting their nuclear explosive tests that they would not stand in the way of CTBT entry into force. Presumably this means that, should the rest
of the 44 required states sign and ratify the Treaty, so too would India and Pakistan. The prospect of putting direct pressure on India and Pakistan to live up
to this pledge, and thereby cap their nascent nuclear programs, adds greater urgency to the need for Senate action on the Treaty.
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CTBT GOOD—INDO-PAK
US ratification of the CTBT would strengthen the resolve of India and Pakistan
Nitze and Drell 99
Paul Nitze and Sidney Drell, Former Arms Control Negotiator; and Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, “This Treaty Must Be
Ratified,” Washington Post, June 21, 1999, p. http://www.clw.org/coalition/nitzedrell062199.htm
Approval of the CTBT by the Senate is essential in order for the United States to be in the strongest possible position to press for the early
enforcement of this vital agreement. Failure to act will undercut our diplomatic efforts to combat the threat from the proliferation of
nuclear weapons. The president rightly has referred to the CTBT as the `longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in the history of arms control.' President Eisenhower was the
first American leader to pursue a ban on nuclear testing as a means to curb the nuclear arms race. Today, such a ban would constrain advanced and not-so-
advanced nuclear weapons states from developing more sophisticated and dangerous nuclear weapons capabilities. This is particularly
important in South Asia. Last year, both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, threatening a dangerous escalation of their nuclear
arms competition. Both countries now have expressed a commitment to adhere to the CTBT this year. U.S. ratification would remove any
excuse for inaction on the part of these nations and would strengthen their resolve. The CTBT also fulfills a commitment made by the nuclear powers in
gaining the agreement of 185 nations to extend indefinitely the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995. The NPT remains the cornerstone of the worldwide effort to limit
the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear danger.
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Lack of trust of Iran guarantees that its nuclear acquisition will trigger proliferation throughout the region
and nuclear war
Nye 06 - Professor of International Politics at Harvard [Joseph S. Nye, a former Assistant US Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, “Should Iran Be Attacked?,”
Monday , 29 May 2006, pg. http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2105]
<<Would an Iranian bomb really be so bad? Some argue that it could become the basis of stable nuclear deterrence in the region, analogous to the nuclear
standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But statements by Iranian leaders denying the Holocaust and urging the
destruction of Israel have not only cost Iran support in Europe, but are unlikely to make Israel willing to gamble its existence on the prospect of
stable deterrence.
Nor is it likely that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others will sit passively while the Persian Shia gain the bomb. They will likely follow suit,
and the more weapons proliferate in the volatile Middle East, the more likely it is that accidents and miscalculations could lead to their use.
Moreover, there are genuine fears that rogue elements in a divided Iranian government might leak weapons technology to terrorist groups.>>
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<Before accepting the answer that the US can deal with an Iranian nuclear bomb, four further risks must be weighed: the threat of proliferation,
the danger of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch, the risk of theft of an Iranian weapon or materials, and the prospect of a preemptive Israeli attack.
'A cascade of proliferation'
The current nonproliferation regime is a set of agreements between the nuclear "haves" and "have-nots," including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, in which 184 nations
agreed to eschew nuclear weapons and existing nuclear weapons states pledged to sharply diminish the role of such weapons in international politics. Since 1970, the treaty
has stopped the spread of nuclear weapons with only two exceptions (India and Pakistan).
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change warned in December 2004 that current developments in Iran
and North Korea threatened to erode the entire nonproliferation regime to a point of "irreversibility" that could trigger a "cascade of
proliferation." If Iran crosses its nuclear finish line, a Middle Eastern cascade of new nuclear weapons states could produce the first
multiparty nuclear arms race, far more volatile than the Cold War competition between the US and USSR.
Given Egypt's historic role as the leader of the Arab Middle East, the prospects of it living unarmed alongside a nuclear Persia are very
low. The International Atomic Energy Agency's reports of clandestine nuclear experiments hint that Cairo may have considered this possibility. Were Saudi Arabia to
buy a dozen nuclear warheads that could be mated to the Chinese medium-range ballistic missiles it purchased secretly in the 1980s, few in
the American intelligence community would be surprised. Given its role as the major financier of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear program in the 1980s, it is not
out of the question that Riyadh and Islamabad have made secret arrangements for this contingency.
