TOPICALITY: PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCEv.web.umkc.edu/vegam/2007sdi/MEDFLAG Negative Tayl… · Web...

MEDFLAGS NEGATIVE UMKC SummerDebate Institute 2007Taylor/Beier Lab

INDEXINDEX..................................................................................................................................................0TOPICALITY: PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE...........................................................................1TOPICALITY: EXTRA-T..................................................................................................................2SPENDING LINKS..............................................................................................................................3POLITICS LINKS................................................................................................................................4CHINA CP SOLVENCY / DISAD LINKS.........................................................................................5CHINA CP SOLVENCY / DISAD LINKS.........................................................................................6

SOLVENCY ANSWERS: BIASED DATA.......................................................................................7SOLVENCY ANSWERS: HEALTH CARE......................................................................................8SOLVENCY ANSWERS: HEALTH CARE......................................................................................9

DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: ALTERNATE CAUSALITY...........................................................10DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: SSA ANSWER!...............................................................................11DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: ALTERNATE CAUSALITY...........................................................12HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (general myth)..........................................................................................13HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (general myth)..........................................................................................14HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (general myth)..........................................................................................15HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (bad science).............................................................................................16HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (drugs/treatment causes)...........................................................................17HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (A2: studies prove)..................................................................................18HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (A2: studies prove)..................................................................................19HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (immunosuppression/antibodies).............................................................20HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (the link is dying out!)..............................................................................21HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (latency proves)........................................................................................22HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (NO VACCINE PROVES)......................................................................23HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (duesberg qualified).................................................................................24HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (dissenters true)........................................................................................25

TERRORISM ANSWERS.................................................................................................................26

HEGEMONY ANSWERS—WEAK NOW /DECLINE...................................................................27HEGEMONY ANSWERS—WEAK NOW /DECLINE...................................................................28HEGEMONY ANSWERS—FAILS..................................................................................................29HEGEMONY ANSWERS—NOT SUSTAINABLE.........................................................................30HEGEMONY ANSWERS—A2: KHALILZAD...............................................................................31HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER HURTS SOFT POWER...........................................32HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER BAD (GENERAL)...................................................33HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER BAD (TERRORISM)...............................................34SOFT POWER ANSWERS--LOW NOW.........................................................................................35SOFT POWER ANSWERS--LOW NOW.........................................................................................36

**more soft power, heg and terrorism answers in other labs’ files too….

0


TOPICALITY: PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE

MEDFLAG OPERATIONS ARE MILITARY ASSISTANCEColonel C. William Fox, Jr., M.D., Commander of Bayne-Jones Army Hospital, Ft. Polk, as Command Surgeon of the Joint Readiness Training Center, Winter 1997-98[“Phantom Warriors: Disease as a Threat to US National Security,” Parameters, pp. 121-36, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/97winter/fox.htm, ACCESSED 7-12-07, UMKC07//JT]

The MEDFLAG exercises are centered around a military-to-military exchange program in which a US joint medical task force (Army, Air Force, and Navy) of about 80 personnel deploys to the selected host nation and conducts an exercise lasting

up to three weeks. Exercise activity includes medical training of host-nation personnel, a disaster response exercise, and a combined US and host-nation medical civic action assistance program to treat local populations.

1


TOPICALITY: EXTRA-T

MEDFLAGs ARE EXTRA-TOPICAL. THEY DO JOINT OPERATIONS WITH THE RESERVES AND THERE’S A DISTINCTION BETWEEN MEDICAL AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCEGENERAL BANTZ J. CRADDOCK, USA COMMANDER, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND, 15 MARCH 2007 [http://www.eucom.mil/english/Command/Posture/HASC%20-%20Craddock_Testimony031507.pdf, Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, accessed 7-24-07, JT//UMKC]

USAFE’s leadership in SC and the Joint Exercise Program support EUCOM’s Strategy of Active Security. In 2006, USAFE participated in 438 security cooperation events in 61 countries, including 24 Joint Staff-sponsored exercises. A key example of USAFE’s Security Cooperation engagement was Exercise MEDFLAG 06, supporting Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the Gulf of Guinea region. This USAFE-led joint and combined exercise, with strong Reserve Component participation, provided medical outreach and humanitarian assistance to approximately 14,000 patients in Ghana, Nigeria, Benin and Senegal. Bilateral medical and civil assistance training was also conducted with 355 host nation and ECOWAS staff personnel.

2


SPENDING LINKS

MEDFLAG FUNDING IS SHARED BY OTHER PROGRAMS—THERE’S LESS THAN $2 MILLION FOR ALL OF THEMGENERAL BANTZ J. CRADDOCK, USA COMMANDER, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND, 2007 [USEUCOM, Security Cooperation Programs Division (ECJ4-SCP) Humanitarian Assistance Programs, http://www.eucom.mil/english/CommandStaff/ECJ4/ECJ4-SCP/hap/hap.asp, Accessed 7-24-07, UMKC//JT]

Humanitarian and Civic Assistance (HCA) Program Section 401 of U.S. Code Title 10 authorizes USEUCOM components to conduct humanitarian projects while on operational deployments or training exercises such as MEDFLAG, Medical Exercise in Central/Eastern Europe (MEDCEUR ), Cornerstone, Flintlock, West Africa Training Cruise (WATC ) and Joint/Combined Exchange Training (JCET ). HCA funds pay for the consumable supplies and services required in conducting assistance activities such as:

Renovation of a bridges and orphanages in Bulgaria during CORNERSTONE’02 Medical, dental, and pediatric care provided to rural populations in Uganda during MEDFLAG’02 Construction of a clinic during Tanzanite 02

Annually, The Department of the Army funds USEUCOM for these projects at $1.525M.

MEDFLAGS ARE HUGELY EXPENSIVE, TOO DIFFICULT TO COORDINATE, LACK INNOVATION AND ARE PRONE TO TRADE-OFFSDan Henk, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado, March 1998[INSS Occasional Paper 18, Regional Series, UNCHARTED PATHS, UNCERTAIN VISION:U.S. MILITARY INVOLVEMENTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA IN THE WAKE OF THE COLD WAR, p. 36, UMKC07//JT]

Despite their merits, MEDFLAG exercises in Africa are problematic. They are expensive and difficult to coordinate, requiring (among other things) sympathetic local U.S. diplomats, some organizational competence on the part of the host-nation military establishment, and U.S. medical unit commanders with vision, innovativeness and organizational and communications skills. As the United States has reduced its military presence in Europe in the wake of the Cold War, the resources available to the unified command for use in MEDFLAGs has significantly decreased. When there are crises (or competing demands) in Europe, MEDFLAGs in Africa are an early victim.

3


POLITICS LINKS

INCREASING MEDFLAGS REQUIRES BUSH TO SPEND MASSIVE POLITICAL CAPITALColonel Terry Carroll, United States Army, March 27, 2001[“Engagement or Marriage: The Case for an Expanded Military Medical Role in Africa”, Army War College Strategy Report, p. 35-36, www.stormingmedia.us/98/9840/A984093.html, ACCESSED 7-12-07, UMKC07//JT]

Transnational disease alone compels the U.S. to engage with Africa , despite poor governance, economic chaos and continued conflict. Africa has not, and probably will not in the near future, achieve any level of sustained development or stability. Our interests of security, prosperity and democracy are not served by permitting the forces of disease and epidemic to ravage the continent, and our own security, and that of our allies, is placed at risk. We have an appropriate policy for health, but an imbalance of ends, ways and means reduces our global impact. Decisive action is needed, and strategic leadership is required at the political, senior military and economic level. Mobilization of all available means to support the cause of health and disease prevention, including military medical capabilities, appears axiomatic. Program initiatives, including realignment of Department of State, Function 150, Aid to Nations health functions under the Department of Health and Human Services, changes in the Unified Command Plan to include health standards and aspects, and legislative action to enable tax relief for the medical industries involved in world health programs will also be needed. Ownership and unity of effort for world health also requires leadership and political capital - we must expend it . It remains very likely that the global agenda for the next century will be shaped in large part by responses to Third World crises- particularly in Africa. This said, a proactive approach to world health, and African health in particular, needs development. Immediate studies in a systems approach to world health must be directed, from the vision of a healthy world population to assured immunizations for all the world’s children. The complexities of the African continent and uncertainties concerning the use of the Post Cold War military will drive changes in the current paradigms of military power, but active engagement embodies much more than training emerging nations to fight and win wars. We live in a period of transition and unprecedented power. We, as a nation, must see this as an opportunity rather than a threat, and boldly go into the new millennium prepared to transform not just equipment and doctrine but attitude and application as well. We would do well to heed the words of former President George Bush, who wrote:The present international scene, turbulent though it is, is about as much of a blank slate as history ever provides, and the importance of American engagement has never been higher. If the United States does not lead, there will be no leadership. It is our great challenge to learn from this bloodiest century in history. If we fail to live up to our responsibilities, if we shirk the role which only we can assume, if we retreat from our obligation to the world into indifference, we will, one day, pay the highest price once again for our neglect and shortsightedness.’5°

BUSH SUPPORTS EXPANDING MILITARY MEDICAL MISSIONSLegislative News, March 12, 2007["House Leaders Release Details of 2007 Emergency Spending Bill", http://www.ausa.org/webpub/DeptGovAffairs.nsf/byid/JRAY-6Z9SMM, accessed 7-24-07, UMKC07//JT]

The day after the Democrats released the details of their plan, the President announced that he was revising his request and would ask for an additional $6.3 billion to pay for the current troop buildup in Iraq, military base realignment and other urgent military needs.His revised request also includes $50 million for a new military medical support fund; $150 million for Iraq reconstruction teams; $100 million to restart state-owned factories in Iraq; $110 million for economic assistance to Pakistan’s tribal areas and $510 million to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan.

