We have to realize that some parts of the swamp and not susceptible to being dried up. Bruce and i disagree a little bit on the view of calcutta and their mission. Brigitte alcaide. Rigid alqaida. It is important again broader acceptance and the muslim world. Some of the documents came out of abbottabad that they felt isolated and history was passing them by. They did not have the kind of message that was going to attract the supporters they want who would ultimately help them create. I have some sympathy for the perspective of birth because terrorist groups have people who are addicted to violence and maybe dont spend a lot of time thinking about how they become a broader movement. For bin laden and others, that has always been an important thing. But and it probably enjoy the romance of isolation as well. To is a complicated picture and they feel they need to win ground. And have a broader and the public. The overall trend toward unpopularity is a good one and buy a ticket is good from the perspective of counterterrorism. Ultimately, it is communities on the front line that are going to play a decisive role in terms of picking up the phone and saying there is a guy youre doing something that we dont like. We find this across a wide an array of different societies. We encourage that resilience in our own community. We have seen at built extensively in saudi arabia in their efforts to deal with extremism. I think the popularity issue is a significant one. I would not ever confuse it with how people feel about us. It is a very different thing. In many places, we want friends. I have a threepart question what can we do to encourage a resolution or force a resolution to end the conflict . How likely is it we can do this successfully . What are the continued benefits of we succeed . I will ask bruce to begin. The israelipalestinian conflict is extraordinarily difficult to sell. I have spent an inordinate amount of my life with israelis and palestinians trying to reason together and cannot claim any measure of success. That said, i think where we are today is substantially different than where we have been in the past. We know the contours of agreement between israel and palestine. President clinton laid them out 12 years ago. There has been a lot of work since then. The question then becomes, what are we prepared to do to make that happen . That is a question of political will. There are huge obstacles on both sides. The forces of peace in the israeli camp and the palestinian camp have been on the defense for the last several years, likely to continue to be on the defense, if there is no serious effort to do something about it. The question of political will comes down to a question of how important is it . I will answer it this way if we do nothing about this, the next generation of americans will look back and say what were they thinking. They knew this drove terrorism. They knew this was the driving force behind so much extremism. They knew how Many Americans and others have died and knew how many israelis and palestinians have died. They knew what misery it produced. They chose to do nothing or to do the least. President obama made a very powerful and compelling speech on sunday night. Much of that speech could be made about the israelipalestinian conflict. We know the price. We know what is at stake. It is a question of political will. Do we have that political will . It will not be easy. There is a difference today from when the last great effort was made in the waning days of the clinton administration. At least we know where we want to go. It helps the lot if you know what the destination is. It is not an issue i really want to say an awful lot about. I think bruce and i disagree a little bit on the role that the israelipalestinian conflict plays in motivating violent extremists in Many Disparate parts of the world. There is no question that the narrative makes good use of this conflict as an example of western domination, colonialism and the like. If you look in yemen and north africa and Southeast Asia where people have strong feelings about the conflict, still, you would find, if you had enough social sciences, that that was not what was attracting people to terror. The reason i think that is important is that it is vitally necessary that we continue to pursue all the things we are doing in counterterrorism, what ever happens to the peace process. I think there is an awful lot of containment, management, and to ammunition of the threat to that we can achieve dimunition of the threat regardless of what happens between the israelis and palestinians. We all have concerns about security in that region but i dont think that ought to condition our counter is our counterterrorism policies. You mentioned the global counterterrorism forum. This organization is on the goal of reducing vulnerability for people everywhere. Too violent extremism. Is israel still excluded from this or are there plans to include them in the future . This issue was on the agenda in the abu dhabi and the group has agreed that the co chairs put forward a proposal must disagree on israel but how non members are engaged by the gctf in the future. Different parts of the organization were embracing different practices. We strongly believe that israel has an important contribution to be made in the group activities. We have certainly spoken at length to the israelis about it. We simply will continue working this issue and hope we get a pat positive outcome on it. I should add to that, setting aside the issue of involving gctf activities, we believe the activities of the group are benefiting everyones security in a very material way. There are stronger legal institutions and better efforts and that has