In 1962, bilateral competition between the US and the Soviet Union led to the Cuban missile crisis, which historians now call "the most dangerous moment in human
history." After the crisis, President Kennedy estimated the likelihood of nuclear war as "between 1 in 3 and even." A multiparty nuclear arms race in the Middle
East would be like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in a six-chamber revolver-dramatically increasing the likelihood of a regional
nuclear war.>
Strikes will trigger an Iranian Glasnost. An overthrow of the mullahs cannot happen without external
military action – this takes out all your retaliation arguments
Lewis 06 [James Lewis, “Military Strikes and a Democratic Future for Iran,” The American Thinker, January 25th, 2006, pg.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5189]
<<The Khomeinist regime in Iran is finally baring its teeth to the world, in the public appearances of the little fanatic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran’s nuclear build-up
has been going on for two decades, and the regime is now openly laughing at diplomatic efforts by the Europeans to make it stand down its nuclear development. In addition
to a dozen smuggled Ukrainian cruise missiles, the regime is now in possession of some 25 North Korean missiles with a 2,500 km range. Paris is well within range of
Tehran’s WMDs, as Jacques Chirac acknowledged last week when he told Iran that terror attacks in France could lead to a nuclear response.
The paradox is that the regime is most vigorously hated by its own people, who have suffered the most. The most attractive outcome, therefore, would be
a Iranian Glastnost - a quiet overthrow of the mullocracy by its own figurative children, the people of Iran, especially the educated urban dwellers. The
USSR crumbled when the children of the elite stopped believing. The children of the mullahs, most of them, have long ago stopped believing. Yet they are now being
governed by a creature of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard, who proclaIMS hIMSelf as a true believer in a Shiite Armageddon.
Ahmadinejad is not Gorbachev, but rather Stalin or Hitler. A peaceful revolt will not work by itself, but it can be a crucial ingredient.
Iranian Glastnost will therefore not happen without external military actions to render the regime visibly impotent before its people. When
the US and UK invaded Saddam’s Iraq, his army crumbled in the face of a brilliant ground and air assault. The Kurds had in fact already rebelled
after the Gulf War a decade before, and created their own autonomous region. A decade of US air attacks, combined with famously leaky sanctions, rendered Saddam’s
military demoralized and unable to resist coherently.
Unbeknownst to us, Saddam was bluffing, putting up a creaky but intimidating front, terrorizing his own people, and hyping his goal of getting WMDs and missiles enough
to fool the CIA and every other western intelligence agency.
Saddam’s real plan was to fall back on the insurgency we see today. But today the insurgency is on its last legs, led by Sunni Baathists who can hope for no mercy from the
new Iraq, and by al Qaeda terrorists rejected by even the Baathist terror-brothers, and prepared for martyrdom. Zarqawi, it was just reported, sleeps with a bomb belt, so as to
blow hIMSelf up if he is caught. He may get his chance very soon.
The conventional story peddled by the antique media is that US action in Iraq is a failure. On the contrary, by historical standards it is an extraordinary success, as successful
as the liberation of Europe in World War Two. The Iraq action therefore provides many useful lessons for a policy to isolate, contain, and undermine
the Tehran regime.>>
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<<The Nature of the Threat T he Islamic Republic of Iran is the greatest and most urgent threat to the new regional order in the Middle East and to
American hegemony in world affairs. Iran actively supports the insurgency in Iraq against the establishment of a pro-American regime that is clearly
more liberal than that of Saddam Hussein. Teheran encourages the radical Shiite elements in Iraq in order to promote the establishment of another Islamic republic. It
opposes a more liberal regime that could potentially serve as a catalyst for democratization in the area. M oreover, Iran is allied with Syria, another
radical state with an anti-American predisposition, and seeks to create a radical corridor from Iran to the Mediterranean. Iran also lends critical support to terrorist
organizations such as Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Indeed, the Iranian nuclear program is primarily designed to provide a strategic response
to American hegemony in world affairs. Teheran wants to be able to continue to oppose American policies and to deter possible American
action against the radical Islamic regime. At the same time, its nuclear program threatens regional stability in the Middle East. >>
United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to
<Under the third option, the
multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but
because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be
more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of
dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and
low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the
world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would
therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.>
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With a few nuclear missiles, Iran knows it could dictate the strategic landscape of the Persian Gulf - bullying Gulf sheikdoms over border
disputes and petroleum output and claiming the forefront in the Islamist struggle against Israel. A "Persian bomb" wins national prestige
and quells dissidents at home, while ensuring enough unpredictability to keep oil prices sky-high.
