SS+CarlottiHayes+-+Water

=Updated on August 1=


 * Observation One – The Status Quo**


 * Africa** **has the greatest disparity in clean drinking water in the world – 40% of the African people lack access to safe water.**
 * LaFraniere. NYT Journalist.** **8/27/04**. (Sharon, “Sub-Saharan Africa Lags in Water Cleanup” New York Times. Ebsco.)

__Sub-Saharan__ __Africa__ __is lagging far behind the rest of the developing world in access to clean water, with more than 4 out of 10 people still relying on rivers, ponds or other unsafe sources of drinking water____,__ according to a United Nations report issued Thursday. Although about 130 million more of the region's residents have gained access to clean water since 1990, the report states, __governments are not moving quickly enough to meet the United Nations' goal of providing three-fourths of the population with safe drinking water by 2015__. __Only 58 percent of the 684 million people in sub-Saharan__ __Africa__ __have clean water, compared with an average of 79 percent for the entire developing world. The report attributes__ __Africa____'s slow progress to conflict, political instability, population growth and the low priority that is given to water and sanitation by regional leaders. At least 30 percent of the region's water systems are inoperable because of age or disrepai__r, according to officials from Unicef, which issued the report with the World Health Organization.__The rest of the world is mostly on track to meet the United Nations' targets for clean water, the report said__. About 1.1 billion more people have clean water now than in 1990. Another 1.1 billion still lack it, most of them in Asia, home to more than half the world's population.


 * The Water for the Poor Act provides the ideal framework for giving water assistance to** **Africa****; however lack of funding prevents its success and prevents us from mobilizing other countries.**
 * Lochery, CARE Water Team Director,** **5/16/07** (Peter, “Beyond the Status Quo: Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act”, http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf)

__The Water for the Poor Act made the provision of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene an explicit objective of US foreign assistance and called for the State Department to develop a comprehensive strategy outlining how the US would go about expanding equitable access to water and sanitation in countries where the need is greatest. However, implementation of the Act has been limited and has not been backed by the increased appropriations required to realize the goals encompassed in it. The passage of the Water for the Poor Act presents an opportunity around which the__ __US__ __can bring expertise gained through programs in other regions of the world and significantly expanded funding to bear in sub-Saharan__ __Africa____. The strategy required by the Act also helps address gaps in responding to the African water crisis. These include: designating high priority recipient countries toward which funding should be targeted; determining which of those countries are truly committed to instituting the necessary reforms and enhancing accountability to their citizens; developing a system of measurable goals, benchmarks and timetables for monitoring US foreign assistance; and coordinating assistance with other donor countries.__ The US Government should also focus on complementary activities to strengthen civil societies’, governments’, and the media’s capacity to scrutinize their water and sanitation sector and demand that money be used appropriately and effectively. __This capacity building will benefit not only the country receiving aid by ensuring that water and sanitation services are being delivered as they should be, but also the US as it will encourage the careful use of foreign assistance funds.__

=1AC v3.0=


 * Observation Two – Disease**


 * First, lack of sanitation and water scarcity forces many Africans to drink dirty water that contains multiple pathogens.**
 * Human Development Report** is commissioned by the UN and produced by leading scholars. 20**06** Chapter 1 “Ending the Crisis in Water and Sanitation.” http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/report.cfm#

In important respects they hide the reality experienced daily by the people behind the statistics. That reality means that people are forced to defecate in ditches, plastic bags or on road sides. __“Not having access to clean water” is a euphemism for profound deprivation. It means that people live more than 1 kilometre from the nearest safe water source and that they collect water from drains, ditches or streams that might be infected with pathogens and__ bacteria that can cause severe illness and death. __In__ rural __Sub- Saharan__ __Africa__ __millions of people share their domestic water sources with animals or rely on unprotected wells that are breeding grounds for pathogens.__ Nor is the problem restricted to the poorest countries. In Tajikistan nearly a third of the population takes water from canals and irrigation ditches, with risks of exposure to polluted agricultural run-off.15 The problem is not that people are unaware of the dangers—it is that __they have no choice__. Apart from the health risks, inadequate access to water means that women and young girls spend long hours collecting and carrying household water supplies.

Wanja **Njuguna-Githinji**. Kenyan Journalist. **No Date, post 2000**. Africa. ITT, Guidebook to Global Water Issues. http://www.itt.com/waterbook/Africa.asp
 * These water-borne diseases kills millions of Africans annually.**

__Water shortages, polluted water, improper waste disposal and poor water management cause serious public health problems in Africa__ today. __Water-related diseases__ such as malaria, cholera, typhoid and schistosomiasis harm or __kill millions of people every year.__ Overuse and pollution of water supplies are also taking a heavy toll on the natural environment and pose increasing risks for many species of life. __The current level of investment for water supply and sanitization in the African region, estimated at $1.3 billion a year, remains totally inadequate__ to meet the sector's needs and has resulted in the poorest service coverage yet. A World Health Organization report called "Year 2000 Progress Report" says that funds required annually for water supply and sanitation just to cope with the current rate of population growth are estimated at $2.2 billion. __According to the report, over half of the population in__ __Africa__ __today lack safe drinking water while two-thirds lack a sanitary means of human waste disposal__.

=1AC v3.0=


 * Observation Two – Structural Violence**


 * First is Culturecide**


 * Access to clean water is the base upon which indigenous cultures are built – continued scarcity leads to systematic eradication of African culture.**
 * UNESCO** March 22, **2006** (United Nations Educational and Scientific organization, http://www.unesco.org/water/wwd2006/...ws/index.shtml)

The importance of water in our everyday lives cannot be overestimated. Although it is ever-present, it is also ever-changing. Indeed, the ways in which water is perceived and managed are determined by cultural traditions, which are themselves determined by factors as diverse as geographical location, access to water and economic history. __Water is not perceived the same way in Africa__ as it is in Asia or in Australia as it is in the Amazon. __The role that water plays in shaping the lives of people can be seen in the huge variety of water-related religious practices__, spiritual beliefs, myths, legends and management practices throughout the world. __Water is an intrinsic part of most spiritual beliefs. Its uses and symbolism in religion__ are many and varied; its spiritual and healing properties are seen in rites and rituals; and its representations are as numerous as they are diverse. __These different religious and cultural aspects of water reflect the vast array of civilizations that have made water the central element in their practices__. __The Earth is__ a __diverse__ planet, __with hundreds of countries and thousands of different cultures co-existing__. As such, __water's__ different __stories are all important__, revealing a facet of our planet and its people: their strengths and weaknesses, their fears and desires, how they approach life, and how they approach death. __It is clear that how we use water reflects how we perceive the world.__ What emerges through these many and diverse manifestations and representations of water, be it through healing, protecting, cleansing, death rites or destruction and symbolic rebirth, is the central role that water plays in shaping the religious rites of people around the world. __Through its purity, it represents cleanliness, and hope as well as freedom from defilement, sin and disease__. __In religions__ everywhere, __water is a liberating force.__ __Water shapes how we view the world: from the very creation of the universe to the death rites of a family member, water is with us from beginning to end.__


