VI - Writing Your Cases

Chapter VI - Writing Your Cases

Your debate case is a six minute speech that states your team's main arguments for or against the resolution.  A case includes an introduction, several main contentions, and a conclusion.  Because the judge and other team is trying to flow (take notes on) your case, you should be very clear in stating your main points in outline form.  Most main points should be supported by evidence.  You may also add your own explanation to support your arguments, but be sure that it's clear to the audience which parts of the case are direct evidence quotes and which parts are your analysis. 

Below are tips and samples for each main part of the case.  The samples are taken from an affirmative case (topic #1, 2004). 

Introduction:

Most cases have a brief introduction.  Elements of an introduction usually include:

§       An attention getter

§       Statement of the resolution and your position

§       A brief overview of your thesis

§       Definition of ambiguous terms

A contention is a major argument.  Most cases contain 2-4 contentions.  A contention is usually supported by specific sub-points (lettered A, B, etc.). 

Typically contentions are structured as follows:

1. Statement of contention (complete idea):
2. Brief introduction of contention (often one sentence)
3. Statement and support of subpoints
4. Brief conclusion/transition

Notes:

• It is your responsibility to distinguish analysis that you write from evidence that is directly quoted.
• Evidence is directly quoted, never paraphrased. 
• All tags/claims should be complete ideas (subject and verb)

 

 

Conclusion:

At the end of your case, a brief conclusion is appropriate:

 

Next, you will find two full sample cases from the 2004 topic on terrorism.

Sample Affirmative Case

After the tragic attacks upon the United States on September 11, 2001, we have asked ourselves what went wrong? and how can we fix it?  National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States thoroughly studied these questions.  Recently, the non-partisan commission concluded that "Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe."  The affirmative team agrees completely with this conclusion.  That is why we stand resolved that the U.S. government's war on terrorism is making America safer.  

We begin our case by showing that before the war on terrorism began after 9-11, we were very vulnerable to attack.  Then, in our second and third contentions, we will prove that we are indeed safer today because of the changes we've made.

Contention I.  Before the War on Terror, the US Was Poorly Defended

First we'll show that America was not ready to defend itself before the war on terror began:

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Released July 22, 2004 [http://www.9-11commission.gov/]

Before 9/11, the United States tried to solve the al Qaeda problem with the capabilities it had used in the last stages of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. These capabilities were insufficient. Little was done to expand or reform them.  The CIA had minimal capacity to conduct paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and it did not seek a large-scale expansion of these capabilities before 9/11. The CIA also needed to improve its capability to collect intelligence from human agents.  At no point before 9/11 was the Department of Defense fully engaged in the mission of countering al Qaeda, even though this was perhaps the most dangerous foreign enemy threatening the United States.  America's homeland defenders faced outward. NORAD itself was barely able to retain any alert bases at all. Its planning scenarios occasionally considered the danger of hijacked aircraft being guided to American targets, but only aircraft that were coming from overseas.  The most serious weaknesses in agency capabilities were in the domestic arena. The FBI did not have the capability to link the collective knowledge of agents in the field to national priorities. Other domestic agencies deferred to the FBI.  FAA capabilities were weak. Any serious examination of the possibility of a suicide hijacking could have suggested changes to fix glaring vulnerabilities.

Next, we prove that our efforts here at home have resulted in a safer America:

Contention II.  Homeland Security Improvements Have Made us Safer

Since 9-11, the US has taken steps to improve our security:

A.   Homeland Security has been Strengthened

White House Fact Sheet, "Three Years of Progress in the War on Terror", September 11, 2004 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040911.html

The Bush Administration has made an unprecedented commitment to homeland security. Already, the President has led the largest reorganization of government in more than 50 years; strengthened our intelligence capabilities; expanded support for first responders and state homeland security efforts; and increased protection of our transportation systems, borders, ports, and critical infrastructure.

B.   US Is Definitely Safer Today

Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, Testimony Before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, September 14, 2004 [http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4003]

As the Commission recognized, in the aftermath of September 11th, it was clear that the nation had no centralized effort to defend the country against terrorism, no single agency dedicated to homeland security.  As all of you know, these tragic attacks required a swift and drastic change to our understanding of what it means to secure America.   With your help, the Department of Homeland Security was established to bring together all of our scattered entities and capabilities under one central authority to better coordinate and direct our homeland security efforts.   In the span of our eighteen month existence, we have made tremendous progress.  I want to thank the Commission and Congress for recognizing the tremendous strides we have already made.  From our borders to our "hometowns", from our coastline to the skies, we are safer, more secure and better prepared today than ever before. 

