By Sarah Margon

Earlier today, on the heels of Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Obama gave a long-awaited speech on the U.S. government response to genocide and atrocities prevention. It was a remarkable speech that illustrated the unprecedented attention this administration — and this President in particular — has paid to addressing atrocities around the globe. Specifically, Obama’s speech illustrated the central role civilian protection has played within his foreign policy by noting that “national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your own people” — whether in Libya or Cote D’Ivoire.

The President outlined a number of important initiatives geared toward creating a more cohesive and effective government-wide strategy to combat atrocities. Some of these initiatives have been underway for some time — including the creation of the first-ever White House position dedicated to preventing and addressing war crimes and atrocities or the visa-ban issued to ensure human rights abusers do not enter the United States.

One of the newer initiatives the President announced today was the formal establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board, or APB, created under the 2010 Presidential Study Directive which declared mass atrocities and genocide to be a “core national security interest and core moral responsibility.” The APB, comprised of senior government officials across nearly a dozen government agencies, will meet regularly to help identify and address atrocity threats. It will also help manage the governmental bureaucracy — and recommend any necessary changes –- to ensure a more effective and cohesive response. With its inaugural meeting later today, the APB emphasizes the centrality of atrocities prevention within President Obama’s foreign policy agenda.

Another notable new initiative is an executive order that authorizes sanctions and visa bans against those who commit or facilitate grave human rights abuses through information technology. For now this executive order is specifically related to the ongoing brutality in Syria and Iran but there is great potential for expansion, particularly because these sanctions target not just governments but companies who enable such abuse.

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Two weeks ago, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) announced that “there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.” While West has refused to name names or provide evidence, today he moved on to claiming to have uncovered another vast conspiracy.

Appearing on Fox & Friends, West criticized the FBI for reportedly removing Islamophobic training material. The culling of FBI training materials comes after Wired’s Danger Room found that counterterrorism agents at the FBI’s training center in Quantico, VA were taught that “devout” Muslims are more likely to be “violent” and that Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers. The works of notorious anti-Islam writers Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were found in the FBI’s library and FBI counterterrorism “expert” William Gawthrop was shown telling an audience at an FBI sponsored event that Islam bore similarities to the Star Wars Death Star.

But West, whose own experience in counterterrorism includes mock executiing an Iraqi whom he suspected of witholding information about an ambush on his men, has decided that removing Islamophobic material from the FBI’s training facilities amounts to a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy. He told Brian Kilmeade:

WEST: Well I think we have to understand that when tolerance becomes a one-way street it will lead to cultural suicide. And we should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy.

KILMEADE: Do you believe they are?

WEST: Oh absolutely. When you go and look at the Fort Hood report of Major Malik Nadal Hassan, you will find that it makes no reference to Islamic jihadism, Muslim extremism, it doesn’t talk about his association with al Alwaki and it is classified as workplace violence. [...] If we continue to be recalcitrant in identifying who the enemy is to be less offensive to them, then we’re going to put ourselves in a bad situation. [...] Now you have an environment of political correctness which precludes these agents from doing their proper job and due diligence to go after the perceived threat.

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While West is slow to provide evidence backing the conspiracies he claims to uncover, he is quick to link his political opponents to vast conspiracies to undermine the security of the United States. Indeed, scapegoating Muslims has become a go-to talking point for West.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was refused a visa and prevented from boarding a flight in Dubai to Afghanistan on Friday, Afghan officials said. Rohrabacher has been critical of corruption in President Hamid Karzai’s government and has openly called for a more decentralized government in Afghanistan, which, according to the BBC, led Karzai to request that Rohrabacher be denied entry into the country:

Afghan officials told the BBC that in addition to his criticisms of the president, Mr Rohrabacher was being shunned because of meetings he had held in Berlin with Afghan politicians about the creation of a decentralised form of government.

According to our correspondent, Afghan officials view that as tantamount to interference in the country’s internal affairs.

“Anyone who speaks against the good of Afghanistan and tries to interfere in our internal affairs is ineligible for an Afghan visa,” one official told our correspondent.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton relayed Karzai’s message to Rohrabacher who, according to his spokesperson, obliged “out of respect.”

According to the Guardian, Rohrabacher “has been in discussion with Afghan leaders for several months about a less centralised form of government” and Afghan government officials in January criticized Rohrabacher for meeting with Afghan opposition leaders in Berlin.

According to a State Department cable released by Wikileaks, Rohrabacher as early as 2003 pushed Karzai to incorporate more warlords into his government, telling the Afghan president that he preferred “a federalist decentralization of power.” The Guardian reports that Rohrabacher “became personal friends with many of the commanders” fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Last June, Iraqi government officials kicked Rohrabacher out of Iraq after the Californian Republican said Iraq should repay the United States for the war President Bush started there in 2003. While members of his own party criticized him for the remarks, Rohrabacher remained unapologetic. “There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that the people who have benefited from our benevolence should consider repaying us for what we have given them,” he said.

With the NATO summit coming up next month in Chicago largely focusing on Afghanistan, one senior diplomat in Kabul said of the newest Rohrabacher incident: “This doesn’t look great.”