 * The end result of this process is genocide of entire populations.**
 * Smith, lecturer in law at** **Robert** **Gordon** **University** **at** **Scotland****, 1998** (Rhona, //California Western Law Review//, Spring, lexis)

Indigenous peoples have frequently been denied the most fundamental right of all- the right to live. Today, __genocide is recognized as an international crime. Yet for many indigenous groups their very existence is being threatened by the erosion of some aspects of their cultural identity.__ Cultural genocide, however was excluded from the ambit of the Genocide Convention. Although provisions of the genocide convention prohibiting the forcible removal of children from their parents imply recognition that such removal of children precludes continuation of that groups identity. Moreover, __many academics acknowledge the existence of cultural genocide and identity examples.__ Indigenous peoples are now prima facie in a strong legal position vis-à-vis their right to an existence. However, __two problems remain facing indigenous peoples: proving the existence of an intent to destroy the group and enforcement.__ Perhaps it would be more realistic to view the Genocide Convention as a deterrent. Moreover__,__ __while the international community should aspire to progressively abolishing the stringent requirement of proof of a declared intent to destroy the group, the scope of genocide should be extended to cover blatant acts of cultural genocide.__ Only then will indigenous groups have steadfast legal standing against their forced extinction, and the progressive erosion of their identity.

=1AC v3.0=


 * Second is Patriarchy**

Maude **Barlow**, March **2007**, (Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project. http://commonground.ca/iss/0702188/c...manwater.shtml)
 * Lack of clean water prevents the advancement of women in society.**

Around the world, __women__ and girls __bear__ __t__he prime __responsibility for__ __collecting water__ for washing, cooking, drinking and sanitation. __In rural areas, up to one-third of a woman’s time can be spent fetching water and traversing rough terrain.__ On average, girls will walk approximately six kilometers a day to fetch water. Women may carry up to 20 kg of water on their heads on each excursion. __Not only does the responsibility of collecting water represent an important expenditure of energy, it also places important demands on women__ and girls’ __time, time that could be spent in school or on income-producing activities. In__ __Africa____, up to 10 percent of girls drop out of school__ once they begin menstruating, due to the lack of appropriate sanitation facilities. __In this way, the time spent collecting water, and lack of sanitation facilities increases women’s inequality by continuing the cycle of illiteracy and poverty. As well, women__ __and young girls may be attacked when walking to and from water sources through isolated areas.__


 * Specifically, lack of clean water bars women from being educated.**
 * United Nations Human Development 2006** (Water rights and wrongs, http://hdr.undp.org/water/18.htm)

“Of course I wish I were in school,” explains Yeni, a ten year old in El Alto, Bolivia. “But how can I? My mother needs me to get water, and the standpipe here is only open from 10-12. You have to get in line early because so many people come here.” __The closer girls live to a water source, the more often they attend school. In__ __Tanzania____, when girls live within 15 minutes from a water source, their school attendance is 12 per cent higher. Fetching water isn’t the only barrier for female education; for those lucky enough to get to school, inadequate or nonexistent bathroom facilities often send them right home again. Many parents, concerned about the lack of hygiene, safety and privacy in school latrines, withdraw their daughters once they reach puberty.__

=1AC v3.0=

__Philosophical attention to war has typically appeared in the form of justifications for entering into war, and over appropriate activities within war. The spatial metaphors used to refer to war as a separate, bounded sphere indicate assumptions that war is a realm of human activity vastly removed from normal life, or a sort of happening that is appropriately conceived apart from everyday events in peaceful times.__ Not surprisingly, __most discussions of the political and ethical dimensions of war discuss war solely as an event__ -- an occurrence, or collection of occurrences, __having clear beginnings and endings that are typically marked by formal, institutional declarations.__ As happenings, __wars and military activities can be seen as motivated by identifiable, if complex, intentions, and directly enacted by individual and collective decision-makers and agents of states__. But many of the questions about war that are of interest to feminists __-- including how large-scale, state-sponsored **violence affects women** and members of other oppressed groups; how military violence shapes **gendered**, raced, and nationalistic political realities and moral imaginations__; what such violence consists of and why it persists; how it is related to other oppressive and violent institutions and hegemonies -- cannot be adequately pursued by focusing on events. These issues are not merely a matter of good or bad intentions and identifiable decisions. In "Gender and `Postmodern' War," Robin Schott introduces some of the ways in which war is currently best seen not as an event but as a presence (Schott 1995). Schott argues that postmodern understandings of persons, states, and politics, as well as the high-tech nature of much contemporary warfare and the preponderance of civil and nationalist wars, render an eventbased conception of war inadequate, especially insofar as gender is taken into account. In this essay, I will expand upon her argument by __showing that accounts of war that only focus on events are impoverished in a number of ways, and therefore feminist consideration of the political, ethical, and ontological dimensions of war and the possibilities for resistance demand a much more complicated approach__. I take Schott's characterization of war as presence as a point of departure, though I am not committed to the idea that the constancy of militarism, the fact of its omnipresence in human experience, and the paucity of an event-based account of war are exclusive to contemporary postmodern or postcolonial circumstances.(1) Theory that does not investigate or even notice the __omnipresence of militarism cannot represent or address the depth and specificity of the everyday effects of **militarism on women**, on people living in occupied territories, on members of military institutions, and on the environment__. These effects are relevant to feminists in a number of ways because military practices and institutions help construct gendered and national identity, and because they justify the destruction of natural nonhuman entities and communities during peacetime. __Lack of attention to these aspects of the business of making or preventing military violence in an extremely technologized world results in theory that cannot accommodate the connections among the constant presence of militarism, declared wars, and other closely related social phenomena, such as nationalistic glorifications__ of motherhood__, media violence, and__ current ideological __gravitations to military solutions for social problems.__
 * Interrogating the roles of women in society is necessary to break down a larger violence against women that allows institutions to distract public attention away from ethical policy considerations and confining decision calculus to the realm of war.**
 * Cuomo 96**-- activist, artist, and Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge-- (Chris, “War Is Not Just an Event: Reflections on the Significance of Everyday Violence!”

