Afghanistan Aff



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2AC AT: Capitalism


Drug Policy Alliance 1

Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as "Prison Blues," as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons.(7) Racism & Poverty: The Free Market and Prison Economies Today there are over 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. Studies demonstrated that two-thirds of state prisoners had less than a high school education and 1/3 were unemployed at the time of arrest. Over the past decade states have financed prison construction at the expense of investment in higher education. At the same time, access to education in prison has been severely curtailed. Officially, 8.3% of working-age Blacks in the U.S. are unemployed(9) but taking into account the "incarceration effect," the rate is significantly higher.(10) Research confirms the obvious - the positive relationship between joblessness or low wages and recidivism. The stigma of prison has been codified in laws and licensing regulations that bar people with criminal records from countless jobs and opportunities, effectively excluding them from the legitimate workforce and forcing them into illegal ventures. As economists Western and Petit point out, "[T]he penal system can be viewed as a type of labor market institution that systematically influence's men's employment . . .[and has a] pervasive influence . . . on the life chances of disadvantaged minorities." (11) Like slavery, the focused machinery of the "war on drugs" fractures families, as it destroys individual lives and destabilizes whole communities. It targets Native Americans living on or near reservations and urban minority neighborhoods, depressing incomes and repelling investment. "The lost potential earnings, savings, consumer demand, and human and social capital . . . cost black communities untold millions of dollars in potential economic development, worsening an inner-city political economy already crippled by decades of capital flight and de-industrialization." (12) The Case for Racial and Economic Justice This reality is not the result of unintended consequence from otherwise well-reasoned policies. It is the logical, inevitable consequence of " tough-on-crime" laws and punitive sentencing polices that elected leaders and public officials embrace to avoid addressing the pressing social problems caused by institutionalized racism and political and economic exclusion. By incarcerating high proportions of low income Black, Latino and Native American residents and maintaining surveillance over them for even longer periods of time, the "war on drugs" and its criminal justice apparatus perpetuate a social segregation policy that intentionally isolates historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities and communities, ensuring a capital divestment policy that builds neither social capital nor economic infrastructure. According to the United States Department of State's 2000 report to the United Nations Commission on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), "discrimination in the criminal justice system" is a "principal causative factor" hindering progress toward ending racial discrimination in [U.S.] society. If the United States takes seriously its mandates of equality and peace with justice, then the "war on drugs" and the prison industrial complex must be dismantled and reparation made for the devastation they have wrought. Decimated communities must be rebuilt and enriched and barriers torn down in order to guarantee Blacks and other ethnic minorities a fair playing field. Only then can the United States begin to acknowledge responsibility for the damning impact of slavery and its perpetuation through the institutionalization of racism and poverty.

2AC AT: Drug War DA (1/3)


1. Opium is decreasing now- continuing to fight the war on terror just angers off Afghani farmers 


Join Together 2010 (http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2010/afghan-opium-production-down.html, Afghan Opium Production Down, American Forces Hopeful, May 27, date accessed: 6/21/2010)AK 

A combination of poor growing conditions and government and military interdiction contributed to decreased opium production in Afghanistan this year, the New York Times reported May 22. American officials hope that a bad year, coupled with aid and incentives, could push Afghanistan's farmers to move off the poppy crop, which help fund the Taliban opposition. "If the government of Afghanistan will help us next year," said one farmer, Obidullah, "we will not grow poppy." Weather and willpower might not be enough to kill production, however. Poppy is still the most profitable crop in Afghanistan, and short supply has driven up prices, encouraging many farmers to stick with the risk. And while the opium trade is technically illegal in Afghanistan, the American military is not authorized to enforce local laws. Moreover, as one officer noted, attacking farmers would do little to win over the hearts and minds of the populace necessary to rebuild the country.

2. A) The drug war undermines the overall war and drains our economy 

Farrell 7 (Paul, Sep 3, Market Watch, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-lost-war-the-war-on-drugs-is-undermining-america?pagenumber=2, date accessed: 6/21/2010) AK .
America's 'Lost War on Drugs' Today America's 30-year "War on Drugs" is a miserable failure. But worse yet, it's now undermining our "War on Terror." In its latest issue, Foreign Policy magazine released the "Third Terrorist Index," based on the collective opinions of 100 experts. It concluded that "instead of treating the demand for illegal drugs as a market, and addicts as patients, policymakers the world over [including the Pentagon] have boosted the profits of drug lords and fostered narcostates that would frightened Al Capone." Afghanistan is one example. According to the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan now supplies 95% of the world's poppy crop and opium production. According to the BBC News, it has "soared to frightening record levels," largely because we took our eye off the Taliban and marginalized Afghanistan to attack Iraq. Illegal narcotics traffic from Afghan's cash crop exploded 57% in 2006. Our politicians and our military are virtually helpless to stop this expanding contagion that matches America's addiction for illegal drugs (demand) with the entrepreneurial spirit of Afghan farmers, politicians, war lords and the Taliban (supply). America has had a "War on Drugs" since the Nixon administration, based on prohibition and criminalizing drugs. That policy has drained hundreds of billions from our economy, driven drug traffic underground, and raised the price on a commodity that otherwise would cost pennies. Domestically and internationally our "War on Drugs" policies are not only a dismal failure, they produce the exact opposite result. Worse yet, our failed drug policies are sabotaging our "War on Terror" in Afghanistan. As the Washington Post reported, "The drug war has become the Taliban's most effective recruiter in Afghanistan," reinvigorating Muslim extremists. Thanks to our obstinate adherence to failed drug policies plus minimal alternatives for Afghan farmers, we are playing into the Taliban's hand and they're "becoming richer and stronger by the day."

B) War on Terrorism key to democracy- list of impacts
Diamond, 95,[Larry Diamond, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and instruments, issues and imperatives : a report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict”, December 1995, http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/di.htm]

Terrorism and immigration pressures also commonly have their origins in political exclusion, social injustice, and bad, abusive, or tyrannical governance. Overwhelmingly, the sponsors of international terrorism are among the world's most authoritarian regimes: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan. And locally within countries, the agents of terrorism tend to be either the fanatics of antidemocratic, ideological movements or aggrieved ethnic and regional minorities who have felt themselves socially marginalized and politically excluded and insecure: Sri Lanka's Tamils, Turkey's Kurds, India's Sikhs and Kashmiris. To be sure, democracies must vigorously mobilize their legitimate instruments of law enforcement to counter this growing threat to their security. But a more fundamental and enduring assault on international terrorism requires political change to bring down zealous, paranoiac dictatorships and to allow aggrieved groups in all countries to pursue their interests through open, peaceful, and constitutional means.



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