4


CHINA CP SOLVENCY / DISAD LINKS

CP SOLVES THE CASE--CHINA HAS ALREADY AGREED TO SEND MORE THAN THE PLAN TO FIGHT DISEASES & WILL CONTINUE TO SEND MEDICAL TEAMS JUST LIKE THE PLANChina Daily, November 5, 2006[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/05/content_725108.htm, “China, Africa vow closer cooperation in fighting HIV/ AIDS,” accessed 7-25-07, JT//UMKC07]

The Chinese government has decided to assist African countries in building 30 hospitals and provide 300 million yuan (37.5 million U.S. dollars) of grant for providing anti-malaria drugs to African countries and building 30 demonstration centers for prevention and treatment of malaria in the coming three years, it says. China will continue to send medical teams to Africa in the next three years to the best of its ability and in line with the need of African countries and will actively explore with African countries new ways of providing such service, according to the action plan adopted at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China- Africa Cooperation, the largest gathering between Chinese and African leaders. The two sides have also agreed that China will continue to provide medicine and medical supplies needed by African countries and will help them establish and improve medical facilities and train medical workers, the document says.

CHINA HAS MORE MEDFLAG-LIKE EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA—IT USES MEDICAL MISSIONS LIKE THE PLAN TO EXPAND ITS INFLUENCE AND RELATIONSChina Daily, November 5, 2006[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/05/content_725108.htm, “China, Africa vow closer cooperation in fighting HIV/ AIDS,” accessed 7-25-07, JT//UMKC07]

China has a long history of medical cooperation with African countries. Since the first medical team was sent to Algeria in 1963, more than 16,000 medical workers had served in 47 African countries and regions by the end of last year, treating 170 million African patients. About 900 Chinese medical workers are still working in 35 countries. In a document issued in January, the Chinese government undertook to continue its medical aid to Africa, including medical teams, establishing and upgrading medical centers, delivering medicines and training medical workers, in a bid to help check the spread of deadly diseases like AIDS and malaria. Experts say that China in return can learn a lot from Africa, for example, to raise public awareness of AIDS prevention. While many people still know little about the disease in China, AIDS related posters can be found everywhere in Africa. "The long campaign against the disease has given African officials and experts more experience in HIV/AIDS prevention and control," says Zhang Jianxin, a professor of Sichuan University in southwest China, in an earlier interview with Xinhua. Prof. Zhang is one of the lectures for the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Seminar for African Countries, a training program for African officials and doctors sponsored by the Chinese government since 2004. The landmark two-day Beijing Summit concluded Sunday afternoon. Chinese President Hu Jintao, 41 heads of state or government and senior officials of 48 African countries that have diplomatic ties with China, as well as representatives from regional and international organizations attended the gathering highlighting " friendship, peace, cooperation and development."

5


CHINA CP SOLVENCY / DISAD LINKS

CHINA’S RECENT AFRICA TOUR CEMENTED RELATIONS—THEY’RE ALREADY SENDING MEDICAL TEAMSNew China News Agency, February 11, 2007 [BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific – Political, HEADLINE: Chinese FM says Hu Jintao's African tour successful in promoting ties, lexis, JT//UMKC07]

Chinese President Hu Jintao's eight-nation African tour was a great success in promoting friendly and cooperative ties between China and Africa, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said on Saturday. It was a journey of friendship and cooperation and another major event in Sino-African relations following the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) last November, Li told Chinese journalists accompanying Hu during his African trip. The huge success of President Hu's African tour will have a far-reaching influence on the future development of relations between China and Africa, Li said. The trip, which began on Jan. 30, has taken the Chinese president to Cameroon, Liberia, Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Seychelles. CHINA SEEKS FRIENDSHIP FOR GENERATIONS WITH AFRICA Li said the China-Africa friendship is deep-rooted and forged in years of mutual support. It is symbolized by Tazara, a railway linking the land-locked Zambia with a port in Tanzania in the 1970s. It is reflected in warm feelings between Chinese medical teams in Africa and their patients. It is embodied by African nations' steadfast support for the restoration of China's legal rights in the United Nations.

CHINA IS SET TO EXPAND MEDICAL ASSISTANCE TO AFRICAXinhua Economic News Service, January 30, 2007 [HEADLINE: China Focus: China to fulfill its Sino-African Forum pledges, lexis, JT//umkc07]

China will also strengthen its cooperation with African countries in human resources, agriculture, medical care, social development and education over the next three years. General or special hospitals with 100 to 150 beds will be built for countries that have poor medical facilities and anti-malarial medicines will be provided to 33 countries.

CHINA HAS ALREADY PLEDGED PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE TO AFRICA TO FIGHT DISEASEChina Daily, November 5, 2006[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11/05/content_725108.htm, “China, Africa vow closer cooperation in fighting HIV/ AIDS,” accessed 7-25-07, JT//UMKC07]

China and Africa agreed on Sunday to increase exchanges and cooperation in fighting HIV/AIDS and other pandemic diseases to better safeguard their people's health. In an action plan endorsed by Chinese and African leaders Sunday, the two sides vowed to intensify cooperation in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, Ebola, Chikungunya, avian influenza and other communicable diseases and in the fields of quarantine and public health emergency response mechanism.

6


SOLVENCY ANSWERS: BIASED DATA

HOST COUNTRIES ARE BIASED. THERE’S NO ACCURATE DATA ON MEDFLAG SUCCESSMajor Jeffrey L. Bryant, USAF, March 1997 [ASSESSING THE LONG-TERM HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDICAL HUMANITARIAN CIVIC ASSISTANCE MISSIONS, A Research Paper Presented To The Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, pp. 14-15, ACCESSED 7-12-07, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0377b.pdf, UMKC07//JT]

Determining the actual impact of specific military HCA missions does not lend itself well to quantitative analysis models. Human perceptions, philosophies and attitudes are all part of the impact each mission has. In addition, numerous other U.S. Governmental agencies, NGOs, PVOs and IGOs all participate in relief and education efforts in these countries. To complicate assessments, U.S.A.I.D. liaison officers Bureau for Africa, claim host nation leaders are often biased in their assessment of MEDFLAG and other humanitarian missions to their countries.12 According to U.S.A.I.D. personnel, getting objective analysis of mission successes from host nation officials is difficult based on African culture. African officials are inclined to tell humanitarian assistance groups what they think these groups want to hear and their comments may or may not represent a valid operational assessment.13 The following statistical analysis is an attempt to quantitatively trend health care related measures of effectiveness for the four countries that have hosted two MEDFLAG missions (USEUCOM) and for Thailand (USPACOM). Specific statistics are not evaluated for discrete comparative analysis. Instead historical data is presented to simply identify which direction health care in a specific country is trending. For each country, the three parameters of life expectancy (male and female), infant mortality (expressed as deaths per 1000 births) and percentage of the population with access to safe drinking water were evaluated. The World Health Organization tracks these measures of effectiveness for developing nations.

7


SOLVENCY ANSWERS: HEALTH CARE

ZIMBABWE PROVES MEDFLAGS DON’T AFFECT THE LONG-TERM HEALTH Major Jeffrey L. Bryant, USAF, March 1997 [ASSESSING THE LONG-TERM HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDICAL HUMANITARIAN CIVIC ASSISTANCE MISSIONS, A Research Paper Presented To The Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, p. 19, ACCESSED 7-12-07, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0377b.pdf, UMKC07//JT]

Zimbabwe MEDFLAG missions were conducted in 1991 and 1995. The 1991 mission included education classes on preventive medicine and environmental health.3536 Mission data for the 1995 Zimbabwe MEDFLAG was unavailable for analysis. Table 5 displays marked downward trends in life expectancy and infant mortality and an overall improvement in the population’s access to potable water. Environmental and public health classes may have improved Zimbabwe’s access to safe drinking water but clearly the country has not experienced significant long-term health care improvements in the past 10 years as measured by these health care indicators. In fact, life expectancy in Zimbabwe is projected to fall even further to 35 years by the year 2010.37

8


SOLVENCY ANSWERS: HEALTH CARE

MEDFLAG MISSIONS ARE TOO SHORT-TERM TO CREATE LASTING BENEFITSMajor Jeffrey L. Bryant, USAF, March 1997 [ASSESSING THE LONG-TERM HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDICAL HUMANITARIAN CIVIC ASSISTANCE MISSIONS, A Research Paper Presented To The Research Department, Air Command and Staff College, p. 20, ACCESSED 7-12-07, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0377b.pdf, UMKC07//JT]

With the obvious exception of Botswana, MEDFLAG missions, specifically the MEDCAP component, do not seem to foster long-term health benefits. Mission focus is directed at training U.S. forces and host nation personnel. Two other factors hinder MEDFLAG ability to create long-term health care improvements. First, formal assessment and follow-up mechanisms are not in place to determine if host nation personnel training and education efforts were successful. Second, by design MEDFLAG missions are not redirected at the same countries year after year. Spending 10 days in a country once or even once every 3-5 years is not sufficient to create lasting benefits. Both of these factors are discussed in the following chapter.