=1AC v3.0=


 * Patriarchy is the root cause of violence – failure to break down this mindset makes extinction inevitable.**
 * Reardon**, Consultant for the Joint United Nations Information Committee, **1993** [Betty, Women and Peace: Feminist Visions of Global Security, p. 31]

Most __men in__ our __patriarchal culture are still acting out old patterns that are radically inappropriate for the nuclear age. To prove dominance and control, to distance one’s character from that of women, to survive the toughest violent initiation, to shed the sacred blood of the hero,__ __to collaborate with death in order to hold it at bay—all of these patriarchal pressures on men have traditionally reached resolution in ritual fashion on the battlefield__. But there is no longer any battlefield. Does anyone seriously believe that if a nuclear power were losing a crucial, large-scale conventional war it would refrain from using its multiple-warhead nuclear missiles 12 because of some diplomatic agreement? __The military theater of a nuclear exchange today would extend, instantly and eventually, to all living things, all the air, all the soil, all the water. If we believe that war is a “necessary evil,” that patriarchal assumptions are simply “human nature,” then we are locked into a lie, paralyzed. The ultimate result of unchecked terminal patriarchy will be nuclear holocaust__. The causes of recurrent warfare are not biological. Neither are they solely economic. __They are also a result of patriarchal ways of thinking, which historically have generated considerable pressure for standing armies to be used__. (Spretnak 1983)

=1AC v3.0=


 * Third is Poverty**

Randolph **Barker**, economist at the International Water Management Institute, with Barbara van Koppen, Department of Irrigation and Soil and Water Conservation at Wageningen Agricultural University, and Tushaar Shah, Principal Researcher at the International Water Management Institute, “A global perspective on water scarcity and poverty: Achievements and challenges for water resources management”, IWMI,
 * Water scarcity and lack of adequate water systems are the root cause of poverty in** **Africa****.**
 * 2k** http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/pubs/WWVisn/WSandPov.htm

__Poverty eradication through sustainable development can be regarded today as perhaps the central goal__ of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR__),__ __of most__ agricultural research and __development institutions in the developing world____,__ and of the national governments that support their research. __Irrigation has played a central role in poverty reduction in the past. But the growing scarcity and competition for water and the overexploitation of groundwater resources are putting the poor in irrigated areas at great risk__. In addressing the poverty problem, we must consider the impact of reduced water availability for irrigation not only on crop production, but also on the wide range of other uses that are a part of the livelihood of rural agricultural communities. Meanwhile, __poverty persists in many of the__ __rain__-fed and upland areas, the so-called __marginal or traditionally water-scarce areas____. In these areas, the inability to effectively mobilize water resources has prevented farmers from using modern yield-increasing inputs and raising incomes__. There are two __regions of the world that stand out in terms of the scope and magnitude of rural poverty____—____South__ __Asia__ __and sub-Saharan__ __Africa____.__ They could not be more contrasting in terms of water resources and irrigation development and hence the challenge posed to International Water Management Institute (IWMI) scientists and others for poverty alleviation. In South Asia close to fifty percent of the cereal grain area is irrigated. Two-thirds of cereal grain production and most of the marketed surplus comes from the irrigated areas. On the contrary, in sub-Saharan Africa the contribution of irrigation to cereal grain production is about 5 percent.

=1AC v3.0=


 * Poverty is the equivalent of an ongoing nuclear war and is the root cause of war.**
 * Gilligan 96** (James, Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, “Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes”, p. 191-196)

__The deadliest form of violence is poverty__. You cannot work for one day with the violent people who fill our prisons and mental hospitals for the criminally insane without being forcible and constantly reminded of the extreme poverty and discrimination that characterizes their lives. Hearing about their lives, and about their families and friends, you are forced to recognize the truth in Gandhi’s observation that the deadliest form of violence is poverty. Not a day goes by without realizing that trying to understand them and their violent behavior in purely individual terms is impossible and wrong-headed. Any theory of violence, especially a psychological theory, that evolves from the experience of men in maximum security prisons and hospitals for the criminally insane must begin with the recognition that these institutions are only microcosms. They are not where the major violence in our society takes place, and the perpetrators who fill them are far from being the main causes of most violent deaths. __Any approach to a theory of violence needs to begin with a look at the structural violence__ in this country. Focusing merely on those relatively few men who commit what we define as murder could distract us from examining and learning from those structural causes of violent death that are for more significant from a numerical or public health, or human, standpoint. By “structural violence” I mean the increased rates of death, and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively low death rates experienced by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of class structure; and that structure itself is a product of society’s collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting “structural” with “behavioral violence,” by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. Structural violence differs from behavior violence in at least three major respects. *__The lethal effects of structural violence operate continuously, rather than sporadically, whereas__ murders, suicides, executions, __wars, and other forms of behavior violence occur one at a time__. *Structural violence operates more or less independently of individual acts; independent of individuals and groups (politicians, political parties, voters) whose decisions may nevertheless have lethal consequences for others. *Structural violence is normally invisible, because it may appear to have had other (natural or violent) causes. [CONTINUED] The finding that structural violence causes far more deaths than behavioral violence does is not limited to this country. Kohler and Alcock attempted to arrive at the number of excess deaths caused by socioeconomic inequities on a worldwide basis. Sweden was their model of the nation that had come closest to eliminating structural violence. It had the least inequity in income and living standards, and the lowest discrepancies in death rates and life expectancy; and the highest overall life expectancy of the world. When they compared the life expectancies of those living in the other socioeconomic systems against Sweden, they found that 18 million deaths a year could be attributed to the “structural violence” to which the citizens of all the other nations were being subjected. __During the past decade, the discrepancies between the rich and poor nations have increased dramatically and alarmingly. The 14 to 19 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence__, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those by genocide – or about eight million per year, 1939-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-66 (perhaps 575,000 deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), __and even a hypothetical nuclear exchange__ between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (232 million), __it was clear that even war cannot being to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year__. In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. __This is__, in effect, __the equivalent of an ongoing, unending__, in fact __accelerating, **thermonuclear war, or genocide**, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. Structural violence is__ also __the main cause of behavioral violence on a socially and epidemiologically significant scale__ (from homicide and suicide to war and genocide). The question as to which of the two forms of violence – structural or behavioral – is more important, dangerous, or lethal is moot, for they are inextricably related to eachother, as cause to effect.

