It’s official: Accusing President Obama of trying to cash in a “peace dividend” is now a conservative talking point. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) first floated this argument in a speech last week at the American Enterprise Institute (a place which has contributed far more than its share of bad conservative ideas.) It was then pushed by AEI’s magazine wing. Today it’s a headline in the Washington Times and parroted by Washington Post blogger Bill Kristol, who lets fly with this gem:

It’s one thing to run deficits to fight wars and defend the country. It’s another to throw money at everything except defense and to increase the national debt while skimping on defense spending over the next several years, to the point where such spending will be, by 2016, at its lowest percentage of GDP since before World War II. Is the world really the safest it has been since the 1930s? Is it responsible to declare a peace dividend when we’re not at peace?

To read this, you might think that someone had actually “declared a peace dividend,” other than conservatives attacking the idea that there is one. As conservative talking points go, charging President Obama with trying to cash in a “peace dividend” seems pretty silly, both stylistically and substantively. A peace dividend sounds like something people would really like, not something they’d hate the president for cashing in.

As for comparing defense spending in 2016 to 1930 as a function of GDP — well, let’s just say that your average eighth grade could probably explain why that’s silly. But I will use this graph which I’ve stolen from Yglesias:

As always, conservative arguments speak volumes about the esteem in which they hold their intended audience.

As conservatives continue to rally around torture, Karl Rove last night praised Dick Cheney for his “reasoned, thoughtful series of observations” about how President Obama has made the U.S. less safe. He also conjectured that ending the practice of torture will provide al Qaeda with a great “tool” to help them recruit new terrorists:

ROVE: Taking, for example, the memoranda about the enhanced interrogation techniques and making them public has been a value to our enemy. It has served, frankly, I think, as a recruiting tool. They can now take these memoranda and go to prospective, you know, recruits and say, This is the worst that the enemy, the United States, would ever do to you, and they’ve even forsworn these things. We can help you, prepare you to deal with these things, but even the enemy is so weak they’re not going to use these techniques on you. And it’s given them a tool to make it more attractive to recruit people, and you know, this kind of thing is harmful to us over the long haul.

Watch it:

It is torture itself — not its cessation — that serves as a recruiting tool for new terrorists. Experts from FBI special agent Jack Cloonan to torture victim Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to former Army JAG Major General Thomas Romig all agree that Bush and Rove’s “enhanced interrogation” program recruited terrorists who have killed thousands of Americans. Indeed, former military interrogator Matthew Alexander cited Bush’s interrogation program as the most effective means to recruiting insurgents in Iraq who were battling Americans every day:

The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.

To read ThinkProgress’s extensive report, Why Bush’s “Enhanced Interrogation” Program Failed, click here.

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Yesterday, the International Republican Institute (IRI) released a poll (pdf) of Pakistani public attitudes. This poll was conducted in March, so two important caveats are in order when reading this poll. The first is that the survey was conducted at the height of the political conflict between President Asif Ali Zardari and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif over the reinstatement of Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The second is that it was also conducted well prior to the breakdown of the deal between the Swat valley militants and the government in recent weeks.

That said, the poll results are striking. Economic issues are at the top of Pakistani concerns, with 46 percent considering inflation the country’s top priority and another 22 percent saying unemployment is the most important issue. Only 10 percent said terrorism was Pakistan’s most important problem, just above the 9 percent who consider poverty more important.

While placing it on the back burner compared with economic issues, Pakistanis on the whole appear to be of two minds about terrorism and extremism. Pakistanis who agree that “religious extremism is a serious problem in Pakistan” hit 74 percent, equaling the highest total since June 2007. A new high of 69 percent agree that “the Taliban and al Qaeda operating in Pakistan is a serious problem.” At the same time, Pakistanis disapprove of military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Northwest Frontier Province by seven points, and 72 percent disapprove of U.S. military “incursions” into the tribal areas. Read more