I negate.

Resolved: The United States use of targeted killing in foreign countries is

unjust.

The value is governmental legitimacy since the resolution is about.

Democratic procedures arrive at the best decisions.

Christiano1
Two kinds of in instrumental benefits are commonly attributed to democracy: relatively good laws and policies and improvements in the characters of the participants. John
Stuart Mill argued that a democratic method of making legislation is better than non-democratic methods in three ways: strategically, epistemically and via the improvement of

[First,] democracy has an advantage because it forces

the characters of democratic citizens (Mill, 1861, Chapter 3). Strategically,

decision-makers to take into account the interests, rights and opinions of most people in
society. Since democracy gives some political power to each, more people are taken
into account than under aristocracy or monarchy. The most forceful contemporary statement of this instrumental
argument is provided by Amartya Sen, who argues, for example, that no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent country with a democratic form of
government and a relatively free press (Sen 1999, 152). The basis of this argument is that politicians in a multiparty democracy with free elections and a free press have

[Second,] democracy is thought to be the best

incentives to respond to the expressions of needs of the poor. Epistemologically,

decision-making method on the grounds that it is generally more reliable in helping participants discover the right decisions. Since
democracy brings a lot of people into the process of decision making, it can take
advantage of many sources of information and critical assessment of laws and policies. Democratic decision-making tends to
be more informed than other forms about the interests of citizens and the causal mechanisms necessary to advance those interests.

Therefore the criterion is consistency with democratic procedure.

Prefer the criterion for 3 more reasons:

First, only democracy respects the equality of persons.

Christiano 2
democracy is a way of treating persons as equals when there
Many democratic theorists have argued that

is good reason to impose some kind of organization on their shared lives but they
disagree about how best to do it. On one version, defended by Peter Singer (1973, pp. 30-41), when people insist on
different ways of arranging matters properly, each person in a sense claims a right to be dictator over their shared lives.
But these claims to dictatorship cannot all hold up, the argument goes. Democracy
embodies a kind of peaceful and fair compromise among these conflicting claims to rule. Each
compromises equally on what he claims as long as the others do, resulting in
each having an equal say over decision making.

Second, only democracy respects humans as ends in themselves.

Christiano 4
Democracy, it is said, extends
Some argue that the basic principles of democracy are founded in the idea that each individual has a right to liberty.

the idea that each ought to be master of his or her life to the domain of collective
decision making. First, each person's life is deeply affected by the larger social, legal and cultural
environment in which he or she lives. Second, only when each person has an equal voice

1 Christiano, Thomas (University of Arizona). Democracy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jul 27, 2006.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democracy/#NonInsVal
and vote in the process of collective decision-making will each have control over this larger environment. Thinkers such as Carol
Gould (1988, pp.45-85) conclude that only when some kind of democracy is implemented, will individuals have a chance at self-government.

Since individuals have a right of self-government, they have a right to democratic

participation. This right is established at least partly independently of the worth of the
outcomes of democratic decision making. The idea is that the right of self-government gives one a right, within limits, to do
wrong. Just as an individual has a right to make some bad decisions for himself or herself, so a

group of individuals have [has] a right to make bad or unjust decisions for themselves regarding those [their
shared] activities they share.

Third, democracy solves multiple scenarios for extinction

Diamond 952
Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the
global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats
to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality,

accountability, popular sovereignty and openness. The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic

[countries] fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves
or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not
sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and

They are more environmentally

enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment.

responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their
environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements

Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties,
in secret.

property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation
on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.

Empirics confirm democracy solves war.

Ward and Gleiditsch 983

As Figure 1 details, democratization-whether in mild or strong degrees-is accompanied by reduction, not increase, in the risk of war. Though we do not present graphs of the

converse, changes toward autocracy and reversals of democratization are accompanied by increased
risks of war involvement. These risks are proportionally greater than the decline or benefits of further democratization. Thus, there is strong evidence that
democratization has a monadic effect: It reduces the probability that a country will be involved in a [of] war. Although the
probability of war involvement does not decrease linearly, it does decrease monotonically, so that over the entire range of democracy minus autocracy values,

there is a reduction of about [by] 50%. During the democratic transition, at every point along the way as well as at the end points, there is an attendant reduction in
the probability of a polity being at war.

The impact is over 100 million lives saved.

Rummel 944

2 Diamond, Larry, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, December, PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN THE 1990S, 1995, 1p.
http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/diam_rpt.html
3 Michael D. Ward and Kristian S. Gleditsch, Democratizing for Peace, American Political Science Review, March 1998, p.
4 Rummel, RJ. Power Kills: Genocide and Mass Murder. "Power, Genocide and Mass Murder," Journal of Peace Research 31 (no.1,
1994): 1-10. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POWER.ART.HTM#.
 statistical results [show that] from a project on comparative genocide and mass-murder in this century.
This is a report of the

Most probably near 170,000,000 people have been murdered in cold-blood by governments, well

over three-quarters by absolutist regimes. The most such killing was done by the Soviet Union (near 62,000,000 people), the
communist government of China is second (near 35,000,000), followed by Nazi Germany (almost 21,000,000), and Nationalist China (some 10,000,000). Lesser
megamurderers include WWII Japan, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, WWI Turkey, communist Vietnam, post-WWII Poland, Pakistan, and communist Yugoslavia. The most intense

The best predictor

democide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, where they killed over 30 percent of their subjects in less than four years.

of this killing is regime power. The more arbitrary power a regime has, the less
democratic it is, the more likely it will kill its subjects or foreigners. The conclusion is that power
kills, absolute power kills absolutely.