=1AC v3.0=


 * Thus the plan;**


 * The** **United States** **federal government should fund and implement the Water for the Poor Act for all topically defined areas. We’ll clarify.**

=1AC v3.0=


 * Observation Four – Solvency**


 * Funding the Act could completely solve the water crisis within the decade.**
 * Natural Resource Defense Council, Jan 2007** (“Global Safe Water: Solving the World’s Most Pressing Environmental Health Problem”, http://www.nrdc.org/international/water/safewater.pdf)

U.S. Steps to Secure Safe Water by 2015 In 2005, __Congress passed the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, which made the provision of safe water and sanitation a cornerstone of__ __U.S.__ __foreign assistance by integrating water and sanitation into all__ __U.S.__ __development programs.__ The act requires the Secretary of State to develop a strategy to expand access to clean water for millions of people in the developing world to meet the UN’s 2015 target. But __Congress has yet to designate any funds to implement the act, effectively crippling it.__ A Call for Congressional Action NRDC and other __organizations are calling on Congress to fully fund the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act in 2007. The act presents an opportunity for the United States to not only to engage international organizations in targeting the places of greatest need, but also to provide permanent solutions to one of the world’s worst environmental health problems.__ Safe drinking water is an essential step for human health and economic development. __With simple sanitation improvements and basic water treatment and delivery, the world’s largest environmental health crisis can be resolved **in the next decade**.__


 * The Water for the Poor Act is key to rebuilding successful water infrastructure.**
 * Hauter** **Executive Director, Food & Water Watch. 2005**. (Wenonah, “Water for the Poor Act of 2005” http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/right/poor-act)

__U.S. policy is currently focused on policy,__ law, institutions, and operational strategies. __The Water for the Poor Act necessitates a move to prioritize direct infrastructure investments, whether through__ __U.S.__ __government departments or delegated projects carried out by civil society organizations.__ Policy and institution building alone will not fulfill the mission of the Water for the Poor Act or deliver affordable and equitable access. __With the Water for the Poor Act, the__ __United States__ __must step up and take a more active role in funding water infrastructure.__

=1AC v3.0=


 * The Water for the Poor Act is necessary to alleviate water stress and stabilize disparate countries.**
 * Kraus, executive CP of Citizens for Global Solutions, and Holt, Edward Rawson Fellow at Citizens for Global Solutions,** **4/5/05** (Don and Dominic, “THICKER THAN BLOOD”, http://oldsite.globalsolutions.org/press_room/news/news_thicker_blood.html)

__The Water for the Poor Act is__ significant for a number of reasons. To begin with, the __bipartisan work__ of Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. and Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Reps. Earl Blumenauer. D-Ore, James Leach, R-Iowa, and others, in introducing the act is a demonstration of how U.S. foreign policy once was, and how the American public would like it to be. Of equal significance, however, is that __the legislation tackles, head on, one of the world’s worst problems: the global water crisis.__ Although relatively unknown in the Western world, __the global water crisis represents a serious geopolitical and humanitarian quandary. Today, one child dies every 15 seconds from a water-related disease. That’s 3,000 to 5,000 children a day and up to 5 million young lives lost each year.__ The World Health Organization estimates that 1.2 billion people live their daily lives without access to clean water, and 2.4 billion people lack adequate sanitation. __Reducing this number of needless victims could be accomplished by a greater commitment to foreign aid on the part of the__ __United States__ __and the developed world. This goal must be realized, especially when one considers the costs that lack of water and sanitation inflicts on an already-impoverished society. Solving the global water crisis is necessary for impoverished nations to stabilize, develop and avoid becoming breeding grounds for conflict and terrorism.__ According to the U.N. Task Force on Water and Sanitation, more than “half the people in the developing world are suffering from one or more of the main diseases associated with inadequate provision of water supply and sanitation.” __With the majority of the population crippled by disease, faltering nations cannot keep the peace, provide education and jobs or develop economies—much less give hope to those already suffering.__

CSIS 5 (9-30, Center for Strategic & Internat’l Studies, Global Water Futures, http://www.sandia.gov/water/docs/CSISSNL_OGWF_9-28-05.PDF)
 * Only the** **US** **has the watershed data necessary to conduct effective assistance.**

Long-term data on water resources are essential for understanding historic and current impacts of human activities on water resources. In addition, historical data are important for projecting future trajectories of water resources from different scenarios of future population growth, consumption patterns and management strategies (See Smith et al. 1987, Spahr and Winn 1997, Passell et al. 2005). In most regions of the world, long-term data sets are patchy or unavailable. Datasets that do exist were often collected at different times, by different organizations, using different collection and analytical methods. Consequently, information on a single river or aquifer that crosses jurisdictional or political boundaries is not easily comparable. Further complicating crossborder management, data often are not shared among transboundary resource managers, either for political reasons or simply because data sharing mechanisms and agreements are not in place. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has pioneered and mastered long-term, whole-basin, remote data gathering technologies for the United States, including real-time river discharge, but similar programs in other countries and regions around the world are rare. Pioneering whole-basin, international, transboundary data collection and data sharing projects currently exists among four Central Asian nations in the Aral Sea Basin (Passell et al. 2002, Barber et al. 2005; http://ironside.sandia.gov/Central/centralasia.html), and among three nations in the South Caucasus (Armen Saghatelyan, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Armenia, personal communication; http://www.kura-araksAddressing Our Global Water Future Page 92 Center for Strategic and International Studies Sandia National Laboratories natosfp.org/). These projects include stakeholder institutions from all the partner countries; standardized monitoring, data collection and analytical technologies; and data sharing websites open to project partners and the public. These projects allow whole-basin water quantity and quality analyses never possible before. As in many cases, technologies available for these kinds of projects around the world are available, but without comprehensive policy initiatives the projects themselves are few and far between.

