September 13, 2011

Last week, MPAC’s Government & Policy Analyst, Alejandro Beutel, spoke at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s annual policy conference “10 Years After 9/11.”

The day-long conference included many panels, with Beutel joining Arun Kundnani, Fellow at the Open Society Institute, and Michael German, Immigration and National Security Policy Counsel at the ACLU and former FBI counterterrorism agent, to discuss countering violent extremism in a post-9/11 era. The panel was moderated by Adem Carroll, Director of the Muslim Progress-Traditionalist Alliance.

Each of the panelists gave opening remarks with Kundnani discussing the White House’s recent countering violent extremism strategy and recognizing it has an important first step. However, there remains a gap between its ideas on paper and how counterterrorism policies are currently being implemented. German discussed issues with the current radicalization discussion and how certain religious behaviors currently in practice have been seen as potential indicators of criminal extremism. He also provided important critical analysis of how the current attorney general’s guidelines on terrorism investigations fell short of Constitutional standards protecting freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Beutel spoke about the importance of the new partnership-based framework the White House put forward. Especially advocating the importance of community-advocacy organizations. Building off of German’s remarks, he noted the broad-brush nature of new investigative policies is largely rooted in public perceptions of national security fears. These in turn drive public policy demands that create a “do whatever it takes” mentality to fight violent extremism – even if that means sacrificing certain civil liberties protections.

Beutel and the other panelists agreed that moving forward a narrative of resilience must be built. He pointed out that while al-Qaeda’s attack on 9/11 was devastatingly tragic; our nation’s democracy has overcome worse challenges and threats. It was slightly less than 20 years ago that America had overcame its greatest threat, the nuclear-armed Soviet Union without giving up on its liberties at home. If that could be achieved 20 years ago, then the same can be achieved today against an enemy without weapons of mass destruction, state support and numbering less than a few hundred members.

-- Marium F. Mohiuddin
(marium@mpac.org)
Communications Coordinator