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2. Economic Uncertainty—High taxes kill businesses ability to predict their income and productivity due to
uncertainty on the amount of loss from taxes AND, Economic uncertainty paves the way for a collapse
Hanke, 2004
Steve Hanke is a professor of applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University, 10-4-04, http://www.cato.org/research/articles/hanke-041004.html
One reason economic statistics are weak: Businesses are hoarding cash and stockpiling commodities. Can we blame them? Recent economic indicators resemble that old
chestnut about the weather--if you don't like it today, just wait until tomorrow. This volatility, coupled with the lack of discernible trends, has kept stocks on edge for
months. Will the stomach-churning swings in the economic data end soon? Probably not. The invasion of Iraq has opened Pandora's box, unleashing a plethora of
troubles. The ponderable ones are risks that can be quantified, managed and insured or hedged against, at a cost. The imponderables generate uncertainty. Beyond the
quantifiable pale, uncertainty forces even the shrewdest executives to take a leap in the dark. Operating under the increasing weight of risk and uncertainty, the
economy, not surprisingly, has hit a soft patch. Increased levels of risk and uncertainty cause people to make adjustments. We have to look no further than the reaction of
Floridians to the hurricane alerts that have gone out in recent weeks. With the first signs of trouble, people in the prospective path of destruction go on hoarding and
stockpiling sprees. The rush for provisions has also accompanied the increased level of risk and uncertainty associated with the so-called war on Terrorism. Indeed, U.S.
businesses have taken hoarding to new levels. Moody's has reported that the ratio of liquid financial assets to debt on the balance sheets of U.S. nonfinancial companies has
recently hit a 35-year high. Given the course of events in the Middle East, the hoarding of cash has been prudent. How has it been accomplished? By cutting costs and
improving productivity, businesses have increased cash flow. They have hung on to the cash by shying away from capital expenditures. While the hoarding of cash has
dramatically improved the balance sheets of businesses, it has left the economy starved of fuel. For one, employment growth has been sluggish. Also, investment--the big
swing factor that gives rise to booms and busts--has been flat.
3. Investor Confidence—High taxes lowers investment levels creating a perception of collapse for investors
AND, Investor confidence is key to the economy
Fornelli—2007
(Cindy Fornelli is the Executive Director at the Center for Audit Quality, “Investor confidence is easy to shake, hard to restore” 5/21/07
http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=24190&print=yes )
And I am not alone on this point. Last year, 261 financial executives interviewed for the Oversight Systems Financial Executive Report were clear: With investors now
expressing more confidence in financial reporting, they don't want any relaxation of standards for smaller companies. And, ultimately, investor
confidence is what this is all about. Investors are entitled to credible assurances about the financial records they rely on in making investment decisions.
This should be true whether they're investing in large companies or the smaller start-ups that are the backbone of our economy. Subjecting those companies to the same requirements
as larger companies will help, not hinder, their growth.