9


DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: ALTERNATE CAUSALITY

AIDS IN AFRICA IS CAUSED BY MALNUTRITION – YOUR POVERTY ARGUMENTS ARE REVERSE CAUSALPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]4.2c African AIDS coincides with malnutrition: The case for malnutrition and lack of drinkable water as the common denominator and probable cause of African AIDS in the HIV-era has been made by scientific (Mims and White 1984; Seligmann et al 1984; Konotey-Ahulu 1987a, b, 1989; Fiala 1998; Oliver 2000; Stewart et al 2000; Ross 2003) and non-scientific observers (Hodgkinson 1996; Shenton 1998; Malan 2001). The non-scientific observers even include the United Nations (Namango and World Food Program of the United Nations 2001) and president Mbeki of South Africa (Cherry 2000; Gellman 2000).

NO CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP TO HIV – DRUG USE, HIV ANTIBODIES AND MALNUTRITION ARE THE ONLY SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN CAUSES OF AIDSPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]In addition chemical AIDS proves that HIV is not necessary for even one AIDS-defining disease, because (i) drugs and malnutrition cause drug- and malnutrition specific AIDS diseases regardless of the presence of HIV, because (ii) in HIV antibody-positives and negatives the risk of developing AIDS is proportional to the degree or lifetime dosage of drug use, and (iii) because all AIDS diseases have been diagnosed in HIV-free AIDS risk groups by AIDS researchers (Duesberg 1993d) and also long before the AIDS era (Stedman’s Medical Dictionary 1982). Thus HIV meets all criteria of a harmless passenger virus, laid out in table 4 and described previously (Duesberg 1994; Duesberg and Rasnick 1998). In this way our proposal resolves the fundamental paradox of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis: the paradox that a latent, noncytopathic and immunologically neutralized retrovirus, that is only present in less than 1 out of 500 susceptible T-cells and rarely expressed in a few of those, would cause a plethora of fatal diseases in sexually active, young men and women. And, that the plethora of diseases attributed to this virus would not show up for 5–10 years after infection.

10


DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: SSA ANSWER!

HIV STATS ARE EXAGGERATED—TRANSMISSION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA HAS PEAKEDMichael Fumento , attorney and journalist specializing in health issues.8/17/06 “Understanding the Aids Industry”, Canadian National Post, http://www.fumento.com/disease/aidconference.html, PG The focus of this conference is on international AIDS, which we all know is wiping whole continents off the map. A high Ugandan official said that within two years his nation will “be a desert.” America’s ABC News Nightline declared that within 12 years “50 million Africans may have died of AIDS.”Problem is, those predictions were made between 1986 and 1988. Yet since 1985, Uganda’s population has fully doubled . Nightline ’s predicted 50 million dead Africans by the year 2000 proved to be 20 million in 2005, according to the UN’s estimate . Further, “In sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the largest burden of the AIDS epidemic, data also indicate that the HIV incidence rate has peaked in most countries, ” according to the 2006 UNAIDS Report.These figures are from an agency that it has grossly exaggerated the world AIDS threat. For example, in 1998 it estimated that 12% of Rwandans age 15-49 were infected; now it says it’s only 3%. Whoops. On the other hand, other agencies had estimated a horrific 30% of Rwandans were infected. According to James Chin, a former U.N. official who made some of the earliest global HIV estimates, such concocted figures are “pure advocacy.”

11

http://sph.berkeley.edu/faculty/chin.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html

http://data.unaids.org/pub/GlobalReport/2006/2006_GR-ExecutiveSummary_en.pdf

http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/report.html

http://esa.un.org/unpp/p2k0data.asp

http://www.fumento.com/disease/aidconference.html


DISEASE/AIDS ANSWERS: ALTERNATE CAUSALITY

YOUR IMPACT IS INEVITABLE & HAPPENING NOW THROUGH THE TRAPPINGS OF INDUSTRIALIZATIONDavid SUZUKI, 2003 [Portage Daily Graphic (Manitoba, Canada), June 5, Pg. 4, HEADLINE: HUMAN ACTIVITIES GIVE RISE TO NEW DISEASES, JT//UMKC]

SARS, BSE and West Nile aren't just making headlines, they're making history. These diseases are truly products of our age -- an age of global transport, industrialized agriculture and global warming. And they represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of emerging diseases. Humans today are pushing every conceivable ecological boundary. We are displacing animal habitats, feeding meat products to herbivores, dining on exotic predators and doing it all while rushing madly about the planet in cars, boats and jet airplanes. We are everywhere and meddling in everything. As a result, we are being exposed to "new" diseases that have never before infected humans.

CLIMATE CHANGE, DEFORESTATION, INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE & GLOBALIZATION SPREADING DISEASESDavid B.Williams, October 19, 2003 [;The Seattle Times, Pg. K11; HEADLINE: 'Plagues' explores how we are making the world safer for diseases, JT//UMKC07]

In "Six Modern Plagues," veterinarian and journalism professor Mark Jerome Walters lays out a disturbing story of how climate change, globalization, deforestation and industrial agriculture have made the world safer for diseases to develop, spread and kill. Each of the relatively short chapters mixes science and history to once again show the complex weave of humanity and the plants and animals we share the planet with. Walters' is a sobering tale and offers one of the most persuasive arguments I have read for treating the land and animals that inhabit it better.

12


HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (general myth)

THE HIV-AIDS CONNECTION IS A MYTH. THERE ARE TOO MANY UNRESEARCH QUESTIONS---DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPEPeter Deusberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley, Et al, 2003 [Claus Keohnlein and David Rasnick, “The Chemical Bases Of The Various AIDS Epidemics: Recreational Drugs, Anti-Viral Chemotherapy and Malnutrition”, http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/jun2003/383.pdf p. accessed 7-26-2007, CJ//UMKC]

In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the US and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The virus-AIDS hypothesis was instantly accepted, but it is burdened with numerous paradoxes, none of which could be resolved by 2003: Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the US and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational or anti-HIV drugs or are subject to malnutrition? Why is the mortality of HIV-antibody-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs 7–9%, but that of all (mostly untreated) HIV-positives globally is only 14%? Here we propose that AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics, caused by recreational drugs, anti-HIV drugs, and malnutrition. According to this hypothesis AIDS is not contagious, not immunogenic, not treatable by vaccines or antiviral drugs, and HIV is just a passenger virus. The hypothesis explains why AIDS epidemics strike non-randomly if caused by drugs and randomly if caused by malnutrition, why they manifest in drug- and malnutrition-specific diseases, and why they are not self-limiting via anti-viral immunity. The hypothesis predicts AIDS prevention by adequate nutrition and abstaining from drugs, and even cures by treating AIDS diseases with proven medications.

The evidence overwhelmingly proves HIV doesn’t cause AIDSDavid Pratt, August, 2006 “HIV=AIDS=Death: A Killer Myth” http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/aids.htm [July 27, 2007 AW//UMKKC]

Contrary to popular belief, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is not a global pandemic caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV); rather, it is one of the biggest and deadliest medical scandals of modern times. There’s no convincing evidence that HIV plays any role whatsoever in impairing the immune system, let alone that it’s the sole cause of AIDS. There’s strong evidence that HIV is not readily transmitted sexually, and that AIDS is not contagious. HIV/AIDS is above all a multibillion dollar industry, in which so many scientists and organizations have acquired a stake that the views of researchers who challenge the orthodox position are vigorously suppressed. The constant message propagated by the world media, high-profile science journals, and AIDS propagandists is of course that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ that HIV causes AIDS, and that those who deny this are a public health menace and deserve to be silenced. But it is a telling fact that all the catastrophic predictions made since the early 1980s on the basis of the HIV=AIDS=Death dogma have failed to materialize. In the early days of rampant hysteria, it was predicted that AIDS was about to explode into the general population and that 1 in 5 heterosexuals could be dead within three years.

