The Iraq War- Was It Successful?

To answer this question, first the objectives of the war upon invasion must be clear. At first, when the invasion was in its infant stages and the U.N. still backed it, the official objective was to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which the U.S. and U.N. believed held weapons of mass destruction, and was also responsible for facilitation of Islamic militant/terrorist ideals and mass disregard of human rights. Saddam's regime was toppled in a short three weeks, at which point the U.S. changed its objective to the democratization of the Iraqi people. There is no doubt that America's first objective was efficiently accomplished, which served to "avenge" the genocidal acts of violence perpetrated by Saddam's regime and certainly stopped future acts of unneeded violence.Yet the completion of the second objective, that of the democratization of Iraq, is still hazy. Although democratic process have been set in place, it is hindered by racism and fear. If the masses do show up and vote, who is not to say we will not see a promising president turn into an authoritarian dictator who refuses to relinquish their position, as Saddam did? There are many hurdles the Iraqi people must face in obtaining a fair democracy, and they must face them alone. Only time will tell how Iraq's new government goes.

Debate Reflection

Overall, I enjoyed the debate even though it had several flaws. It seemed that in each group only two people, the debators, were working. I also didn't really like the question I was given about cultural Imperialism, I'd prefer something more controversial and interesting. I believe that if I put more time into writing an actual case instead of putting some facts on a piece of paper, I'd have less ums and uhs. This would make my case more engaging and effective.

Debate Reflection

My thoughts on the debate are plain and simple... I felt that it was interesting to see what points my team and the others presented but it required a lot of on the spot thinking (Something I am not too good at within the topic of democracy). I found it hard to keep on a train of thought because of the depth of opposing questions. It is pretty funny how both my team and Sam and Trip's team both reflected on the past with democracy instead of discussing possible outcomes of the spread of democracy in the near future. Even though debating sucked in my opinion, watching Austin and David vs. Drew and Stephan was interesting. Both teams had really good points about cultural imperialism but it was clear who on each team did their research and who did not. It sucks how Drew and Stephan started to talk about government imperialism because if they didn't they probably would have won.

Debate Reflection

I thought that overall, the two debates that we did in class were interesting. My group had the "no" argument for the question about whether or not the world is a victim of American cultural imperialism. It was somewhat difficult to come up with pieces of evidence for a question that was mostly based on opinions and different views of the our world. I think it would be better for us to have debate questions that we are passionate about and that we will actually give a lot of effort in defending our particular case. Also I think that in order to have a more heated argument, the groups should have been able to pick which side that they agreed with.

Debate Reflection

I love aruging. Debating is always a great idea in class, to get students involved and passionate about the topic. However, I felt the way the debate was conducted was a little robotic, with students just reading arguements off their paper and not really adapting their second round of debating to their opponent's arguements. Plus, groups were put together but really 2 people from each group did anything. I think if the class was divided and a more informal approach to debating that involved everyone's opinion would be a bit more engaging. However, I definitely think debating in general should be pursued in our class.

Debate Reflection

I have pretty significantly mixed feelings about this debate project we just did. I love the idea of having some sort of a verbal debate on a specific topic but I don't like the way it was done. I would have preferred a less formal way of approaching it. I would have preferred something along the lines of a round table discussion where everyone was recquired to speak at least once or something along those lines. The fact of the matter is that if I wanted to do debate like that, I would have taken debate. I find it nerve racking to get up there and talk in front of the entire class. I would have loved to have debated if it was less formal or if less people were watching. Along with this, the actual debate questions were poorly structured in my opinion. Took my group a decent amount of time to actually figure out what kind of evidence we should be pulling to support our side of the argument. I know for a fact the other group ran into a similar problem. All in all it was a good idea but I'd like it to be less formal should we decide to do it in the future.

Class debate

I thought that the debate activity we did in class was a great learning experience for all. I've only debated once when I was a freshmen, so I dont think I would have done a good job Although my group didnt fully understand the question, I'm still proud of what they did and what a good job they did representing us. I think that if we had more time to develop a more in depth answer, we could have been successful. Overall, I thought that this activity was a lot of fun and everyone can take something away from it and apply it to something similar.

Class Debate

I thought the debate over imperialism went very well and that all the teams spent good time and effort to get their points across. Although there were only two people at a time that could participate in the actual debate, everyone in the class was able to get involved. I did research and it taught me a lot on the subject that I never would have known otherwise. It was really interesting to learn how actual debates run with 'cross fires' and being timed, because I've never taken debate before. I give the people a lot of credit that were able to get up there and argue against each other because it would've been tough for me to get all my points across in such a short amount of time.

I feel that I did poorly in the debate today. I didnt fully understand the topic, which in the end was my downfall. Also I failed to properly execute the cross fires going off on rants instead of asking a question.

I wasn’t necessarily pleased with my performance in yesterday’s debate. The lack of communication between Jamie and I was our biggest downfall. We both had a good amount of information supporting our argument but we didn’t put enough time into thinking through who was going to bring up the different points. Also, Jamie nor I have had any experience with debate, which explains why we pretty much dive-bombed. The biggest flaw in the debate was that neither Jamie and I or Trippe and Sam actually answered the question at hand. In the end it is what it is, so I can’t complain. If we were to do this activity again I would want a little more of a walkthrough on how a debate goes as well as a little more team prep time in class

Yesterday's Debates

If I'm being honest, the debates yesterday weren't that great. I guess I'm being a debby downer because I've been debating since I was a freshman, but still. I know both teams were very well prepared and had very good evidence, but I didn't really see it. I would have liked to see both sides stand up with an actual speech prepared, and I would have liked to hear them say the author of the evidence they were using. And I guess I would have liked to hear them talk about World War 3...............but that's okay. All-in-all, I think the debates went very well; for the limited amount of time both teams had to prepare, and the limited knowledge they had about what they were doing. I still think my team one btw.

Debate Reflection

To be honest, I though the debate today was going to bring out Darth Wall-imann (Star Wars reference), but instead it went well. Although it ran smoothly there are a few things I would focus on if I had to get up in front of the class. Firstly, I would refrain from using "like", and try to be more concise when making my points or arguments. Secondly, I would try to talk slower and be more clear, as well as trying to sound as confident as possible. Thirdly, I would try not to repeat my thesis over and over before I make any points. However somethings done well were bringing in specific examples and having good support. Also the debaters were respectful to each and no fights broke out (although we'll see what happens tomorrow in the Big Dave vs. True Drew showdown).

Debating

I thought that the debate went suprisigly well. Everyone did a good job of speaking clearly even tho there was alot of "like" and "umm". Each point were clearly spoken and had meaning. I thought at first that 4 minutes was going to be to much for the speakers to do but they happened to do about 3 minutes which was surprising since it s hard to speak in front of an odience and time just passes by so fast. Overall everyone did good, the classroom didn't distract the speakers, and even if Trippe and Sam won, Jamie and Tyler did an excelent job of explaining their point and going against their opponents point.