Last year, then-RNC chairman Michael Steele caused a mini civil war within the Republican Party when he criticized President Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan and suggested that the United States should not be at war in that country. Leading conservatives denounced Steele’s criticism of the war, quickly silencing him.

Now, yet another Republican who criticized the war is facing the possibility of being excommunicated from the conservative movement for his dovish views. On Saturday, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) announced that Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), one of the handful of congressional Republicans who voted against going to war in Iraq and a major opponent of the war in Afghanistan, would be kicked off its National Advisory Board over his dovish views.

YAF condemned Paul’s “delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement” and said that he was even more “out of touch with America’s needs for national security than the current feeble and appeasing administration.” The group even went as far as to say that his “refusal to support our nation’s military and national security interests border on treason“:

The conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) announced Saturday that Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) would be expelled from the group’s National Advisory Board because of his “delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement.” “It is a sad day in American history when a one-time conservative-libertarian stalwart has fallen more out of touch with America’s needs for national security than the current feeble and appeasing administration,” YAF’s Senior National Director Jordan Marks said in a statement.

“Rep. Paul’s refusal to support our nation’s military and national security interests border on treason, aside from his failure to uphold his oath to the United States Constitution and defend our country and citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Marks continued.

It’s curious that YAF compares Paul’s opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to treason. The latest Gallup poll on the issue finds that 61 percent of Republicans want to see a speedier withdrawal of American combat troops from the Afghanistan. Between the attacks on Steele and the purging of Paul, it appears that right-wing powerbrokers are willing to attack any conservative over their increasingly minority views on war and foreign policy.

On Friday, House Republicans put forth a “continuing resolution” (CR) to fund the government past March 4th that was filled with spending cuts. While this came as no surprise, one focus of the cuts is causing some heads to turn. House Republicans are choosing to significantly cut the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation programs, the sole purpose of which is to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on loose nuclear weapons and materials. While Republicans have talked about the need to inflict pain in their budget, doing so in a way that increases the risk of the nuclear annihilation of an American city is perhaps taking the pledge too far.

House Republicans have proposed to cut funding for these programs by 22 percent or $647 million. Michelle Marchesano of the Partnership for Global Security warns:

The US programs charged with securing fissile materials and thwarting terrorists’ efforts to acquire them are among the victims of this year’s federal budget fights… Without appropriated budgets commensurate to program agendas, efforts to improve global nuclear material security will stall.

The danger of a terrorist acquiring nuclear materials is very real. A softball-sized amount of highly enriched uranium can demolish an entire city. Yet in many countries, nuclear materials remain highly insecure, leaving them susceptible to theft. For years nuclear materials have floated on the black market and it is known that Al Qaeda has sought to purchase them.

But this danger is entirely preventable. It merely requires effort and a little money. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the US set up programs to reduce the threat by locking down and eliminating insecure nuclear materials. To bring attention to the danger, President Obama convened a Nuclear Security Summit last April – the largest gathering of heads of state in the US since the founding of the United Nations. At the summit, Obama set the goal of securing all nuclear materials within four years. This goal is ambitious, but achievable. Unfortunately, however the programs necessary to achieve this goal haven’t received sufficient funding from congress.

These programs in the past have had significant bipartisan support and are the lasting legacy of Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The amount of funding required for these programs is also a drop in the bucket when compared to the current cost of the wars in Afghanistan and the total Pentagon budget. Last year Harvard’s Graham Allison wrote, “The good news is that this ultimate catastrophe is preventable. … [C]itizens must press their elected officials to adopt a clear agenda for action and then hold them accountable for following through.”