=1AC v3.0=


 * Observation Five – Decision Calculus**

The negative would will try to convince you that preventing large-scale war should be the foremost concern in our decision calculus---this framing distorts ethics into a crisis-driven politics of war---distorting genuine ethics and creating a sphere where the constant threat of war becomes inevitable in order to sustain the militaristic nature of the status quo. __Ethical approaches that do not attend to the ways in which warfare and military practices are woven into the very fabric of life in twenty-first century technological states lead to crisis-based politics and analyses__. __For any feminism that aims to resist oppression and create alternative social and political options, crisis-based ethics and politics are problematic because they distract attention from the need for **sustained resistance to the enmeshed**, omnipresent systems of domination and oppression that so often function as givens in most people's lives.__ =1AC v3.0=
 * Cuomo 96**-- activist, artist, and Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge-- (Chris, “War Is Not Just an Event: Reflections on the Significance of Everyday Violence!”
 * __Neglecting the omnipresence of militarism allows the false belief that the absence of declared armed conflicts is peace, the polar opposite of war__**__. It is particularly easy for those whose lives are shaped by the safety of privilege, and who do not regularly encounter the realities of militarism, to maintain this false belief. The belief that militarism is an ethical, political concern only regarding armed conflict, creates forms of resistance to militarism that are merely **exercises in crisis control.** **Antiwar resistance is then mobilized when the "real" violence finally occurs, or when the stability of privilege is directly threatened, and at that point it is difficult not to respond in ways that make resisters drop all other political priorities**. **Crisis-driven attention to declarations of war might**__ actually __k**eep resisters complacent about and complicitous in the general presence of global militarism**__.
 * __Seeing war as necessarily embedded in constant military presence draws attention to the fact that horrific, state-sponsored violence is happening nearly all over__**__, all of the time, and that it is perpetrated by military institutions and other militaristic agents of the state. **Moving away from crisis-driven politics and ontologies concerning war and military violence**__ also __**enables consideration of relationships among seemingly disparate phenomena, and therefore can shape more nuanced theoretical and practical forms of resistance**__. For example, in__vestigating the ways in which war is part of a presence allows consideration of the relationships among the events of war and the following: how militarism is a foundational trope in the social and political imagination; how the__ pervasive __presence__ and symbolism __of__ soldiers/warriors/__patriots shape meanings of gender;__ **__the ways in which threats of state-sponsored violence are a sometimes invisible/sometimes bold agent of racism__**__, nationalism, and corporate interests; the fact that vast numbers of communities, cities, and nations are currently in the midst of excruciatingly violent circumstances.__ __It also provides a lens for considering the relationships among the various kinds of violence that get labeled "war."__ Given current American obsessions with nationalism, guns, and militias, and growing hunger for the death penalty, prisons, and a more powerful police state, one cannot underestimate the need for philosophical and political attention to connections among phenomena like the "war on drugs," the "war on crime," and other state-funded militaristic campaigns.

I propose that the constancy of militarism and its effects on social reality be reintroduced as a crucial locus of contemporary feminist attentions, and that feminists emphasize how wars are eruptions and manifestations of omnipresent militarism that is a product and tool of multiply oppressive, corporate, technocratic states.(2) Feminists should be particularly interested in making this shift because it better allows consideration of the effects of war and militarism on women, subjugated peoples, and environments. __While giving attention to the constancy of militarism in contemporary life we need not neglect the importance of addressing the specific qualities of direct, large-scale, declared military conflicts.__ But the dramatic nature of declared, large-scale conflicts should not obfuscate the ways in which military violence pervades most societies in increasingly technologically sophisticated ways and the significance of military institutions and everyday practices in shaping reality. __Philosophical discussions that focus only on the ethics of declaring and fighting wars miss these connections, and also miss the ways in which even declared military conflicts are often experienced as omnipresent horrors. These approaches also leave unquestioned tendencies to suspend or **distort moral judgement in the face of what appears to be the inevitability of war and militarism.**__


 * Absent a transition away from this lens of political calculation can escape this cycle of structural violence – failure to create new positive global relationships make extinction inevitable.**
 * Sandy and Perkins, 02**The Nature of Peace and Its I//mplications for Peace Education”,// Issue 4.2, Spring 02, http://www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/4_2natp.htm

__Any attempt to articulate the nature of peace and peacemaking,__ therefore, __must address those conditions that are favorable to their emergence__. Freedom, human rights, and justice are among such prerequisites. Also included are proactive strategies such as conflict resolution, nonviolent action, community building, and democratization of authority. The peace process additionally must acknowledge and contend with its alternative - war - because of the high value status of violence. For example, while war has brought out the worst kind of behavior in humans, it has also brought out some of the best. Aside from relieving boredom and monotony, war has been shown to spawn self-sacrifice, loyalty, honor, heroism, and courage. It is well known that suicide rates decline during war. Also, war has helped to bring about significant social changes such as racial and sexual integration, freedom, democracy, and a sense of national pride. Because of its apparent utilitarian value and its ability to enervate, violence has been solidly embedded in the national psyche of many countries. As a result, its elimination will be no easy feat. Nevertheless, __Reardon__ (1988) __insists that "peace is the absence of violence in all its forms - physical,__ social, psychological__, and structural__" (p. 16). __But this__, as a definition, __is unduly negative in that it fails to provide any affirxmative picture of peace or its ingredients__ (Copi and Cohen, p. 195). Perhaps that picture must come, as O'Kane (1992) suggests, from a close examination of the "nature of causes, reasons, goals of war in order that we might...find ways of reaching human goals without resorting to force. That process should help us "uncover" the possible conditions of Peace." In its most myopic and limited definition, peace is the mere absence of war. O'Kane (1992) sees this definition as a "vacuous, passive, simplistic, and unresponsive escape mechanism too often resorted to in the past - without success." __This__ definition also commits a serious oversight: it __ignores the residual feelings of mistrust and suspicion that the winners and losers of a war harbor toward each other.__ __The subsequent suppression of mutual hostile feelings is not taken into account by those who define peace so simply.__ Their stance is that as long as people are not actively engaged in overt, mutual, violent, physical, and destructive activity, then peace exists. This, of course, is just another way of defining cold war. In other words, this simplistic definition is too broad because it allows us to attribute the term "peace" to states of affairs that are not truly peaceful (Copi and Cohen, p. 194). Unfortunately__, this definition of peace appears to be the prevailing one in the world. It is the kind of peace maintained by a "peace through strength" posture that has led to the arms race, stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and the ultimate threat of mutually assured destruction__. This version of peace was defended by the "peacekeeper" - a name that actually adorns some U.S. nuclear weapons deployed since 1986.[| (2)] Also, versions of this name appear on entrances to some military bases. Keeping "peace" in this manner evokes the theme in Peggy Lee's old song, "Is That All There is?" What this really comes down to is the idea of massive and indiscriminate killing for peace, which represents a morally dubious notion if not a fault of logic. The point here is that __a "peace" that depends upon the threat and intention to kill vast numbers of human beings is hardly a stable or justifiable peace worthy of the name__. Those in charge of waging war know that killing is a questionable activity. Otherwise, they would not use such euphemisms as "collateral damage" and "smart bombs" to obfuscate it. Some Different Types of Peace. One way of clearing up the confusion over terms is to define types of peace and war. Thus, there can be hot war, cold war, cold peace, and hot peace. __In hot war, commonly called war, there is a condition of mutual hostility and active physical engagement through such forms as artillery,__ missiles, bombs, small arms fire, mortars, flamethrowers, land and sea mines, hand-to-hand combat, and the like__. The aim is the destruction of the enemy or his surrender by intimidation. The object is to have a winner and loser.__ Nationalism reaches its zenith here. In cold war, there is mutual hostility without actual engagement. Intimidation is the sole means of preventing hot war. This condition is characterized by propaganda, war preparations, and arms races - always at the expense of human needs. During a cold war, nationalism prevails, and the object is to have =1AC v3.0=

