A troubling trend has emerged in American politics: conservatives in congress, conservative presidential candidates, and the conservative punditry have staked out radical positions that continually oppose the Pentagon's efforts to keep America safe.  On major issue after major issue confronting the military and our nation's security, conservatives have time and again attacked the military's advice in order to both obstruct progress and score political points against the Obama administration.  This politicking, which is often based on factual distortions, has pitted the conservative movement against the very institutions that safeguard our freedom and security.  As NSN Senior Advisor Major General Paul D. Eaton, U.S. Army (Ret.), recently wrote: "No one is safe it seems" from these pundits. 

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Yesterday, a number of senior counterterrorism officials and experts testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. efforts to combat extremism.  Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, stated that the "primary goal of countering violent extremism is to stop those most at risk of radicalization from becoming terrorists."  National security experts agree that a strategic and farsighted counterterrorism policy takes the fight to terrorists globally and gets results through military, intelligence and law-enforcement means. 

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This weekend saw a continuation of two parallel trends.  First, Generals Colin Powell and David Petraeus continued the trend of America's top national security experts supporting the Obama administration's national security policies.  Powell and Petraeus expressed support for a range of policies including prosecuting terrorists through civilian trials, closing Guantanamo Bay, and ending the use of torture or "enhanced interrogation techniques." The annual meeting of the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) conference demonstrated the second trend: conservatives politicizing national security.

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Eight years ago today America was attacked. Today we pause to look back and honor those who died as well as those who struggled and sacrificed to defend us on that day and ever since. As we look back, it is worth remembering how eight years ago the world rose united in grief and support, and how Americans rose to support each other and to turn new attention to foreign affairs. But this year, significant steps from the Obama administration have changed the way we fight terrorism – changes that are making us safer today and in the future, and once again inviting the world to stand beside us united.

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Yesterday brought more clarity on the failed interrogation and detention policies of the Bush administration—including new insight into the torture and abuse that permeated their prosecution of the “War on Terror.” But it also brought forward important reforms from the Obama administration: looking at best practices from professional interrogators in the FBI, CIA and elsewhere to create policies that will make America more secure and prevent abuses.

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Today President Obama spoke at the National Archives where, surrounded by the documents that contain the principles that founded America, he confirmed the need for America to return to these principles and values by closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

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As the Obama administration continues to weigh its options for cleaning up the mess left behind by the Bush administration – including how to deal with photos of detainees as well as how to try and detain terror suspects – experienced interrogator Ali Soufan yesterday gave the most detailed, professional critique to date of how bush Administration torture was both ineffective and counter-productive.  Soufan, who through traditional interrogation techniques of Abu Zubaydah discovered that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, made clear that once interrogators began torturing Zubaydah he stopped talking.  Soufan also explained that the Bush “enhanced interrogation techniques” were much slower than the knowledge based approach professional interrogators had developed for such situations, thus refuting the “ticking time bomb” straw man that is often used to justify torture. 

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This week conservatives in Congress have begun a new effort to claim that Barack Obama is not keeping America safe and that they are the party of national security. But these claims were once again undermined yesterday by former Secretary of State Condoleezza’s Rice’s assertions that the Al Qaeda threat was comparable to that of Nazi Germany. Rice also stated that if an interrogation technique is approved by the President, by definition it is not torture.

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