Archive for the ‘Military Presence’ Category

US military presence in Afghanistan faces many stresses and pressures ranging from sectarian violence, poor health care, infrastructure, insurgency, and now, volcanos.

The Iceland volcano explosion has delayed flights from US airbases and slowed down medical relief and other vital activities.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Hovering debris from an Icelandic volcano kept U.S. military flights in Europe on the ground for a second-straight day Friday, slowing troop and supply transport to the war zones and diverting some medical evacuation flights.

Will there be a congressional response to this latest threat to US military presence in Afghanistan?

We’ve got updates on new disads including Education Reform and Nuclear Power, as well as some old staples including Health Care, Budget Deficits, Climate Change, and more!

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Here is the berkeley prelim results packet posted over at the Cal Tournament Home Page: packet.

You can find results for the other divisions at their homepage.

You might notice, this is the same as Cal’s Debate Camp webpage, which is a great institute for local and national debaters. We’re proud to partner InfiniteCamp with the Cal camp to give all Cal campers 20% off tuition at our Online Debate Institute.

For one of the biggest weekends of the year, we’ve made sure to include the most recent evidence hot off the presses from this morning.

DC is largely snowed in, but many politics scenarios are ripe for running this weekend.

• DADT
• Midterms
• Jobs Stimulus
• Climate Change & Energy

and MORE!

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Since Hatoyama took office last September, the United States military presence in Japan has faced frequent criticism. Okinawa is a flashpoint in discussions, and Japanese leaders insist that this year will be a critical year for US-Japanese alliance dynamics:

But facing economic woes and seeking a more equal relationship with the U.S., Japan’s new reformist government is questioning whether it should spend so much on U.S. troops – a topic that was taboo under the pro-Washington administrations that governed Japan for most of the post-World War II era.
The scrutiny in Japan, Washington’s deep-pocketed ally and most important strategic partner in Asia, comes at a bad time for the U.S., whose defense budget is already spread thin in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Japanese call their share a “kindness budget,” implying the U.S. is getting a free ride, and its opponents say it is rife with waste. The opposition also reflects a long-standing feeling, particularly on the left, that the U.S. is taking its security alliance with Japan too much for granted.

As one of the last remaining shuttles takes off for space amid a major readjustment to NASA’s mission by Obama’s new budget, we’ve released an entirely new file of NASA updates to help you on both the affirmative and the negative for NASA Spending debates.

Reuters reports:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour will

blast off on Sunday on one of the last remaining shuttle missions, and the U.S. agency’s chief said on Saturday the days of big American solo initiatives in space were over.

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A sign that things might be turning for the best, or an act of desperation? Only time will tell:

“To bring peace and accelerate the reconciliation process, we are determined to form the High Council of Peace and Reconciliation,” Karzai told a press conference here at the Presidential Palace.

He said the members of the peace council will be governmental officials and tribal elders.

He also disclosed the plan to call a national Jirga, or a national assembly, on peace in the near future to discuss on the ways of implementation of the peace process.

Karzai, at the press briefing, repeated his offer for talks with Taliban and called on the insurgent group and other anti- government elements to renounce violence and accept the country’s constitution.

With recent bombings and other Insurgent activity in Iraq, the role of the United States military presence has been hi-lighted for both its advantages and risks. How does America’s presence and possible exit bode for regional stability?

These attacks show the United States must continually reevaluate the costs — to its interests, to regional stability and to Iraq — of leaving too soon. The timeline calls for a U.S. exit beginning this year.

The United States cannot simply withdraw; it must make a good exit. In recent months, Iraq has become a far less deadly place for American forces. But it is just as clear that Iraqi security forces need more development and will have to continue to rely on American backing and training for a while.

As a result of Obama’s pledge to boost United States’ military presence in Afghanistan by over 30,000 troops, NATO allies have been pledging their own troop increases as well:

A NATO-led international conference on Afghanistan strategy will be held in London on Jan. 28. German allies are expecting Merkel’s government to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, as a response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to increase 30,000 additional combat troops. Merkel had insisted that any decision on additional forces would not be made until the NATO-led conference.

Looks like Google got the calendar mixed up for celebrating Kuwait’s national day – today this logo was seen on Google’s Kuwait landing page (a month early…):

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Check back later tonight for our brand new politics file. We’ve delayed it to ensure that you get the best evidence taking into account recent events in Massachusetts – they will affect every scenario!

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Obama continues to face internal divisions on many of his proposals for Afghanistan, including levels and logistics of troop deployments. Look for the in-fighting to continue as casualties mount:

Obama settled the question of how many additional troops the United States would commit to the war this year — 30,000. But on almost everything else, the debate between White House civilians and Pentagon strategists has continued without pause.

Obama says he’ll start bringing troops home in July 2011; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the drawdown will be modest and could be postponed. Obama says we won’t be doing nation-building; Army Gen. David H. Petraeus says nation-building is inescapable. Vice President Joe Biden says the strategy is not counterinsurgency; the generals insist that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Even the least controversial piece of Obama’s plan — the sped-up deployment of troops — has gotten muddied. The target of getting 30,000 fresh troops into the war zone by the middle of 2010 has slipped at least two months, to the dismay of some Obama aides, although the Pentagon says it’s not a big deal because most of the force will arrive by July.

United States and Kuwait forces kicked off a joint-military exercise on Sunday, extending their cooperation on counter-terrorism and supporting United States force presence in Iraq.

Kuwait, the fourth largest exporter of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC), holds a U.S. military camp and remains a logistics base for the Pentagon to support its troops in neighboring Iraq.

The country’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah told a local daily Sunday he was worried that the unabated conflicts and terrorist attacks in Iraq would spill over to the Gulf oil-exporter.

Kuwait has started a campaign to stamp out violence and terrorist threats after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But sporadic incidents in recent years have touched the nerves of officials.

Last year, the emirate said it thwarted an al-Qaeda-linked intrigue to bomb the U.S. military camp and other important facilities in the country.

The alliance between America and Japan has held strong for 50 years, and as it enters it’s next half-century, a key to success or failure will be the status of United States forces on Japan’s soil. Recently a source of tension, American bases have long caused controversy with the Japanese public and affected the politics of the relationship:

“Ever since the forming of the Japan-U.S. alliance, the relationship has found itself in a critical state over and over again over the asymmetrical responsibilities under the basic structure,” Nagashima said. “To make the Japan-U.S. alliance sustainable in the next 30 or 50 years, we need to stabilize the alliance.”
And things are especially strained between the two nations over the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. In 2006, the LDP promised to move the base’s aircraft operations to Camp Schwab in Nago, farther north on Okinawa Island, but now the Hatoyama administration is interested in moving the airstrip out of the prefecture altogether.