a stalemate where neither side will initiate aggression - nuclear or conventional - because of the overwhelming destructive capability of the retaliatory response. __In cold peace, there is almost a neutral view of a previous enemy. There is little mutual hostility, but there is also a lack of mutually beneficial interactions aimed at developing trust, interdependence, and collaboration__. __There may be a longing for an enemy because nothing has replaced it as an object of national concern__. In this situation, __isolationism and nationalism occur simultaneously__. There is no clear objective because there is no well-defined enemy. Perhaps the current U.S. military preoccupation with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the debilitating decade of sanctions against the Iraqi people are helping to relieve this enemy deficit. The notion that "there are still dangerous people in the world" is often used to advance the cause of military preparedness and at least some momentum toward a restoration of cold war thinking and behavior. The term "peace dividend" that expressed post-cold war optimism is hardly verbalized anymore. Now we are (again) advancing ballistic missile defense - a variation of the Reagan Administration's Star Wars debacle and an instigator of nuclear proliferation. By contrast, __hot peace involves active collaborative efforts designed to "build bridges" between and among past and present adversaries.__ This involves searching for common ground and the development of new non-human enemies - threats to the health and well-being of humankind and the planet. These __new enemies could include human rights abuses, air and water pollution, dwindling energy resources, the destruction of the ozone layer, famine, poverty, and ignorance__. __Hot peace promotes__ - and, indeed, is defined by - __global interdependence,__ human rights, __democratization__, an effective United Nations, __and a diminution of national sovereignty.__ The object is the proliferation of cooperative relations and mutually beneficial outcomes. Hot peace thinking imagines peace and the abolition of war. Another way of thinking about peace is to have it defined in negative and positive terms. __Peace as the mere absence of__ war is what Woolman (1985) refers to a "negative peace." This definition is based on Johan Galtung's ideas of peace. For Galtung, negative peace __is defined as a state requiring a set of social structures that provide security and protection from acts of direct physical violence committed by individuals, groups or nations. The emphasis is...on control of violence.__ The main strategy is dissociation, whereby conflicting parties are separated...In general, __policies based on the idea of negative peace do not deal with the causes of violence, only its manifestations.__ Therefore, these policies are thought to be insufficient to assure lasting conditions of peace. Indeed, __by suppressing the release of tensions resulting from social conflict,__ __negative peace efforts may actually lead to future violence of greater magnitude__ (Woolman, 1985, p.8). The recent wars in the former Yugoslavia are testimony to this. The massive military machine previously provided by the U.S.S.R. put a lid on ethnic hostilities yet did nothing to resolve them, thus allowing them to fester and erupt later. Accentuating the Positive __Positive peace, in contrast, is: …a pattern of cooperation and integration between major human groups...[It] is about people interacting in cooperative ways__; it is about social organizations of diverse peoples who willingly choose to cooperate for the benefit of all humankind; it calls for a system in which there are no winners and losers - all are winners; __it is a state so highly valued that institutions are built around it to protect and promote it__ (O'Kane, 1991-92). __It also "involves the search for positive conditions which can resolve the underlying causes of conflict that produce violence__" (Woolman, 1985, p.8).


 * We have an ethical obligation to provide safe water to anyone who needs it – it destroys more lives than anything else.**
 * Watkins, director of the Human Development Report Office, 2006** (Human Development Report 2006, Kevin, Director of the Human Development Report Office, “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis”, United Nations Development Programme)

At the start of the 21st century the violation of the human right to clean water and sanitation is destroying human potential on an epic scale. In today’s increasingly prosperous and interconnected world more children die for want of clean water and a toilet than from almost any other cause. Exclusion from clean water and basic sanitation destroys more lives than any war or terrorist act. It also reinforces the deep inequalities in life chances that divide countries and people within countries on the basis of wealth, gender and other markers for deprivation. Beyond the human waste and suffering, the global deficit in water and sanitation is undermining prosperity and retarding economic growth. Productivity losses linked to that deficit are blunting the efforts of millions of the world’s poorest people to work their way out of poverty and holding back whole countries__.__ Whether viewed from the perspective of human rights, social justice or economic common sense, the damage inflicted by deprivation in water and sanitation is indefensible. Overcoming that deprivation is not just a moral imperative and the right thing to do. It is also the sensible thing to do because the waste of human potential associated with unsafe water and poor sanitation ultimately hurts everybody.