4. Stock Markets—Higher taxes kill investor movement through taxes which kills the market which our
Forbes evidence indicates is key to the economy’
5. Business Confidence—High taxes hurt business confidence by creating a perception that the businesses
will have to spend more money for the same products AND, Business confidence is key to the economy
Chicago Tribune, 2003
Chicago Tribune, 2003 (“NEWLY CONFIDENT CONSUMERS NEED SOME COMPANY” LN)
Ben Herzon, senior economist with Macroeconomic Advisors of St. Louis, sees all kinds of positive trends the rest of us probably knew about. There's the end of the Iraq war, a weak dollar that will spur exports, a rising stock market, low inflation and the impending
buying long after it was clear the economy was dead, before finally giving up during last year's holiday season. Not so the corporations. They kept their checkbooks snapped shut. Back orders of non-defense capital Goods have fallen steadily, in fact, since October
of 2000--roughly the point at which economists first started noting the signs of a slowing economy. Back orders hit their low last December. They rose for the first time in January, but only a smidgen. They jumped 0.7 percent in February. In March they climbed 1.8
want, but they can't turn the economy by themselves. Business spending has always been the missing factor. Without it, the economy
remains slow. Sure, factory orders rose in March, but so did unemployment claIMS. That meant that the uptick in spending wasn't strong enough for companies to commit to hiring new workers. But if back orders are building, this could change.
Companies that can't fill orders start hiring new people. And when those hires start, economic vigor begins, too. Consumer confidence
is one thing. If business confidence returns, then this economy just might turn around.
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High deficits will decrease the savings rate and destroy the financial system leading to an economic downturn
Reuters, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A ballooning budget deficit and low savings rate pose risks to the U.S. economy and the financial system, New York
Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.
"The current deterioration in the U.S. fiscal position and the acute decline in the net national savings rate represent risks to the financial
system and the economy as a whole," Geithner told the New York Banker's Association.
Geithner said such looming risks were made all the more worrying by the size of the U.S. current account deficit and the unprecedented scale
of financing needed to fund it.
7. Rolling back tax cuts would cause interest rates to skyrocket killing the economy
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2004
Even so, let's consider what might happen if Democrats got their wish and clobbered the rich with a tax increase.
One result would likely be higher interest rates -- precisely the opposite of what happened in the 1990s -- especially if last year's cuts in dividend and capital gains were
repealed.
Follow the logic: Taking back Bush's capital gains and dividend tax cuts alone would reduce the returns on investment. With rewards diminished,
less capital would be put at risk. Less investment would occur in new business ventures. The stock market would plunge.
Foreign investors would immediately recalibrate America's future growth potential. Capital that might have found a home here would end
up elsewhere. To compensate, interest rates would have to rise to prop up the dollar, triggering a vicious cycle: Rising rates would slow
economic growth, further reducing investment returns and further undercutting America's ability to compete for capital.
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Sen. Clinton, unlike many of her fellow candidates, has chosen to focus a significant portion of her campaign rhetoric on China’s economic impact
on the United States, which she says is causing “a slow erosion of our own economic sovereignty.”
In February 2007, after the Dow Jones Industrial
Average dropped by 416 points as a result of a “scare in the Chinese stock market,” Clinton wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging them to take action to reduce Chinese-owned debts. She is also concerned
about China’s economic practices, including the revaluation of the yuan, saying in a CNBC interview that she wants “the countries with
whom we do business to have protections for intellectual property; I want them to have a rule of law that is enforceable; I want them to not
manipulate their currency.” With fellow candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) Clinton will cosponsor a bill to penalize China (FT) if it does not
act to revalue its currency. Clinton has been critical of China ’s human rights record as well.
China-bashing legislation destroys the WTO and causes global trade wars
Ikenson 8/20/2007 (Daniel, associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute, “Dark Days Ahead?”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8649)
But policymakers fail to acknowledge this crucial relationship. Instead, too many in Congress view exports as Good, imports as bad, and the trade account as the scoreboard.
Given the large and growing U.S. trade deficit, policymakers conclude that we are losing at trade. And we are losing at trade because our trade
partners are cheating. In China's case the alleged cheating involves currency manipulation, subsidization of industry, unfair labor practices, hidden
market barriers, dumping, and other transgressions. Some of these allegations may carry a degree of truth, but by and large the trade relationship has been conducted within
the rules and consensually, yielding huge benefits for Americans. In any event, the proper course for redress for complaints is through the dispute settlement system of the
World Trade Organization. The Bush administration lodged three formal complaints earlier this year, which are working their way through the process. Congress should allow
that process to continue and restrain its urge to be seen doing something. There is a distinct risk that unilateral, punitive actions on trade could severely
damage the trade relationship and lead to a contagious deterioration of respect for the WTO and its decisions. That, ultimately, would take
us back to the days when tit-for-tat trade wars were common, and uncertainty in trade prevailed.