13



HIV Is A Myth, Positive Tests Never Shown To Prove Actual Existence Of VirusNeville Hodgkinson, Author and Journalist, 22 June 1998 [“AIDS: Is Anyone Positive?”, The European, http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/nheuropean.htm, Date Accessed 27 July 2007, TB]

Yet according to a group of scientists who are for the first time being given an opportunity to put their ideas before the world AIDS community, basic checks needed to establish the nature and even the existence of such a virus were never completed. Evidence accumulated by these critics indicates that genetic and biochemical signals that gave rise to the HIV theory are better understood as arising from within the body's immune cells, rather than as a consequence of invasion by a deadly new microbe. Various prolonged stresses on the body can cause these signals to appear. They include infection by a range of known germs; exposure to other people's bodily fluids such as blood and semen; and assaults on the body by some medical and recreational drugs. Malnutrition also plays a part, especially in parts of Asia and Africa, because it greatly increases vulnerability to chronic infections such as tuberculosis and leprosy that also cause a person to test "HIV" positive. According to this view, antibodies detected in the blood with the "HIV" test are non-specific: they do not mean a person is infected with a particular virus that is slowly destroying their immune system. The test should therefore be scrapped. The same is true of so-called "viral counts", technology that picks up altered levels of certain genetic sequences in the body. This genetic activity is connected with immune system activation but has never been shown to relate to a specific virus. The multi-billion-dollar effort to develop drugs or a vaccine targeting "HIV" should be reappraised, as it is unlikely to get to the root of the problem of AIDS and may have been adding to the suffering of victims. In short, "HIV" is a myth, along with many of the beliefs accompanying the theory.

Even Nobel Prize Winners Question HIV CauseNeville Hodgkinson, Author and Journalist, 1993 [”Top Chemist Urges Rethink on AIDS”, Sunday Times, 28 November 1993, http://web.lexis-nexis.com.ezproxy.mnl.umkc.edu/universe/document?_m=0342f0bda07968280de48df7a5907947&_docnum=7&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkVA&_md5=de5b4b3b26972d8d36b6b674bfa4102a, Accessed 27 July 2007, TB]

Dr Kary Mullis, who received the prize for inventing a genetic test now used worldwide by Aids researchers, said it is not even probable, let alone scientifically proven, that HIV causes the disease. As thousands of Aids workers were preparing this weekend for events surrounding World Aids Day on Wednesday, Mullis argued that the fight against the disease has been crippled by a fundamental scientific mistake. What started out as a working hypothesis, based on the isolation of HIV from a French homosexual with swollen lymph glands, ''has now become a sort of religious position'', he declared. Mullis is one of about 350 people, including many distinguished scientists, who have joined an international group that is pressing the scientific community to re-examine the orthodox view. He said that the only evidence appearing to support the hypothesis the fact that HIV seemed closely associated with Aids was bogus. When people were sick with various diseases and HIV was present or thought to be present, it was called Aids; when they were sick and HIV was not present, it was called something else. ''The HIV theory, the way it is being applied, is unfalsifiable and therefore useless as a medical hypothesis,'' Mullis said.''If there is evidence that HIV causes Aids, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document.''

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HIV is mostly harmless.Peter H. Duesberg & Bryan J. Ellison 1990 [“IS THE AIDS VIRUS A SCIENCE FICTION?”, Policy Review,http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/pdpolicy.htm, Accessed 7/27/02007

A fourth paradox of the HIV hypothesis has been noted by several virologists. HIV belongs to a class of viruses known as the retroviruses, which are very simple in structure and contain much less genetic information than most other viruses. Most types of viruses are lytic, meaning that they kill the cells they infect and thereby cause disease. Retroviruses, on the other hand, do not generally kill cells. Upon infecting cells, they copy their genetic information into the DNA of their new host cells. From that point forward, retroviruses depend on allowing their host cells to continue living, while they slowly produce new virus particles that are ejected from the cell. Retroviruses are therefore poor candidates to blame serious diseases on, particularly fatal conditions involving the deaths of huge numbers of cells, such as AIDS. Indeed, some 50 to 100 latent retroviruses have been found to reside in the DNA of all humans, passed along to each successive generation for as long as human beings have existed.

AIDS IS NOT CAUSED BY HIV—TOO MANY HOLES IN THE VIRUS-AIDS THEORYPeter Deusberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley, Et al, 2003 [Claus Keohnlein and David Rasnick, “The Chemical Bases Of The Various AIDS Epidemics: Recreational Drugs, Anti-Viral Chemotherapy and Malnutrition”, http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/jun2003/383.pdf p. accessed 7-26-2007, CJ//UMKC]

In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the US and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The virus-AIDS hypothesis was instantly accepted, but it is burdened with numerous paradoxes, none of which could be resolved by 2003: Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the US and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational or anti-HIV drugs or are subject to malnutrition? Why is the mortality of HIV-antibody-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs 7–9%, but that of all (mostly untreated) HIV-positives globally is only 1 4%? Here we propose that AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics, caused by recreational drugs, anti-HIV drugs, and malnutrition. According to this hypothesis AIDS is not contagious, not immunogenic, not treatable by vaccines or antiviral drugs, and HIV is just a passenger virus. The hypothesis explains why AIDS epidemics strike non- randomly if caused by drugs and randomly if caused by malnutrition, why they manifest in drug- and malnutrition-specific diseases, and why they are not self-limiting via anti-viral immunity. The hypothesis predicts AIDS prevention by adequate nutrition and abstaining from drugs, and even cures by treating AIDS diseases with proven medications.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (bad science)

“HIV CAUSES AIDS” ARGUMENTS ARE BASED ON BAD SCIENCE & MISINFORMATIONDr. Serge Lang, Professor of Mathematics, Yale University, 1994[“Controversy,” http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/controversy.htm, accessed 7-26-07, JT//UMKC]

"I do not regard the causal relationship between HIV and any disease as settled. I have seen considerable evidence that highly improper statistics concerning HIV and AIDS have been passed off as science, and that top members of the scientific establishment have carelessly, if not irresponsible, joined the media in spreading misinformation about the nature of AIDS." (Yale Scientific, Fall 1994)

THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT HIV CAUSES AIDS—ANTI-VIRAL DRUGS ARE POISONDr. Mohammad Ali Al-Bayati, Toxicologist and Pathologist, California, 2001[“Citations,” http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data2/citations.htm, accessed 7-25-07, JT//UMKC]

"HIV does not cause AIDS. There is no scientific evidence that HIV can kill infected T4 cells. The true problem is that the leaders of the HIV hypothesis have been ignoring important medical facts and are blindly attributing AIDS to the HIV virus. It is very sad and frustrating to know that the AIDS establishment are giving highly toxic drugs such as AZT to pregnant women even with studies that show the depression in the immune system can be reversed by nutrition. Prescribing anti-viral drugs to AIDS patients is like putting gasoline on a fire."

HIV has the ability to defy the rules of science—doesn’t cause aidsDave Pratt, August, 2006 “HIV=AIDS=Death: A Killer Myth”, 2004 p.79http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/aids.htm [July 27, 2007 AW//UMKKC]

For every other virus, the quantity present in a person is determined by isolating the virus. But in the case of HIV, this is usually impossible: most AIDS patients have no active HIV in their systems, because the virus has been neutralized by antibodies. To isolate HIV, millions of white blood cells must be taken from a patient and grown in culture dishes for weeks, while being subjected to chemical stimulants. Even then, despite intense efforts, HIV – unlike other viruses – has never been properly isolated as an independent stable particle. Since ‘HIV’ is genetically unremarkable, and, like other retroviruses, doesn’t even kill defenceless cells in culture, why should we imagine that it does so in the body when it is effectively neutralized by the human immune system. The orthodox response is that HIV is a new kind of retrovirus with special new properties – including, apparently, the ability to defy the rules of science and logic!

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (drugs/treatment causes)

SEVERAL STUDIES PROVE – ANTI-HIV THERAPIES CAUSE AIDSPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, June pg 383-412, IB]In 2002 the San Francisco Chronicle described a small group of drug-free and AIDS-free long-term survivors of HIV. Among them is a healthy artist who is HIV-positive for 23 years (based on frozen blood samples) and was “chastised by his doctors when he refused to start taking medication” (Hendrix 2002). Further, a 1-year old HIV positive, AZT-treated baby girl with severe muscle pain, insomnia, nausea and failure to grow was taken off AZT treatments in 1992 based on our hypothesis; as a result the baby immediately recovered (Duesberg 1996b). Now, at the age of 11, she is a completely normal, healthy kid, and a leading player in her school’s soccer team (Sheryl and Steve Nagel, personal communication). In addition, People magazine just described a healthy woman who is HIV-positive for an estimated 15 years, and “needs no medication”. The woman has since founded a support group, termed Center for Positive Connections, for HIVpositive heterosexuals in Miami (Cheakalos and Rosza 2002). In Los Angeles, Christine Maggiore is HIV-positive since 1992, has given birth to two very healthy children, ages 1 and 5, and has never taken anti-HIV drugs. Maggiore, a former HIV-AIDS counselor, has since also founded a support group, Alive & Well, and has written a book, What if everything you thought you knew about AIDS was wrong?, to instruct HIV-positives not to use anti-HIV drugs (Maggiore 2000). An appendix of the book

features letters from 34 Maggiore-graduates, all living over 10 years with HIV but without anti-HIV drugs, or after having discontinued such drugs. Even HIV-AIDS researchers have inadvertently confirmed our prediction of no AIDS in drug-free HIV-positives. For example, David Ho, signatory of the Durban Declaration, points out that in a group of “long-term survivors” of HIV studied in his lab, “none had received antiretroviral therapy” (Cao et al 1995). In a parallel publication, Pantaleo et al studying a group of long-term “non-progressors” of