=1AC v3.0=


 * We must act as our own moral agents – we are only responsible for taking our own moral actions and not for those of intervening actors.**
 * Gewirth, prof. of philosophy at the** **University** **of** **Chicago****, 1982** (Alan, “Human Rights: essays on justification and applications”, p. 229)

__The required supplement is provided by the principle of intervening action. According to this principle, when there is a casual connection between some person A’s performing some action (or inaction) X and some other person C’s incurring a certain harm Z, A’s moral responsibility for Z is removed if, between X and Z, there intervenes some other action Y of some person B who knows the relevant circumstances of his action and who intends to produce Z or who produces Z through recklessness__. The reason for this removal is that B’s intervening action Y is more direct of proximate cause of Z and, unlike A’s action (or inaction), Y is the sufficient condition of Z as it actually occurs. An example of this principle may help to show its connection with the absolutist thesis. __Martin Luther King Jr. was repeatedly told that because he led demonstrations in support of civil rights, he was morally responsible for the disorders, riots, and deaths that ensued and that were shaking the American Republic to its foundations. By the principle of intervening action, however, it was King’s opponents who were responsible because their intervention operated as the sufficient conditions of the riots and injuries__. King might also have replied that __the Republic would not be worth saving if the price that had to be paid was the violation of the civil rights of black Americans. As for the rights of the other Americans to peace and order, the reply would be that these rights cannot justifiably be secured at the price of the rights of blacks.__


 * Systemic harms come first even under a consequentialist framework because they are guaranteed, while the negative scenarios are speculation at best.**
 * Machan, prof. emeritus of philosophy at** **Auburn** **University****, 2003** (Tibor, “Passion for Liberty”)

All in all, then, I support the principled or rights-based ap­proach. In normal contexts, honesty is the best policy, even if at times it does not achieve the desired good results; so is respect for every individual's rights to life, liberty, and property. All in all, this is what will ensure the best consequences—in the long run and as a rule. Therefore, one need not be very concerned about the most recent estimate of the consequences of banning or not banning guns, breaking up or not breaking up Microsoft, or any other public policy, for that matter. It is enough to know that violating the rights of individuals to bear arms is a bad idea, and that history and analysis support our understanding of principle. To violate rights has always produced greater damage than good, so let's not do it, even when we are terri­bly tempted to do so, Let's not do it precisely because to do so would violate the fundamental requirements of human na­ture. It is those requirements that should be our guide, not some recent empirical data that have no staying power (ac­cording to their very own theoretical terms). Finally, you will ask, isn't this being dogmatic? Haven't we learned not to bank too much on what we've learned so far, when we also know that learning can always be improved, mod­ified, even revised? Isn't progress in the sciences and technology proof that past knowledge always gets overthrown a bit later? As in science and engineering, so in morality and politics: We must go with what we know but be open to change— provided that the change is warranted. Simply because some additional gun controls or regulations might save lives (some lives, perhaps at the expense of other lives) and simply because breaking up Microsoft might improve the satisfaction of con­sumers (some consumers, perhaps at the expense of the satis­faction of other consumers) are no reasons to violate basic rights. Only if and when there are solid, demonstrable reasons to do so should we throw out the old principles and bring on the new principles. Any such reasons would have to speak to the same level of fundamentally and relevance as that incor­porated by the theory of individual rights itself. Those defending consequentialism, like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, have argued the opposite thesis: Unless one can prove, beyond a doubt, that violating rights in a particular instance is necessarily wrong in the eyes of a "rational and fair man," the state may go ahead and "accept the natural outcome of dominant opinion" and violate those rights.1 Such is now the leading jurisprudence of the United States, a country that inaugurated its political life by declaring to the world that each of us possesses unalienable rights, ones that may never be violated no matter what! =1AC v3.0=


 * Major war is obsolete – multiple factors prevent escalation and conflict.**
 * Mandelbaum, American foreign policy professor at the Nitze** **School** **of** **Advanced International Studies** **at** **Johns** **Hopkins** **University****, 1999** (Michael, “Is Major War Obsolete?”, http://www.ciaonet.org/conf/cfr10/)