Finally, in addition to improving our Homeland Security, we have taken part in an international effort to weaken terrorists:

Contention III.  The Global War on Terrorism Is Making America Safer

Internationally, the US has been successful in reducing the terrorist threat.

A.    The al qaeda Threat has been Reduced

Daniel L. Byman, Nonresident Senior Fellow: Foreign Policy Studies, Ph.D., MIT, "Homeland Security: We're Safer Than You Think" August 2, 2004 [http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/byman/20040802.htm]

The greatest blow to al-Qaida has come from the removal of its haven in Afghanistan and the disruption of the permissive environment it enjoyed in numerous countries in Europe and Asia. The leaders of the organization are under intense pressure, with killings and arrests commonplace. As a result, attacks that require meticulous planning and widespread coordination are far more difficult to carry out.  Al-Qaida has changed in response to these pressures. As former CIA Director George Tenet testified earlier this year, "Successive blows to al-Qaida's central leadership have transformed the organization into a loose collection of regional networks that operate more autonomously." Before Sept. 11, al-Qaida worked closely with various local jihadist movements, drawing on their personnel and logistics centers for its own efforts and working to knit the disparate movements together. Since 9/11, local group leaders have played a far more important role, taking the initiative in choosing targets and conducting operations, looking to al-Qaida more for inspiration than for direction.  This shift from a centralized structure to a more localized one has made the U.S. homeland safer.

 

B.    US Actions Have made the World Much Safer

San Diego Union Tribune Editorial, September 11, 2004, [p.B8, lexis/nexis]

Barely a week passes in which terrorists fail to strike somewhere -- Russia, Indonesia, Iraq, Spain, Israel.  But this does not mean substantial progress has not been made toward the eradication of this scourge. On the contrary, since Sept. 11, 2001, the entire world has come to grips for the first time with the terrorist menace. The level of cooperation among governments, in gathering intelligence, cutting off financial support and carrying out military operations, is unprecedented -- and encouraging. In this enduring contest against civilization's foes, victory will not be achieved until state sponsorship of terrorism is thoroughly eliminated.  On that score President Bush earns top marks. Although some have condemned his aggressive strategy of striking terrorists before they strike home, the truth is that America and the rest of the world are much safer for it. By going on the offensive -- that is, taking pre-emptive action when warranted -- Bush has quashed two seedbeds of terror, the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

In conclusion, we firmly believe that the tremendous effort undertaken by our government to fight terror is having positive results.  While we admit that the war on terrorism is far from perfect, it is also clear that we are better prepared to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack than we were 3 years ago.

 Sample Negative Case

On September 7, 2004, Richard Clarke, the United States' former anti-terrorism chief, was interviewed by two faculty members at the University of California-Berkeley.  His remarks included the following: "The Bush administration has bungled the war on terrorism, doing little to provide security at home while breeding legions of new enemies abroad.  The pool of people who really hate us is so much greater than it was on 9/11 because of this needless and counterproductive war in Iraq. On the home front, except for improved airline safety, little or nothing has been done to protect the many other vulnerable targets." [San Francisco Chronicle, September 8, 2004].  Because my partner and I agree with Clarke's analysis of the past three years, we stand to negate the resolution, resolved that the U.S. government's war on terrorism is making America safer.

To prove that the government's war on terrorism has not accomplished its goals, we will show that the United States faces major security concerns both at home and abroad.

Contention I: Anti-terrorism efforts at home have failed to make us safer.

The United States remains tragically vulnerable to a terrorist attack on American soil:

            A.  Current security measures grossly inadequate

Stephen Flynn, Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Time Magazine, July 26, 2004 [www.time.com e.r. September 26, 2004]

With the exception of airports, much of what is critical to our way of life remains unprotected: water and food supplies; refineries, energy grids and pipelines; bridges, tunnels, trains, trucks and cargo containers; as well as the cyber backbone that underpins the information age in which we live. The security measures we have been cobbling together are hardly fit to deter amateur thieves, vandals and hackers, never mind determined terrorists. Worse still, small improvements are often oversold as giant steps forward, lowering the guard of average citizens as they carry on their daily routine with an unwarranted sense of confidence.