HIV have made the same observation (Pantaleo et al 1995). Ho et al recently attributed longterm survival to some special human proteins, termed “defensins” (Zhang et al 2002), but acknowledged personally that all long-term survivors had again abstained from anti-HIV therapies (David Ho, personal communication). One wonders why any humans would ever get sick from HIV, if the human genome encodes HIV defensins! Munoz reported that none of the long-term survivors of the largest, federally funded study of AIDS risk factors of homosexual men, the MACS study, had used AZT (Munoz 1995). Fahey et al observed that among HIV-positive male homosexuals with less than 200 T-cells per ml, “45% of the group who were AIDS-free > or = 3 years after CD4+ cells fell below 200 °— 106/l had not used these (anti-HIV) treatments.” (Hoover et al 1995). According to a university magazine, AIDS researchers Abrams and Levy from the University of California at San Francisco have lectured in 1998 on drug-free longterm survivors of HIV to their medical students (Tanaka 1996; Duesberg and Rasnick 1998). Levy also published in 1998 in the Lancet, that “effective antiviral immune response is characteristic of long-term survivors who have been infected for over 20 years, have no symptoms, and have not been on any therapy” (Levy 1998). In 1999, Pitcher et al also described a group of 9 “long-term nonprogressors (with) untreated HIV-1 infection for 7–15 years”, compared to controls with a “decline of (T cells) with antiretroviral therapy” (Pitcher et al 1999). An Australian research team described a group of untreated

HIVpositives who were infected by blood transfusions but did not develop AIDS 10 years later (Learmont et al 1992). Further, Migueles et al (2000) reported that none of 13 long-term survivors had received “antiretroviral therapy”. Carr et al (2001) observed even recovery from fatal hypertension, liver failure and mitochondrial dysfunction after discontinuation of antiviral drugs that had been prescribed to a previously healthy HIV-positive man. Thus HIV-AIDS researchers confirm our prediction that HIV positives, who do not use drugs, do not develop AIDS or may even recover from it.

STUDIES PROVE TREATMENT OF HIV, NOT HIV ITSELF, CAUSES AIDSPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]In an effort to obtain independent proof that abstaining from anti-HIV drugs and recreational drugs is sufficient to survive HIV-infection or even to recover from AIDS, one of us, CK, in 1985 initiated a study of AIDS patients from Kiel, Germany, who have volunteered to abstain from anti-HIV

treatments. Remarkably, only 8% (3 of 36) of the patients not treated with anti-HIV drugs have died since their HIV antibodies were first detected, two of them 16 years and one 10 years after their first diagnosis of antibodies against HIV (table 8). Most have recovered from their initial AIDS-indicator symptoms. By contrast, 63% of all German AIDS patients (11,700 out of 18,700) of which most were treated since 1987 with anti-HIV drugs have died (Robert Koch Institut 2000). Thus our relatively small sample supports the hypothesis that without anti-HIV drugs and/or recreational drugs HIV fails to cause AIDS. Indeed without drugs AIDS patients recover, despite the presence of HIV.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (A2: studies prove)

YOUR “STUDIES”ASSUME THE DURBAN DECLARATION, WHICH WAS AN INCORRECT AND ELITIST DOCUMENTMichael Specter , staff writer for The New Yorker, March 12, 2007 [“THE DENIALISTS: The Dangerous Attacks on the Consensus About H.I.V. and AIDS.” The New Yorker. Pg. 38, JT//UNKC07]

But not in South Africa. “When Tshabalala-Msimang came back, that was when we started to hear the Duesberg-type pronouncements,” Abdool Karim recalled. “It was the beginning of our downward spiral’’—which ended in disaster at the XIII International AIDS Conference, held in Durban in 2000. “That was our lowest point,’’ she said. In response to the many denialist state ments issued by Mbeki and others, more than five thousand researchers who had gathered for the conference prepared one of the saddest documents in modern scientific history, the Durban Declaration, which stated that the evidence that H.I.V. causes AIDS is “clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous,” and meets the “high est standards of science .” Tshabalala-Msimang called it an élitist document, and Mbeki’s spokesman said that it would quickly find its way to “the dustbins of the office.” “It was so very, very depressing,’’ Abdool Karim said. “Here was the world in Durban for this amazing event. But it had come to a desert.

EVEN THE MOST QUALIFIED HIV-HYPOTHESIS HAS SEVERAL FLAWSPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]An analysis of the defects of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis based on its failure to predict AIDS facts is shown in table 4. Our analysis is based on the most recent and most authoritative case made for the HIV-AIDS hypothesis since 1984, namely the Durban Declaration that was published in Nature in 2000 and has been signed by “over 5,000 people, including Nobel prizewinners” (The Durban Declaration 2000). It can be seen in table 4 that the HIV-hypothesis fails to predict 17 specific facts of AIDS. The most fundamental discrepancy between the HIV-AIDS hypothesis and the facts is the paradox, that a latent, non-cytopathic and immunologically neutralized retrovirus [a virus that is inherently not cytopathic (Duesberg 1987)], that is only present in less than 1 out of 500 susceptible T-cells and rarely expressed in a few of those, would cause a plethora of fatal diseases in sexually active, young men and women. And, that the plethora of the diseases attributed to this virus would not show up for 5–10 years after infection (table 4). As a result of the many discrepancies between the HIV hypothesis and the facts, we conclude that HIV is not sufficient for AIDS, and is most compatible with being a passenger virus.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (A2: studies prove)

DESPITE BEING THE MOST STUDIED MICROBE IN HISTORY, THERE’S NO CONCLUSIVE PROOF THAT HIV CAUSES AIDS—OVER HALF OF THOSE WITH HIV DON’T GET AIDS—YOUR STUDIES ARE BASED ON THE MOST INEXPENSIVE, CRAPPY TESTING METHODS THAT ARE WHOLLY INDETERMINANT WITHOUT DIRECT TESTINGRebecca V. Culshaw, Rebecca V. Culshaw, Ph.D. Is a mathematical biologist who has been working on mathematical models of HIV infection for the past ten years. March 3, 2006,[ Why I Quit HIV,http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html, 7/27/07, P.G]

As it turns out, the reason there was no consensus mathematically as to how HIV killed T-cells was because there was no biological consensus. There still isn’t. HIV is possibly the most studied microbe in history – certainly it is the best-funded – yet there is still no agreed-upon mechanism of pathogenesis . Worse than that, there are no data to support the hypothesis that HIV kills T-cells at all. It doesn’t in the test tube. It mostly just sits there, as it does in people – if it can be found at all. In Robert Gallo's seminal 1984 paper in which he claims "proof" that HIV causes AIDS, actual HIV could be found in only 26 out of 72 AIDS patients . To date, actual HIV remains an elusive target in those with AIDS or simply HIV-positive.This is starkly illustrated by the continued use of antibody tests to diagnose HIV infection. Antibody tests are fairly standard to test for certain microbes, but for anything other than HIV, the main reason they are used in place of direct tests (that is, actually looking for the bacteria or virus itself) is because they are generally much easier and cheaper than direct testing . Most importantly, such antibody tests have been rigorously verified against the gold standard of microbial isolation. This stands in vivid contrast to HIV, for which antibody tests are used because there exists no test for the actual virus. As to so-called "viral load," most people are not aware that tests for viral load are neither licensed nor recommended by the FDA to diagnose HIV infection. This is why an "AIDS test" is still an antibody test. Viral load, however, is used to estimate the health status of those already diagnosed HIV-positive. But there are very good reasons to believe it does not work at all. Viral load uses either PCR or a technique called branched-chained DNA amplification (bDNA). PCR is the same technique used for "DNA fingerprinting" at crime scenes where only trace amounts of materials can be found. PCR essentially mass-produces DNA or RNA so that it can be seen. If something has to be mass-produced to even be seen, and the result of that mass-production is used to estimate how much of a pathogen there is, it might lead a person to wonder how relevant the pathogen was in the first place. Specifically, how could something so hard to find, even using the most sensitive and sophisticated technology, completely decimate the immune system? BDNA, while not magnifying anything directly, nevertheless looks only for fragments of DNA believed, but not proven, to be components of the genome of HIV – but there is no evidence to say that these fragments don’t exist in other genetic sequences unrelated to HIV or to any virus. It is worth noting at this point that viral load, like antibody tests, has never been verified against the gold standard of HIV isolation. BDNA uses PCR as a gold standard, PCR uses antibody tests as a gold standard, and antibody tests use each other. None use HIV itself. There is good reason to believe the antibody tests are flawed as well . The two types of tests routinely used are the ELISA and the Western Blot (WB). The current testing protocol is to "verify" a positive ELISA with the "more specific" WB (which has actually been banned from diagnostic use in the UK because it is so unreliable). But few people know that the criteria for a positive WB vary from country to country and even from lab to lab. Put bluntly, a person’s HIV status could well change depending on the testing venue. It is also possible to test "WB indeterminate," which translates to any one of "uninfected," "possibly infected," or even, absurdly, "partly infected" under the current interpretation. This conundrum is confounded by the fact that the proteins comprising the different reactive "bands" on the WB test are all claimed to be specific to HIV, raising the question of how a truly uninfected individual could possess antibodies to even one "HIV-specific" protein.