My argument says, tacitly, that while this point of view, which was widely believed 100 years ago, was not true then, there are reasons to think that it is true now. What is that argument? It is that __major war is obsolete.__ By major war, I mean war waged by the most powerful members of the international system, using all of their resources over a protracted period of time with revolutionary geopolitical consequences. There have been four such wars in the modern period: the wars of the French Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Few though they have been, their consequences have been monumental. They are, by far, the most influential events in modern history. Modern history which can, in fact, be seen as a series of aftershocks to these four earthquakes. So if I am right, then what has been the motor of political history for the last two centuries that has been turned off? This war, I argue, this kind of war, is obsolete; less than impossible, but more than unlikely. What do I mean by obsolete? If I may quote from the article on which this presentation is based, a copy of which you received when coming in, “ Major war is obsolete in a way that styles of dress are obsolete. It is something that is out of fashion and, while it could be revived, there is no present demand for it. Major war is obsolete in the way that slavery, dueling, or foot-binding are obsolete. It is a social practice that was once considered normal, useful, even desirable, but that now seems odious. It is obsolete in the way that the central planning of economic activity is obsolete. It is a practice once regarded as a plausible, indeed a superior, way of achieving a socially desirable goal, but that changing conditions have made ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst.” Why is this so? Most simply, __the costs have risen and the benefits of major war have shriveled. The costs of fighting such a war are extremely high because of the advent in the middle of this century of nuclear weapons__, but they would have been high even had mankind never split the atom. As for __the benefits__, these __now seem__, at least __from the point of view of the major powers__, modest to __non-existent. The traditional motives for warfare are in retreat, if not extinct. War is no longer regarded by anyone, probably not even Saddam Hussein after his unhappy experience, as a paying proposition__. And __as for the ideas on behalf of which major wars have been waged in the past, these are in steep decline__. Here the collapse of communism was an important milestone, for that ideology was inherently bellicose. This is not to say that the world has reached the end of ideology; quite the contrary. But __the ideology that is now in the ascendant__, our own, __liberalism, tends to be pacific__. Moreover, I would argue that __three post-Cold War developments have made major war even less likely than it was after 1945. One of these is the rise of democracy, for democracies,__ I believe, __tend to be peaceful__. Now carried to its most extreme conclusion, this eventuates in an argument made by some prominent political scientists that democracies never go to war with one another. I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t believe that this is a law of history, like a law of nature, because I believe there are no such laws of history. But I do believe there is something in it. I believe there is a peaceful tendency inherent in democracy. Now it’s true that one important cause of war has not changed with the end of the Cold War. That is the structure of the international system, which is anarchic. And realists, to whom Fareed has referred and of whom John Mearsheimer and our guest Ken Waltz are perhaps the two most leading exponents in this country and the world at the moment, argue that that structure determines international activity, for it leads sovereign states to have to prepare to defend themselves, and those preparations sooner or later issue in war. I argue, however, that __a post-Cold War innovation counteracts the effects of anarchy. This is what I have called__ in my 1996 book, The Dawn of Peace in Europe, __common security.__ By common security __I mean a regime of negotiated arms limits that reduce the insecurity that anarchy inevitably produces by transparency-every state can know what weapons every other state has and what it is doing with them-and through the principle of defense dominance, the reconfiguration through negotiations of military forces to make them more suitable for defense and less for attack__. Some caveats are, indeed, in order where common security is concerned. It’s not universal. It exists only in Europe. And there it is certainly not irreversible. And I should add that what I have called common security is not a cause, but a consequence, of the major forces that have made war less likely. States enter into common security arrangements when they have already, for other reasons, decided that they do not wish to go to war. Well, __the third feature of the post-Cold War international system that seems to me to lend itself to warlessness is the novel distinction between the periphery and the core, between the powerful states and the less powerful ones. This was previously a cause of conflict and now is far less important.__ To quote from the article again, “ While for much of recorded history local conflicts were absorbed into great-power conflicts, in the wake of the Cold War, with the industrial democracies debellicised and Russia and China preoccupied with internal affairs, __there is no great-power conflict into which the many local conflicts that have erupted can be absorbed__. The great chess game of international politics is finished, or at least suspended. A pawn is now just a pawn, not a sentry standing guard against an attack on a king.” Now having made the case for the obsolescence of modern war, I must note that there are two major question marks hanging over it: Russia and China. These are great powers capable of initiating and waging major wars, and in these two countries, the forces of warlessness that I have identified are far less powerful and pervasive than they are in the industrial West and in Japan. These are countries, in political terms, in transition, and the political forms and political culture they eventually will have is unclear. Moreover, each harbors within its politics a potential cause of war that goes with the grain of the post-Cold War period-with it, not against it-a cause of war that enjoys a certain legitimacy even now; namely, irredentism. War to reclaim lost or stolen territory has not been rendered obsolete in the way that the more traditional causes have. China believes that Taiwan properly belongs to it. Russia could come to believe this about Ukraine, which means that the Taiwan Strait and the Russian-Ukrainian border are the most dangerous spots on the planet, the places where World War III could begin. In conclusion, let me say what I’m not arguing. I’m not saying that we’ve reached the end of all conflict, violence or war; indeed, the peace I’ve identified at the core of the international system has made conflict on the periphery more likely. Nor am I suggesting that we have reached the end of modern, as distinct from major, war; modern war involving mechanized weapons, formal battles, and professional troops. Nor am I offering a single-factor explanation. It’s not simply nuclear weapons or just democracy or only a growing aversion to war. It’s not a single thing; it’s everything: values, ideas, institutions, and historical experience. Nor, I should say, do I believe that peace is automatic. Peace does not keep itself. But what I think we may be able to secure is more than the peace of the Cold War based on deterrence. __The political scientist Carl Deutcsh once defined a security community as something where warlessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, he was referring to the__ __North Atlantic__ __community, which was bound tightly together because of the Cold War. But to the extent that my argument is right, all of__ __Eurasia__ __and the Asia-Pacific region will become, slowly, haltingly but increasingly, like that.__

=1AC v3.0=


 * Government is made up of individuals, thus those individuals are still required to act morally.**
 * Donaldson, prof. of business and ethics, 1995** (Thomas, “Ethics and International Affairs”, p. 149)

The state is not deprived of intentionality, as Hardin alleges, by the fact that “various officials of a particular state must typically reach different conclusions about what is rationally required.” Like corporations and judicial systems, states possess decision-making procedures designed to allow inferences abut the acts and intentions of the state itself fro the acts of individual members. When, for example, majorities of the duly-elected members of both houses of the U.S. Congress approve aid to Poland for the purposes of developing its economic infrastructure, and when the U.S. President concurs, then we may correctly infer that the United States has acted intentionally in giving aid to Poland.


 * Political predictions are inaccurate and lead to paralysis – systemic harms are the only justification for political action.**
 * Menand, Professor of English and American Literature at Harvard, 2005** (Louis, “Everyone’s an Expert,” NEW YORKER http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/051205crbo_books1)

Tetlock also has an unscientific point to make, which is that “we as a society would be better off if participants in policy debates stated their beliefs in testable forms”—that is, as probabilities—“monitored their forecasting performance, and honored their reputational bets.” He thinks that we’re suffering from our primitive attraction to deterministic, overconfident hedgehogs. It’s true that the only thing the electronic media like better than a hedgehog is two hedgehogs who don’t agree. Tetlock notes, sadly, a point that Richard Posner has made about these kinds of public intellectuals, which is that most of them are dealing in “solidarity” goods, not “credence” goods. Their analyses and predictions are tailored to make their ideological brethren feel good—more white swans for the white-swan camp. A prediction, in this context, is just an exclamation point added to an analysis. Liberals want to hear that whatever conservatives are up to is bound to go badly; when the argument gets more nuanced, they change the channel. On radio and television and the editorial page, the line between expertise and advocacy is very blurry, and pundits behave exactly the way Tetlock says they will. Bush Administration loyalists say that their predictions about postwar Iraq were correct, just a little off on timing; pro-invasion liberals who are now trying to dissociate themselves from an adventure gone bad insist that though they may have sounded a false alarm, they erred “in the right direction”—not really a mistake at all. The same blurring characterizes professional forecasters as well. The predictions on cable news commentary shows do not have life-and-death side effects, but the predictions of people in the C.I.A. and the Pentagon plainly do. It’s possible that the psychologists have something to teach those people, and, no doubt, psychologists are consulted. Still, the suggestion that we can improve expert judgment by applying the lessons of cognitive science and probability theory belongs to the abiding modern American faith in expertise. As a professional, Tetlock is, after all, an expert, and he would like to believe in expertise. So he is distressed that political forecasters turn out to be as unreliable as the psychological literature predicted, but heartened to think that there might be a way of raising the standard. The hope for a little more accountability is hard to dissent from. It would be nice if there were fewer partisans on television disguised as “analysts” and “experts” (and who would not want to see more foxes?). But the best lesson of Tetlock’s book may be the one that he seems most reluctant to draw: Think for yourself.