 

B.  New Safety Programs are Under-funded 

Matthew Brzezinski, staff writer, Mother Jones, September/October 2004, [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/09/08_402.html e.r.September 26, 2004]

The war in Iraq so far has cost $150 billion; for the Department of Homeland Security, the administration has allocated $27 billion this year, with the bulk of that going to the routine operations of agencies like the Customs Service. When it comes to new programs to make planes, trains, ports, and urban centers safer, there's precious little left over--which is why a range of critics, from local firefighters to Republican members of Congress, have lambasted Bush for shortchanging the nation's true homeland security needs.

C.  Emergency responders not adequately prepared for an attack

Stephen Flynn, Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2004, [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/]

Police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians will be the first on the scene of any attack; they will have to operate largely on their own for at least the first 12 to 24 hours. Yet on average, U.S. fire departments have only enough radios to equip half their firefighters on a shift, and breathing apparatus for only a third. Police departments in cities across the country do not have the protective gear to safely secure a site following a WMD attack. And most emergency medical technicians lack the tools to determine which chemical or biological agent may have been used.

Not only has the United States government failed to secure our homeland adequately, its actions around the world are actually increasing the likelihood of future attacks by terrorists.

Contention II:  Anti-terrorism efforts abroad are making us less safe.

The so-called international war on terror has been little more than a great recruiting tool for terrorist organizations:

A.   War in Iraq has increased terrorism

Farah Stockman, staff writer, The Boston Globe, May 27, 2004 [http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/05/27/right_report_slams_us_war_on_terror/ e.r. September 26, 2004]

The release of the report [IISS report] in Washington was accompanied by data indicating that terrorist acts have increased since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the advent of the war on terrorism. Jessica Eve Stern, a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University who has spent six years interviewing members of terrorist organizations, cited statistics indicating that the number of terrorist incidents increased from 2,303 in the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks to 4,422 in the two years after Sept. 11. ''There is no question in my mind that the war in Iraq increased terrorism, in part because the United States created a weak state unable to maintain a monopoly on the use of force," Stern said after the news conference.

B.    Al Qaeda helped by U.S.'s war on terror

 

 Tom Regan, staff writer, The Christian Science Monitor, May 28, 2004 [http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0528/dailyUpdate.html e.r. September 26, 2004].

 

Early in the week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, released its annual survey of world affairs. The Associated Press reports that the IISS claims that, far from being undermined by the war on terror, Al Qaeda "has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks." Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the report said. The US occupation of Iraq brought Al Qaeda recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents.

C.   Terrorism pool growing due to war in Iraq

Jacob G. Hornberger,  Founder and President of the Future of Freedom Foundation, "exactly how has Bush's war made us safer?", July 19th, 2004              [ http://www.fff.org/comment/com0407e.asp]

Consider that civilian deaths have been estimated at a minimum of 10,000; certainly the military dead have to be equal to and, more likely, two or three times that number. Add in the maimed, such as the Iraqi boy who lost both of his arms (and both his parents) and that brings the number of innocent Iraqi people who have been killed or injured to a conservative estimate of 30,000 or 40,000 people, some 10 or 20 times the number of (innocent) people killed at the World Trade Center. Now, let's assume that each of those victims, on average, had three family members and friends. That would mean, then, that there are now around 100,000 new people who have even more reason to be angry and vengeful toward the United States, thereby significantly adding to the pool of potential terrorists who, according to U.S. officials, hate America for its "freedom and values." And that doesn't even include people in the Arab community who, while not knowing the victims, are nevertheless angry over the deaths and injuries of fellow Arabs, much as many Americans were angry and vengeful over the 9/11 deaths, even though they didn't personally know any of the victims.

In conclusion, the heinous act against our nation on September 11^th undoubtedly forced us to reexamine how we protect our citizens and fight terrorism around the world.  Unfortunately, the actions our country has taken thus far have failed to make Americans safer at home or around the globe.  Thank you and I now stand open for cross examination.