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http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/mcinterviewrr.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=6200936&dopt=Abstract


HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (immunosuppression/antibodies)

HIV DOESN’T HURT THE IMMUNE SYSTEM OR CAUSE AIDSTom Bethell staff writer 17 Aug. 1992[National Review, http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/tbcould.htm, “COULD DUESBERG BE RIGHT?,” (Date accessed 07-26-07)Z.H/UMKC]

Down the hall from Duesberg at Berkeley's Stanley Hall is the lab of Professor Harry Rubin, another skeptic. He also believes that HIV has not been shown to be the cause of AIDS. I spoke to Bryan Ellison, a doctoral candidate with Rubin. Retroviruses have never been observed to kill cells, he told me. If you microscopically examine healthy cells in a dish, and a virus such as polio is added to them, the virus multiplies inside the cells and bursts them open in a matter of hours. Soon you can see nothing but "debris and garbage and dead cells," he said. But if you put HIV, or any other retrovirus, into the same dish with healthy cells-an environment where the body's immune system cannot interfere-the cells just sit there and continue healthy growth.

HIV doesn’t cause AIDS—antibodies detection doesn’t proveDave Pratt, August, 2006 “HIV=AIDS=Death: A Killer Myth”, ET al, 2006[Kary Mullis, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993, Mullis, 2000, p. 173]http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/aids.htm [July 27, 2007 AW//UMKC

Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993, tried to find out why scientists had become so convinced that HIV caused AIDS. He realized that the detection of antibodies to HIV in a person suffering from AIDS does not prove that HIV causes AIDS.Antibodies to viruses had always been considered evidence of past disease, not present disease. Antibodies signaled that the virus had been defeated. ... There was no indication in these papers that this virus caused a disease. They didn’t show that everybody with the antibodies had the disease. In fact, they found some healthy people with antibodies.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (the link is dying out!)

The HIV won’t cause AIDS within 60 yearsDELTHIA RICKS staff writer October 02, 2005[The Houston Chronicle, “Virus that causes AIDS has weakened, scientists say,” P. A6, AW//UMKC

Reporting Friday in the journal AIDS, researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, theorized that the virus could stop causing disease within 60 years. Even in light of such a dramatic prediction, the team insists that HIV, the pathogen that leads to AIDS, remains an aggressive and lethal microbe. Dr. Eric Arts, the U.S. collaborator from Cleveland, wrote with his Belgian colleagues that the findings suggest that HIV's ability to replicate "may have decreased in the human population since the start of the pandemic.”In short, the robust capacity of the virus to reproduce itself inside human cells has declined over the years.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (latency proves)

LATENCY PROVES THERE IS NO CAUSAL LINKPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]Since HIV is “the sole cause of AIDS”, it must be abundant in AIDS patients based on “exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases.” But, only antibodies against HIV are found in most patients (1–7)**. Therefore, “HIV infection is identified in blood by detecting antibodies, gene sequences, or viral isolation.” But, HIV can only be “isolated” from rare, latently infected lymphocytes that have been cultured for weeks in vitro – away from the antibodies of the human host (8). Thus HIV behaves like a latent passenger virus.

Other Diseases Can Cause Positive Test Results, Explanation For LatencyNeville Hodgkinson, Author and Journalist, 22 June 1998 [“AIDS: Is Anyone Positive?”, The European, http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/nheuropean.htm, Date Accessed 27 July 2007, TB]

Huge confusion has been created by this situation. One review of the medical literature found no fewer than 70 different disease conditions, often involving an auto-immune response, documented as capable of triggering a positive result with the test.

If the scientists who maintain that "HIV" is a myth are right, their analysis holds a crucial message of hope for people who have tested positive. It means that, depending on how much damage has been caused, a person's immune system may return to a normal, healthy state providing the compromising factors are removed. This explains why millions of "positive" people have stayed well for years, especially in poor countries unable to afford the anti-viral drugs, contrary to predictions based on the "deadly virus" view.

Extended latency proves that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.Peter H. Duesberg & Bryan J. Ellison 1990 [“IS THE AIDS VIRUS A SCIENCE FICTION?”, Policy Review,http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/pdpolicy.htm, Accessed 7/27/02007 MG

Although most viruses cause disease within weeks of acute infection, HIV purportedly causes AIDS after an average latent period of 10 to 11 years. To support this notion, defenders of the virus-AIDS hypothesis cite models of other viruses that cause in animals and humans, often with latent periods of 10 to 40 years between infection by the virus and the development of disease. Such "slow viruses" have been credited in recent years for various leukemias both in humans and animals, as well as for certain other specific cancers. Female cervical cancer is widely thought to be caused by assorted strains of human wart viruses, while the cancer known as Brukitt's lymphoma is often believed to be the result of the virus that also causes mononucleosis.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (NO VACCINE PROVES)

THE LACK OF A VACCINE PROVES THERE IS NO CORRELATIONPeter Duesberg, Claus Koehnlein and David Rasnick, Donnor Laboratory @ UC Berkeley, June 2003[“The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics,” J. Biosci, vol. 28, no. 4, pg 383-412, IB]

Despite its spectacular birthday the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has remained entirely unproductive to this date: There is as yet no anti-HIV-AIDS vaccine, no effective prevention and not a single AIDS patient has ever been cured – the hallmarks of a flawed hypothesis. Indeed the hypothesis was born with several serious birth defects and has developed further defects since; most of these should have given pause to HIV-AIDS researchers to rethink and reconsider. However, in the race to claim a share of the new viral cause for AIDS and of virus-based AIDS treatments, “The Trojan horse of emergency” (Szasz 2001) was saddled so quickly that there was little time and no interest to address these defects, not even the most fundamental ones (Weiss and Jaffe 1990; Cohen 1994; O’Brien 1997).

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (duesberg qualified)

HIV IS HARMLESS—DOESN’T CAUSE AIDS. DUESBERG IS THE MOST QUALIFIED EXPERT IN THE FIELDTom Bethell staff writer 17 Aug. 1992[National Review, http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/tbcould.htm, “COULD DUESBERG BE RIGHT?,” (Date accessed 07-26-07)Z.H/UMKC]

On July 20, the New York Times reported from Amsterdam that AIDS is "generally thought to be caused" by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. Earlier, the virus had been identified as the undoubted cause. But reports, circulating at the Amsterdam conference, of AIDS-like diseases with no trace of HIV triggered a moment of short-lived doubt. The next reaction was to assume a new, hitherto undetected virus was the culprit. Like Ptolemaic epicycles, hypothetical viruses began to multiply. Another possibility is that HIV doesn't have anything to do with AIDS. This is what Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley has been saying for five years: that HIV doesn't attack the immune system, doesn't cause AIDS, and is in fact harmless. A professor of molecular biology, Duesberg is one of the world's leading experts on retroviruses. I called him at his Berkeley lab and asked what he thought of the news from Amsterdam, and the possibility that we may now have one more lethal virus to worry about.

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HIV DOES NOT = AIDS (dissenters true)

Dissenters From HIV Virus Theory Produce More Conclusive EvidenceNeville Hodgkinson, Author and Journalist, 22 June 1998 [“AIDS: Is Anyone Positive?”, The European, http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/nheuropean.htm, Date Accessed 27 July 2007, TB]

Michael Baumgartner, the organisation's founder and secretary, who used to serve as an AIDS chaplain at San Francisco General Hospital, said that voices of dissent on the HIV hypothesis have been growing stronger from within the scientific community. The dissidents had presented more and more "conclusive" work. In addition, he said, organisations of people living with the label of either "HIV" or AIDS were irritated by the failure of the latest treatment approaches and losing faith in the orthodox views. The decision to allow the claimed flaws in HIV science to be examined at the conference was "historic".

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TERRORISM ANSWERS

TERRORISTS WILL RELY ON CONVENTIONAL WEAPONSRobert L. Hutchins, National Intelligence Council, 2004 [MATCHING THE GLOBAL FUTURE, Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, Dec.16, UMKC07//JT]

Terrorist attacks will continue to primarily employ conventional weapons, incorporating new twists and constantly adapting to counterterrorist efforts. Terrorists probably will be most original not in the technologies or weapons they use but rather in their operational concepts—i.e., the scope, design, or support arrangements for attacks.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—WEAK NOW /DECLINE

HARD POWER HAS BEEN DECLINING FOR DECADESAlex Williamson, staff writer, June 28 2007 [“The hobbled hegemon ,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9401945accessed July 26, 2007, MG]

Strategists wonder whether the Iraq war has damaged America so badly as to set it on a path to “imperial decline”. Is the post-Soviet “unipolar” world, established after America's first war against Saddam Hussein in 1991, coming prematurely to an end as a result of the second war to topple him? For Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a leading think-tank, “the American era in the Middle East is over”—and because of the importance of the Middle East, American global power has also been weakened, for years if not for decades.