Contention 1 is Majority Opinion

Polls show wide support for targeted killing.

Washington Post 125

Obamas counterterrorism policy, including the use of drone
The sharpest edges of President

aircraft to kill suspected terrorists abroad and keeping open the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, have [has] broad public
support, including from the left wing of the Democratic Party. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Obama, who campaigned on a
pledge to close the brig in Cuba and to change national security policies he criticized as inconsistent with U.S. law and values, has little to fear politically for failing to live up to
all of those promises. The findings also highlight the quandary for Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates, who have portrayed Obama as weak abroad and politically
motivated inmoving to end Americas two long wars. Attacking Obamas national security policies, the poll suggests, may do GOP challengers more harm than good when many
Americans favor a national security approach that relies more on technology than troops. By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Americans say the presidents handling of terrorism is
a major reason to support rather than oppose his bid for reelection. The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obamas decision to keep open the prison at
Guantanamo Bay. He pledged during his first week in office to close the prison within a year, but he has not done so. Even the party base appears willing to forgive that failure.
The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even
though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of President George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed. Obama has also relied on

armed drones far more than Bush did, and he has expanded their use beyond Americas defined war zones. The Post-ABC News poll found that 83 percent of
Americans approve of Obamas drone policy, which administration officials refuse to discuss, citing security concerns.

Contention 2 is Democratization

A. Targeted killing promotes regime change.

Kanter 076
The major premise behind assassination is that the elimination of an undesirable
political actor will create a policy change. Because prisoners can be released, exiled leaders can return to power, and those
without financial means can become wealthy, international policies which aim at jailing, denigrating, or removing

the financial base of enemy politicians in order to supplant them can become reversed. As well, such
policies often require long-term commitments and also involve a significant amount of uncertainty. The
same is true of more constructive policiespromoting economic trade or working through democratic channels can be very slow and indirect. As a result, the most

surefire, direct, and quick way to eliminate a politician is to do so permanently, through assassination.
This is especially so if the politician does not appear to be diplomatically responsive, and is wedded to the idea of using violence, such as in the case of an authoritarian or a

Because
terrorist. Lastly, assassination seems to be the cheapest and the easiest manner of changing policy, if indeed there are as effectual alternatives.

assassination is more targeted and only involves the death of one or several

5
Poll finds broad support for Obamas counterterrorism policies, Scott Wilson and John Cohen, Washington Post, Feb. 8th, 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-finds-broad-support-for-obamas-counterterrorism-
policies/2012/02/07/gIQAFrSEyQ_story.html Methodology: The poll was conducted by telephone from Feb. 1 to 4 among a random
national sample of 1,000 adults. The margin of error for the full survey is plus or minus four percentage points.
6 Kanter, Abraham. "Democratic Assassination the Morality and Efficiency of Targeted Killings as a Policy Tool." Thesis. Ohio State
University, 2007.
individuals, it is preferable to war, economic sanctions, international denunciation, or other forms of political tools currently
available to democratic states.

B. International law is undemocratic. It undermines the US democratic model.

McGinnis 06 writes7

Finally, one might argue that a nation should follow raw international law to take into account the interests of foreign nationals. But it seems almost axiomatic that the touchstone
of the American regime should be the welfare of Americans. But even assuming that the United States should take a more encompassing view of human welfare, American law
may actually be better than international law at protecting the interests of citizens around the world. First, not all of the activities purportedly covered by modern customary
international law generate substantial negative spillovers from one nation to another. For example, most of the American governments decisions about human rights directly

affect only those who have subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of the United States. Yet, the United States power to determine
its own law in this regard has benefits for foreigners. One benefit is that some individuals may choose to move to America, as
millions do each decade, to take advantage of its particular bundle of rights and responsibilities. Moreover, all democratic nations may

evaluate American rights and embrace as many as are good for them. If the
United States had followed the prevailing norms at the time of the Declaration of
Independence, it would never have declared the truths about the nature of man
and government that have become the foundations of democratic processes
around the world. By forcing a convergence of domestic law to some
international standard, customary international law may preclude similar gifts that
American exceptionalism might still deliver to the world.

This is a turn to any I-Law good offense. US law is a better model for international
norms.

McGinnis 068
Even in activities where there are spillovers, such as law on the use of force, American law is probably better than international
law. The United States is the worlds great power, some times called the global hegemon in international relations theory.26 It stands to gain the lions share of resources
from the peace and prosperity of the world. Its political process has incentives to provide laws that

contribute to peace and prosperity, such as appropriate use of force. Moreover, as a hegemon
composed of immigrants who remain concerned about the welfare of their former nations,
America affords citizens from all over the world some virtual representation in its
political process. These guarantees of beneficence for foreigners are surely imperfect, but they seem better than those provided by customary international
law. Thus, by insisting that United States courts follow American law and not raw international law, Americans serve both themselves and others around the globe. America
helps the world most by remaining true to her own democratic genius.

7 Professor of Law at Northwestern and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of
Justice (John O. McGinnis, Albany Law Review, Symposium: Outsourcing Authority? Citation to Foreign Court Precedent in
Domestic Jurisprudence: Contemporary Foreign and International Law in Constitutional Construction, June, 69 Alb. L. Rev. 801)
8 Professor of Law at Northwestern and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of
Justice (John O. McGinnis, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, The Comparative Disadvantage of Customary International
Law)