For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear war. The specter of nuclear winter freezing
the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that
threat. The truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own prosperity, but also to forestall conflict with
other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some
Seattle protesters clearly fancy themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past. But they're
not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or paranoia about global government. Actually, most of the
demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father
of the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work together rather than strive against each other. These and
other war protesters would probably approve of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have
been settled by bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports to other countries, they
have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so important. As exports to the
United States and the rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases demand for the Goods we produce, the threat
of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only multinational corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the
everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just plain wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies
that make high-tech Goods. And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many people have Good jobs at
Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work at
Boeing would lose their livelihoods without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of
jobs for everyday workers. Growing global prosperity has helped counter the specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to
live and work together, like the singers of anti-war songs once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world
trade. They should be celebrating it.
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The U.S. commercial nuclear industry may need to store its own high-level waste on-site for many more years. 261 As a result, the
commercial nuclear industry and its associated state governments will only increase their protests, resisting the acceptance of foreign waste
until the DOE actually begins to accept domestic waste for storage. To avoid increased domestic discontent regarding acceptance of foreign waste, the U.S. government must
begin acting responsibly at least to move toward meeting its January 31, 1998 deadline. 262 The United States now appears ready to follow the example of
other nuclear nations and construct an interim storage facility before building a permanent storage facility. 263 The DOE, however, does not believe that it has
the statutory authority to mandate this interim storage solution. 264 In addition, the secretary of energy expressed concern that the planned interim storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada will become a "de facto" permanent site
Congress and the president chose Yucca Mountain as the
before the department can determine whether siting a permanent storage facility is feasible. 265 In the NWPA amendments of 1987,
site for the permanent storage facility. 266 The DOE studied Yucca Mountain for ten [*479] years, assessing its appropriateness as a
permanent storage site. 267 The Yucca Mountain site remains the only suggested location. 268 An interim storage facility at Yucca
Mountain would alleviate the U.S. domestic storage problem. It would also facilitate U.S. international nuclear nonproliferation goals by
providing storage space to accept foreign waste under programs like RERTR. As a less appealing alternative, the United States could continue to accept
these relatively smaller amounts of international waste at federal facilities, such as Savannah River. An interim storage facility would allow the United States
to continue its support of the goals set forth in Article IV of the NPT. 269 If such a facility existed in 1995, for example, the United States could have
immediately accepted all of Russia's HEU. 270 If such a facility exists in the near future, the United States could at least temporarily hold North
Korea's SNF until reprocessing or other storage becomes available. 271 The United States will enjoy this type of flexibility in the future if a centralized storage system is in place. Under
the DOE's current interpretation of the applicable laws, even an interim facility could not accept foreign waste. The DOE reasons that the funds to create the interim facility come from the Nuclear Waste Fund of the 1982 NWPA.
The authority to accept some of the foreign waste, however, comes from the Atomic Energy Act. 272 To resolve this procedural problem, the DOE could assess a storage fee for storing waste in the central facility. The United
States must identify a solution to this problem to maintain its credibility under the NPT.