U.S. HEGEMONY IS WEAK NOW. MULTIPLE MAJOR POWERS ARE RISING FOR A NEW ERA OF CONFLICTWILLIAM HAWKINS 2005 [Defense News, January 31, Pg. 21, HEADLINE: U.S. Defense Cuts Signal a Turn Inward, UMKC07//JT]

The administration seems not to have taken the lesson that should have been learned only a few years ago. U.S. military force levels were cut dramatically in the 1990s in the belief that after the Cold War, major conflict would become obsolete and multilateral institutions for collective security and commercial engagement would revive. By the end of the decade, all that had been experienced was the usual euphoria following the end of one era of conflict before political reality reasserted itself. Today, China, India and Japan are assuming greater influence. Russia is trying to reassert itself, while Europe is trying to find itself. A wave of left-wing governments are in office across Latin America. The spread of military technologies, increasing competition for natural resources and markets, and the persistence of ancient animosities have returned the world to its normal condition as an arena for struggle.

HEG LOW NOW – FORCES ARE OVERSTRETCHED & ALLIES ARE BECOMING INDEPENDENTSTARR Et al 2005 [PAUL STARR, MICHAEL TOMASKY, AND ROBERT KUTTNER, HEADLINE: The Liberal Uses of Power, The American Prospect, March, Pg. 20, UMKC07//JT]

Moreover, even if Iraq's government does not go the way of Iran, the Iraq War will not have removed the perils that led to the direct engagement of the United States in the Islamic world. Three and a half years after September 11, Islamist terrorists remain a threat, U.S. military forces are stretched to the limit, anti-Americanism has intensified in Europe and the Middle East, and our traditional allies are increasingly distrustful of U.S. leadership and are setting an independent path in foreign affairs.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—WEAK NOW /DECLINE

U.S. LEADERSHIP IS WEAK NOW. BUSH FISCAL POLICIES INCREASE DEBT & FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCE AND DIVIDE OUR ALLIESSTARR Et al 2005 [PAUL STARR, MICHAEL TOMASKY, AND ROBERT KUTTNER, HEADLINE: The Liberal Uses of Power, The American Prospect, March, Pg. 20, UMKC07//JT]

In other ways, the Bush administration has also undermined American power and influence. Its fiscal policies have created a dangerous dependence on foreign borrowing to finance our budget and trade deficits, and its energy policies have increased our dependence on foreign oil. The inevitable result is a double standard vis-a-vis China and unsavory Middle Eastern regimes. Bush's defenders like to portray liberals, particularly those who opposed the Iraq War, as weak and unserious about national security. But the truth is that the war itself and other administration policies are weakening our power and security, undermining our alliances and freedom of action.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—FAILS

HARD POWER INSUFFICIENT—NEED MORE TROOPSAlex Williamson, staff writer, June 28 2007 [“The hobbled hegemon ,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9401945accessed July 26, 2007, MG]

Clearly America needs a bigger army. The new defence secretary, Robert Gates, has belatedly announced plans to expand ground forces by an extra 62,000 troops—nearly a tenth of the total—to bring the army up to 547,000 and the marines to 202,000 by 2012. This will not immediately ease the strain, as it will take years to prepare new units. And even this rise may not be enough. According to the CBO, the increase would still not sustain the current surge in Iraq without breaching the rotation guidelines.

U.S. MILITARY IS ALREADY OVERSTRETCHED & RECRUITMENT SHORTFALLS DESTROY OUR ABILITY TO STOP PROLIF AND ROGUE STATESJames KITFIELD 2005 ***This evidence uses gender biased language we do not read or support![The National Journal, May 28, Vol. 37, No. 22, HEADLINE: Coercion and Pre-emption, lexis, UMKC07//JT]

Meanwhile, U.S. military forces are straining mightily under the burden of bloody counterinsurgency and security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military recruitment is down nearly across the board , and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, has publicly conceded for the first time that those ongoing missions would impair the Pentagon's ability to respond to future crises, whether in Iran, North Korea, or elsewhere . With the recent congressional passage of an $82 billion emergency supplemental bill, the price tag for those operations is now more than $200 billion, and rising.At the same time, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has profoundly damaged the credibility of the United States as the leader in the global effort against nuclear proliferation and rogue states. In March, the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (known as the Robb-Silberman commission for its co-chairmen, former Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia and federal Judge Laurence Silberman) issued its report reviewing intelligence on Iran, Libya, and North Korea as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. The document outlines failures and inadequacies so woeful and pervasive that many experts believe that U.S. intelligence is manifestly incapable of supporting a doctrine of pre-emptive war.

U.S. HEG CANNOT BE MAINTAINED UNDER THE BUSH DOCTRINE THAT INCREASES OUR VULNERABILITYJames KITFIELD 2005 ***This evidence uses gender biased language we do not read or support![The National Journal, May 28, Vol. 37, No. 22, HEADLINE: Coercion and Pre-emption, lexis, UMKC07//JT]

All of this suggests to some analysts that the time of maximum U.S. coercive pressure has passed. The United States , they fear, is now entering a period of increased vulnerability to nuclear proliferation, brinkmanship, and terrorism. If so, this calls into question some of the underlying tenets of the assertive Bush Doctrine.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—NOT SUSTAINABLE

HEGEMONY IS UNSUSTAINABLE – IT CAUSES COUNTER-BALANCING, WHICH FOSTERS A DECLINE OF U.S. POWER AND MAKING TRANSITION CONFLICTS INEVITABLEChristopher Layne, Visiting Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, 1997[“From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing” International Security, Summer]

The strategy of preponderance incorporates contradictory assumptions about the importance of relative power. On the one hand, the strategy seeks to maximize America’s military power by perpetuating its role as the predominant great power in the international system. Yet the strategy’s economic dimension is curiously indifferent to the security implications of the redistribution of relative power in the international political system resulting from economic interdependence. Nor does it resolve the following conundrum: given that economic power is the foundation of military strength, how will the United States be able to retain its hegemonic position in the international political system if its relative economic power continues to decline? Contrary to the strategy of preponderance, the security/interdependence nexus posits that economic openness has adverse strategic consequences: it contributes to, and accelerates, a redistribution of relative power among states in the international system (allowing rising competitors to catch up to the United States more quickly than they otherwise would). This leads to the emergence of new great powers. The resulting power transition, which occurs as a formerly dominant power declines and new challengers arise, usually climaxes in great power war. Because great power emergence is driven by uneven growth rates, there is little—short of preventive war—that the United States can do to prevent the rise of new great powers. But, to some extent, U.S. grand strategy can affect both the pace and the magnitude of America’s relative power decline.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—A2: KHALILZAD

KHALILZAD EXAGGERATES THREATS IN ORDER TO JUST HEGEMONYChristopher Layne, Visiting Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, 1997[“From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing” International Security, Summer]

The security/interdependence nexus results in the exaggeration of threats to American strategic interests because it requires the United States to defend its core interests by intervening in the peripheries. There are three reasons for this. First, as Johnson points out, order-maintenance strategies are biased inherently toward threat exaggeration. Threats to order generate an anxiety “that has at its center the fear of the unknown. It is not just security, but the pattern of order upon which the sense of security depends that is threatened.”4’ Second, because the strategy of preponderance requires U.S. intervention in places that concededly have no intrinsic strategic value, U.S. policymakers are compelled to overstate the dangers to American interests to mobilize domestic support for their policies.42 Third, the tendency to exaggerate threats is tightly linked to the strategy of preponderance’s concern with maintaining U.S. credibility. The diplomatic historian Robert J. McMahon has observed that since 1945 U.S. policymakers consistently have asserted that American credibility is “among the most critical of all foreign policy objectives.” As Khalilzad makes clear, they still are obsessed with the need to preserve America’s reputation for honoring its security commitments: “The credibility of U.S. alliances can be undermined if key allies, such as Germany and Japan, believe that the current. arrangements do not deal adequately with threats to their security. It could also be undermined if, over an extended period, the United States is perceived as lacking the will or capability to lead in protecting their interests.” Credibility is believed to be crucial if the extended deterrence guarantees on which the strategy of preponderance rests are to remain robust. Preponderance’s concern with credibility leads to the belief that U.S. commitments are interdependent. As Thomas C. Schelling has put it: “Few parts of the world are intrinsically worth the risk of serious war by themselves. but defending them or running risks to protect them may preserve one’s commitments to action in other parts of the world at later times.”45 If others perceive that the United States has acted irresolutely in a specific crisis, they will conclude that it will not honor its commitments in future crises. Hence, as happened repeatedly in the Cold War, the United States has taken military action in peripheral areas to demonstrate—both to allies and potential adversaries—that it will uphold its security obligations in core areas.

