Tournament: SFO | Round: 2 | Opponent: RHHS PW | Judge:
Plan
Plan: The United States federal government should increase economic engagement with Cuba by lifting the embargo.
Advantage 1: Public Health
The embargo restricts the flow of medical goods and creates financial strains that threaten to collapse the Cuban healthcare system.
Xinhua News, 2012
(“Cuban healthcare weakended by U.S. embargo,” 11/28, Online: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/health/2012-11/28/c_132004531.htm)
Cuban medical authorities said on Tuesday a 50-year trade embargo imposed by the
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not have all the raw materials and tools to solve certain problems immediately."¶
We have a moral obligation to stop the intentional destruction of Cuba’s public health system.
Eisenberg, former Professor Emeritus of Social Medicine and Psychology at the Harvard Medical School, 1997
(Leon, “The sleep of reason produces monsters – human costs of economic sanctions,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 336:17, pgs. 1248-1250, ProQuest)
Thus, three unusual outbreaks of medical conditions -- neuropathy, self-inflicted disease
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it. Continuing to allow our reason to sleep will produce more monsters.
Embargo prevents access to tech and medicine
CNN 9/02/2009 “Report: U.S. sanctions put Cubans' health at risk” http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/01/amnesty.cuba.health/
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The U.S. trade embargo on Cuba is endangering the health of millions
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the conditions governing the process make their export virtually impossible.
Advantage 2: Agriculture
Cuban agro ecology is at risk – it’s the only model for adaptation to future agricultural challenges without mass food shortages
Raj Patel, Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, 2012
(April, What Cuba Can Teach Us About Food and Climate Change, www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2012/04/agro_ecology_lessons_from_cuba_on_agriculture_food_and_climate_change_.single.html)
The Studebakers plying up and down Havana’s boardwalk aren’t the best advertisement for dynamism and
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to the future, even if their automobiles are stuck in the past.
Increasing investment prevents Cuban backsliding
M. Dawn King, Professor of Environmental Studies at Brown, 3/21/12
(Cuban Sustainability: The Effects of Economic Isolation on Agriculture and Energy, wpsa.research.pdx.edu/meet/2012/kingmdawn.pdf)
Cuba needed an alternative agricultural model when foreign oil imports were cut off significantly at
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goal of sustainable development to increase short-term capital and energy needs.
Lifting the embargo won’t cause Cuban abandonment of agroecology - they’ll be able to outcompete industrial models and promote global adoption
Christina Cornell, Research Associate at Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 4/17/09
(Cuba Elevates Urban Gardening to a Cause, http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11525)
Many worry whether Cuba’s budget and planning services will be able to maintain its commitment
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important economic actor, ultimately expanding its profits through competitive transactions and trade.
Cuban agriculture is key to future global sustainability-dettered by current system
Ford, 9 (Matt, CNN Havana Bureau Chief, “Can the West cultivate ideas from Cuba's 'Special Period'?”, April 1, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/29/eco.cubaagriculture/, ak.)
Since the revolution in 1959 Cuba has been many things to many people, but
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state land would be given to Cubans with agricultural experience or other citizens.
Lifting the embargo is critical for investment in Cuban organoponics and leads to US adoption which fuels worldwide adoption
Jacob Shkolnick, JD Candidate at Drake, Fall 2012
(SIN EMBARGO: n1 THE CUBAN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE UNITED STATES” 17 Drake J. Agric. L. 683, lexis)
While investment in Cuban businesses and sales or purchases of Cuban products must still move
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may be just what is needed to allow for urban agriculture to flourish.
Scenario 1: Shortages
Global food shortages risk extinction from starvation and war
Julian Cribb, Professor in Science Communication at the University of Technology Sydney, 2010
(Julian, principal of JCA, fellow of the Australian Academy
of Technological Sciences and Engineering, “The Coming Famine: The
Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It”, pg 10
The character of human conflict has also changed: since the early 1990s, more
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believe future food shortages are a far bigger world threat than global warming."
Scenario 2: Warming
Industrial agriculture is the primary cause of global warming – extinction is inevitable without a greater diffusion of organic agricultural practices
Ronnie Cummins, International Director of the Organic Consumers Association, 10/7/10
(Agriculture and Human Survival: The Road Beyond 10/10/10, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/07-9)
Despite decades of deception and mystification, a critical mass at the grassroots is waking
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farming, we and our children are doomed to reside in Climate Hell.
Advantage 3: Collapse
Only a complete rollback of the embargo can buy time for Raul’s reforms to succeed preventing a Cuban implosion and increased terrorist activity
Timothy Ashby, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 3/29/13
(PRESERVING STABILITY IN CUBA AFTER NORMALIZING RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES – THE IMPORTANCE OF TRADING WITH STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES, www.coha.org/preserving-stability-in-cuba-timothy-ashby/)
Cuba under Raúl Castro has entered a new period of economic, social, and
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-way trade must include both Cuba’s private sector as well as SOEs.
Terrorists operating out of a destabilized Cuba will launch successful attacks throughout the hemisphere
Tim Gorrell, Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army, 3/18/05
(CUBA: THE NEXT UNANTICIPATED ANTICIPATED STRATEGIC CRISIS?” www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA433074)
In the midst of an unstable Cuba, the opportunity for radical fundamentalist groups to
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the Americas. A proactive policy now can mitigate these potential future problems.
Terrorists will have access to Cuban Bioweapons
Christopher Dodd, Former US Senator, 6/5/02
(CUBA’S PURSUIT OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: FACT OR FICTION? HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE CORPS AND NARCOTICS, www.fas.org/nuke/guide/cuba/sfrc060502.pdf)
The well-respected former Deputy Director of Biopreparat, Ken Alibek, the Soviet
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as a direct threat to our allies or to our own national security.
Extinction
John Steinbruner, Senior Fellow at Brooking, 98
(Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses, Foreign Policy, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1149464.pdf?acceptTC=true)
It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so
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health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole.
Advantage 4: Human Rights
The embargo allows the Cuban government to commit atrocities against its people, lifting solves
Amash 12- Brandon Amash, writer at the Prospect Journal, (“EVALUATING THE CUBAN EMBARGO,” 7/23/12, http://prospectjournal.org/2012/07/23/evaluating-the-cuban-embargo/, 6/28/13, CAS)
Although America’s previous policies of intervention, use of force and economic sanctions have all
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and promote democracy, and thus give greater attention to human rights violations.
US needs to adopt consistent strategy to human rights to gain credibility and end oppression
McDonough 2/11-- Amy McDonough, Program Assistant with the Open Society Foundations, previously worked at John Snow, Inc. (JSI) on USAID’s Maternal and Child Health Project, B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College (“Human Rights and the Failings of U.S. Public Diplomacy in Eurasia”, HuffPost, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-mcdonough/human-rights-and-the-fail_b_2664667.html, Accessed 7/10/13, jtc)
The United States has two distinct approaches to human rights violations in the countries of
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is truly committed to supporting the universal values of human rights and democracy.
The Cuban embargo is inhumane and Genocidal
Schweid 08 – Barry Schweid, AP diplomatic writer (“Cuban diplomat: US embargo is akin to genocide”, USA Today, 10/24/2008, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-10-24-2543966879_x.htm, Accessed: 7/3/2013, EH)
WASHINGTON — Looking ahead to a new American administration,
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"because of the irrevocable will of the Cuban nation to defend its legitimate right to self-determination," the ambassador said.