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The greatest minds that we have nationally to weigh in on this question have done so, and they believe that the
failure to have a strong nuclear energy research
and development program will diminish our national security, our economic competitiveness, and the public well-being. The bottom line is that
as our primacy in nuclear R&D declines, we will lose our ability to participate on the world stage and to observe and understand the
civilian nuclear programs of emerging nations. U.S. leadership in world nuclear policy is a national security imperative. A Global Nuclear
Materials Management Initiative was started in early 1998 to articulate a framework and vision to assure safe, secure, and legitimate use of nuclear materials
worldwide as nuclear technology is developed and deployed. A task force led by Sen. Sam Nunn and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
evaluated the current state of U.S. leadership and developed recommendations for a path forward. Senator Nunn eloquently stated a call for action: The world simply
cannot afford delay in addressing the urgent security hazards posed by nuclear insecurity in the FSU [former Soviet Union]. There is little remaining
margin for continued decay of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure if the United States is to be technically credible in non-proliferation
leadership in the twenty-first century. The opportunities are there; an investment of a few billion dollars, properly applied, could
dramatically reduce the risks the world now faces. The fundamental requirement is leadership. The time to act is now—before a
catastrophe occurs.5
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Uniqueness overwhelms the link—Obama will crush the election—The Democratic Base, Women Latinos
Hogarth—2008 (Paul Hogarth is a Potential Field Operate in San Francisco for the Obama Campaign, ““Flag City” Just Another Media
Myth About Obama”, 7/1/08, http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5826)
But anyone who closely follows the election online knows that Obama has solidified the Democratic Party base – and is on a clear path to
winning the presidency in November. After Hillary Clinton suspended her primary campaign and endorsed Obama, pundits wrote (and still
write) stories about disgruntled Hillary supporters who will vote for John McCain in the November election. Women are not supposed to
vote for Obama because, according to Geraldine Ferraro, he’s run a “terribly sexist campaign.” Latinos are supposedly too racist to vote for
a black candidate – and pundits say a sizable number will vote Republican (ignoring the party’s xenophobic jihad on immigration policy.)
But the facts are getting into the way of that theory. A recent poll shows Latinos breaking 62-28 for Obama over McCain, with other polls
showing similar results. When you consider that Bush got 40% of the Latino vote in 2004, it’s obvious that Latinos are deserting the G.O.P.
in droves. Along with labor’s unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort to target that community in November, Obama is likely to pick up
either Colorado, New Mexico or Nevada – and possibly all three states.
And McCain has more to worry about Republican women deserting him than vice versa. Not only have Democratic women united behind
Obama, but polling shows McCain’s anti-choice record (once women hear about it) is going to be a huge liability. “I'm sure there are
female Hillary Clinton voters who will go for John McCain in the general election,” said Katha Pollitt in The Nation, “but I don't think too
many of them will be feminists. Because to vote for McCain, a feminist would have to be insane.”
Uniqueness overwhelms the link—Obama will win all the Swing States
Hogarth—2008 (Paul Hogarth is a Potential Field Operate in San Francisco for the Obama Campaign, ““Flag City” Just Another Media
Myth About Obama”, 7/1/08, http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5826)
Obama will win the general because he has a solidified lead in all the states John Kerry won in 2004 – even swing states like Michigan,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While the blue states won’t be enough to win the Presidency, it prevents Obama from having to play defense
– giving him 252 electoral votes in the bag and shifting the battle into traditionally Republican states.
To surpass the magic number of 270, Obama just needs to win all the Kerry states, Colorado (where he’s been consistently ahead in the
polls) and Virginia (whose demographic shift favors Democrats.) But Obama is likely to also win Iowa and New Mexico (Gore won both),
and he’s ahead in Ohio – regardless of what people in “Flag City” believe. Florida will be tough but winnable, while Nevada, Montana,
Missouri and North Carolina are all still in play. Even Georgia – where Obama is firing up the state’s many black voters and young voters,
coupled with former Congressman Bob Barr playing spoiler for McCain – could generate an upset and help Obama win that state.
But what's even more encouraging is how Obama's strategy differs from John Kerry. In 2004, Kerry’s chances dwindled as the campaign
zeroed in on fewer swing states – precluding the odds of winning and not leaving much room for error. When he stopped advertising in
Arkansas and Missouri to focus on Ohio, he reduced his supporters in those states to mere bystanders. But that won’t happen this time –
with superior resources and more grassroots supporters, Obama is running a “50 state strategy” that will give all his supporters something
to do. The campaign is even putting money in states like Texas where they have virtually no chance of winning – but a little help could put
Democrats running in targeted races over the finish line.
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