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER HURTS SOFT POWER

UNILATERALISM UNDERMINES SOFT POWERJoseph S. Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 2004 [HEADLINE: OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE AMERICA AND THE WORLD?, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 4, Pg.E-1, UMKC07//JT]

Recovery of American soft power will depend on policy changes like finding a political solution in Iraq, investing more heavily in advancing the Middle East peace process and working more closely to involve allies and international institutions. Most polls show that our unilateralism has convinced people in other countries that we do not consider or respect their interests.

THE BUSH DOCTRINE’S ‘AXIS OF EVIL’ ERODES OUR SOFT POWERJames KITFIELD 2005 [The National Journal, May 28, Vol. 37, No. 22, HEADLINE: Coercion and Pre-emption, lexis, UMKC07//JT]

Zbigniew Brzezinski was President Carter's national security adviser. "I think we are facing a very serious problem, though I would differentiate it by pointing out that North Korea is far more menacing than Iran because its leadership is demonstrably pathological and very capable of ruthless violence and horrible brutality," Brzezinski told National Journal. "Iran may be led by a bloody-minded theocracy, but it is also a serious, historically rooted country with a great imperial tradition. The larger point is that if you go around telling countries that you are going to change their regimes and call them part of a terrorist 'axis of evil,' what kind of incentive do they have to accommodate our wishes, even if we had such a proposal? In a sense, our belligerent demagoguery and exaggerated predictions of catastrophe are reducing the probability of a peaceful accommodation."

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HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER BAD (GENERAL)

HEG LEADS TO BACKLASH AND OVERSTRETCH—IT COLLAPSES THE ECONOMY, LEADS TO COUNTER-BALANCING, ATTACKS ON THE U.S. AND PROLIF.Ivan Eland , Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, November 26, 2002[“The Empire Strikes Out: The New Imperialism and Its Fatal Flaws” Policy Analysis, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa459.pdf Accessed July 26, 2007. A.P.]

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, several commentators have advanced the idea of security through empire. They claim that the best way to protect the United States in the 21st century is to emulate the British, Roman, and other empires of the past. The logic behind the idea is that if the United States can consolidate the international system under its enlightened hegemony, America will be both safer and more prosperous. Although the word “empire” is not used, the Bush administration’s ambitious new National Security Strategy seems to embrace the notion of neoimperialism. The idea, however, ignores the fact that today’s world bears little resemblance to the one over which Britain or Rome once presided. Two differences are obvious: First, the world is far more interconnected today, which makes the consequences of sanctimonious, arrogant, or clumsy international behavior riskier politically, diplomatically, and economically. Second, the potential costs associated with making enemies today are far greater than they were for empires past. Indeed, the British and the Romans were the targets of assassinations, arson, and other forms of anti-imperial backlash, but that activity was typically small-scale and took place far from the mother country. Forms of backlash today, in contrast, could be large-scale and directed at America’s homeland. Most of all, the strategy of empire is likely to overstretch and bleed America’s economy and its military and federal budgets, and the overextension could hasten the decline of the United States as a superpower, as it did the Soviet Union and Great Britain. The strategy could also have the opposite effect from what its proponents claim it would have; that is, it would alarm other nations and peoples and thus provoke counterbalancing behavior and create incentives for other nations to acquire weapons of mass destruction as an insurance policy against American military might.

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http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa459.pdf%20%20%20Accessed%20July%2026


HEGEMONY ANSWERS—HARD POWER BAD (TERRORISM)

HEGEMONY CAUSES WMD TERRORISMIvan Eland, Director of Defense Policy Studies at Cato, December 17, 1998 [“Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?” Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50, http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb50.pdf, accessed 7-27-07]

The Defense Science Board's 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats notes a relationship between an activist American foreign policy and terrorism against the United States: As part of its global power position, the United States is called upon frequently to respond to international causes and deploy forces around the world. America's position in the world invites attack simply because of its presence. Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States . 3 In an August 8, 1998, radio address justifying cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan in response to terrorist bombings of two U.S. embassies, President Clinton admitted as much but put a positive spin on it with political hyperbole: Americans are targets of terrorism in part because we have unique leadership responsibilities in the world, because we act to advance peace and democracy, and because we stand united against terrorism. 4 Richard Betts, an influential authority on American foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written about the connection between U.S. activism overseas and possible attacks on the United States with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons: "American activism to guarantee international stability is, paradoxically, the prime source of American vulnerability." Elaborating, he notes, "Today, as the only nation acting to police areas outside its own region, the United States makes itself a target for states or groups whose aspirations are frustrated by U.S. power."

HEGEMONY CAUSES A WAVE OF TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE U.S.Ivan Eland, Director of Defense Policy Studies at Cato, December 17, 1998 [“Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?” Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50, http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb50.pdf, accessed 7-27-07]

According to the U.S. State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1997, one-third of all terrorist attacks worldwide were perpetrated against U.S. targets.11 The percentage of terrorism targeted at the United States is very high considering that the United States--unlike nations such as Algeria, Turkey, and the United Kingdom--has no internal civil war or quarrels with its neighbors that spawn terrorism. The major difference between the United States and other wealthy democratic nations is that it is an interventionist superpower. As Betts notes, the United States is the only nation in the world that intervenes regularly outside its own region.

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http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb50.pdf


SOFT POWER ANSWERS--LOW NOW

GLOBAL SURVERY SHOWS AMERICANISM AROUND THE WORLD IS LOW.Turkish Daily News, July 6, 2007 [LONDON'S DOCTOR BOMBERS, ACHILLES' HEEL!, Turkish Daily News, p. accessed 7/27/07, CJ//UMKC]

Pew Global Attitudes Survey on how the United States is perceived throughout the world provoked much discussion in the media in Turkey. Of course the focus was on Turkey's results, which showed that only 9 percent of Turkish citizens like the United States. According to the survey, Turkey may be the most anti-American country in the world now. However, a close look at the survey shows, as can be easily guessed, that sympathy toward the U.S. has gradually diminished all over the world in the last five or so years. Do you think it is difficult to understand why? I do not. But the problem is that this antipathy, hate, or whatever you want to call it makes our world more and more insecure. These intense feelings are one of the strong elements in the vicious cycle that all of us in this world are currently experiencing. The United States' response to terrorism provokes more terrorism and creates more terrorists. Then the United States' takes a tougher position, which in turn causes more and more terrorists to join the ranks of terrorist organizations. 9/11 was really a very tragic incident and I felt the pain of it very deeply. I am very sorry for the Americans who lost their loved ones during this brutal and inhuman terrorist attack. I also believe that the United States could have reacted to this evil in a

completely different manner by analyzing the root causes of the terror it faced. What happened instead, we all know. The feeling of injustice is the most important condition for terrorism. The United States has been increasing this feeling with every step it has taken in its struggle against terrorism. Iraq's invasion based on bald lies about "weapons of mass destruction", the scenes from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and the CIA's rendition program all sent messages of injustice and unfairness to every corner of the world. The United States' refusal to support neither the establishment of an International Criminal Court nor the Kyoto Protocol showed everyone in the world that the United States was now set on pursuing its interest alone and at the expense of all other countries.

Soft Power is low nowAlex Williamson, staff writer, June 28 2007 [“The hobbled hegemon ,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9401945accessed July 26, 2007, MG]

True, America has recovered from previous disasters, not least the Vietnam war. But its military troubles come at a time when the global strategic balance appears to be tilting away from America. Iran is filling the vacuum created in Iraq, and is accelerating its nuclear program. China's military punch is growing along with its booming economy. Russia is more belligerent. The transatlantic relationship is loveless. Across the world, anti-Americanism has increased to the point where the United States is often regarded as a threat to world peace rather than its guarantor .

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SOFT POWER ANSWERS--LOW NOW

SOFT POWER LOW NOWJoseph S. Nye, Jr. Author, Former Sec. of Defense, Dean of Harvard’s School of Government. 2004 [“Ignoring Soft Power Carries a High Cost”, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, May 16, 2004, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu /news/opeds/2004/nye_softpower_chitrib_051604.htm, July 26, 2007, TB]

Anti -Americanism has increased sharply in the past two years . In addition to the polls, we see it in hockey fans in Montreal who boo the American national anthem, in high school students in Switzerland who do not want to go to the United States as exchange students, and in increased terrorist recruitment in the Islamic world. We are losing our soft power, our ability to attract others.

THE U.S. IS IN FULL RETREAT FROM SOFT POWERJoshua Kurlantzick, 2005[HEADLINE: China's Chance, Prospect, February 17, UMKC07//JT]

Over the past two decades, the US has starved its key diplomatic weapons-the state department and the foreign service-of necessary funds and intellectual capital. Congress has repeatedly cut the state department's budget while boosting that of the Pentagon; today the US budget for aid and diplomacy is less than half what it was in the early days of the cold war.

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http://www.foreignaffairs.org/2004/3.html

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