1. Be it resolved that the United States of America is not justified in intervening against
government leaders when human rights are concerned. My partner and I firmly support the view
that American involvement in foreign countries' issues regarding human rights has neither merit
nor justification.
The United States is a sovereign country, and founding member of the United Nations. As
such, The United States along with all other member states, who are as sovereign as the United
States, must obey all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which they
ratified on December 16th of 1949 according to the United Nations. However, over 60 years later,
the United States of America has repeatedly violated multiple articles. The use of Jim Crow
Laws during and after the passing of the Declaration violates at least Article 16 Section 1 of the
Declaration through the prohibition of interracial marriage says the U.N. Another major example
is the description from Herndon (2013) of the footage of four white Los Angeles police officers
beating Rodney King, a black man. They were accused and taken before a court but were
acquitted of assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force even though there was clear
evidence of their actions according to Herndon. This violates Articles 3, 5, 8, and 10 of the
Declaration says the U.N. One more instance mentioned by Herndon was the murder of a black
man in Texas who was chained to a car and dragged by white supremacists. This is a violation to
Articles 1, 3, and 5. If Americans can’t respect human rights within their borders, how can they
be hypocritical enough to claim the right to do it beyond them?
This also goes without mentioning that while the United States treated the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights like a note on a napkin, every other member country respected the
U.S.’s sovereignty and the American people’s right to do with their government as they pleased,
as delineated in Article 21 Section 3. Now that there happen to be violations happening in other
countries, why should those same rights belonging to those foreign peoples be infringed upon if
Article 30 prohibits the destruction of any of the other 29 rights mentioned before it?

2. In the case that American citizens and/or politicians still feel the need to intervene, for
whatever reason, in other countries, let’s not forget our precedents and where past interventions
have led us. The Vietnam, Iraq and Korea conflicts brought nothing but shame, pain, death and
debt to the United States and the American people. At the peak of the Vietnam conflict there
were 530 thousand Americans deployed according to Carpenter 2007. The war lasted 12 years
and in the end more than 58 thousand of our troops didn’t come home alive. Needless to say, our
objectives in Vietnam were not realized says Carpenter. According to Kim 2004, the Korean
conflict was one of the bloodiest wars of modern history. It resulted in several million deaths and
several times that number of wounded and maimed. In Iraq we have also received considerable
blows. Six and a half years have dealt us 4,200 deaths and 38,000 wounded points out Goldberg
2010.
The monetary costs haven't been any lower according to Carpenter. Accounting for
inflation, and speaking in 2007 American dollars, the Vietnam War cost the United States $650
Billion over its entire span. The Iraq War, merely in its first 4 years, cost $500 Billion. Both of
these totals do not account for indirect costs such as long-term medical care for wounded
veterans. With a national debt of over $17 Trillion, and over 1 of those trillion coming from these
two conflicts alone, it's pretty clear where a major source of our country's economic struggles
come from.
To top it off, the United States also has precedents of supporting governments that violate
their own people’s human rights. How can Americans intervene in any country for the purpose of
supporting the human rights of that country’s citizens if they are already used to intervening in
other countries for the exact opposite reason. Young 2013 mentions Argentina as a prime
example. Argentina’s military regime murdered, tortured and raped tens of thousands of people
who criticized government policy in the 1970’s. Instead of helping the Argentine people, the
American government gave $35 million in military aid and sold $45 million in supplies to the

3. militants says Young. Young also quotes U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as saying, “we
have followed events in Argentina closely and wish the new government well. If there are things
that have to be done, you should do them quickly”.
Nothing further.