to be in everyones interest. Thank you very much. Ambassador benjamin, i am concerned about your statement that there is a local connection to expand. I would suggest to you that you publish your evidence as soon as you can so we can take care of that. That task force which is basically intelligence work can use your information. We dont have any information so if you could provide us, we would be able to make sure that african interests remain. All the information will be publicly available. There is a lot of information that cannot be made public but i would point out that the un mission in nigeria was bombed by bokoharam. Thank you very much. I work for the voice of america. You know much about pakistan. In comparison to the last 15 years, how much the relationship between the pakistanibased military organization, especially those in power, they are in bed with al qaeda or others . One of the pakistani federal ministers said the islamic they have relations with the Extremist Organization there. He has provided whatever evidence he has. There was also talk from the pakistani officials [inaudible] in your comparison, do you see the relationship being broken . That is a big question. I will try to be very brief. The connections between various to extremist groups in pakistan and al qaeda remained deep. As i suggested, i think mumbai plot, if carefully studied, underscores those connections. I think we have seen it in other instances. People tend to give away their real feelings in moments of grief. For the jihad to groups in pakistan, the death of been great. Xpressed his it is hard to say they dont have a connection in moments of the eulogy when they are terribly sorry to see him go. Sct has led the effort, as i understand it, in this government to try to broaden our approach to dealing with terrorism in pakistan away from a narrow alqaeda focus and to put some of these other groups on the agenda for the first time. The leadership is much more on the agenda of the american Counterterrorism Community today than it was four years ago. From where i sit outside the government, i think the state department deserves 99 of the credit for making that happen. We certainly have tried to put l. E. T on the agenda in a significant way. One big item of the agenda Going Forward is undoubtedly going to be militants a more broadly in pakistan. Alqaeda is on a path to be deep but there is an awful lot of extremism alqaeda is on a path to be defeated but there is an awful lot of extremism. We have a number of other groups that are quite potent and dangerous. They should not escape attention and we will need to raise the level of discourse on them and see what we can do to help pakistan deal with them. Bruce made some remarks about pakistan before. I would only add that it is still the case that more extremists have been taken off the street by pakistan than anywhere else. While is a difficult relationship, with lots of ups and downs, there has also been successes in the Counter Terrorism relationship. It is a challenging relationship but an essential one. Thank you. With apologies, we are out of time. I would like to offer my thanks to ambassador benjamin for some of his Closing Remarks and his service in government and for the excellent job he has done while he has been with the state department. Those who follow Counter Terrorism closely know he can with significant challenges and our country is better off to his service. Thank you to our speakers and thank you all very much for coming. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2012] coming up next, senator from connecticut talk about the shooting in newtown, conn. On [video clip] that comes journal up at 7 00. A senate panel looks at credit reports in consumers access in home loans and other consumer products. That is live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 3. The secretary of state William Byrnes will testify this week about the september 11 attacks on the u. S. Mission in benghazi, libya. That is live thursday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. The two connecticut u. S. Senators talked about last weeks School Shootings in newtown, conn. This is 40 minutes. Mr. President , we appear to be in one of those periods of time where we are working too often through the valley of the shadow of death. Senator blumenthal and ive come to the floor to speak about the tragedy that occurred, the senseless horrific attacks on innocent people in newtown, conn. Last friday. We must also note with extraordinary respect and sense of loss the death of our truly beloved colleague, senator dan inouye of hawaii. America, as senator reid and senator durbin made so car, america has lost a true hero, a patriot. This senate has lost a great leader, a leader whose accomplishments have been literally historic, and i think all of us have lost a friend. Last evening, senator akaka spoke about how dan inouyes legacy, im paraphrasing here, was all aund hawi and all he had done for the state. The truth is that i think mt every state in the country is full of legacies of the service of dan inouye. I know its true of connecticut. It really was my honor to serve for 24 years with dan inouye here. His he was exactly the opposite of all the caricature pictures people have of congress today, and particularly about the rabid ptisanship and personal uncivillity. Dan was a great gentleman, and the most civil of people, the kindest and most decent of people. And as senator reid said, a proud democrat, a faithful democrat, but not at all partisan. The relationship that he had wi the late ted stevens on the Appropriations Committee was historicnd can actually inspirational. They were so different ostensibly background, temperament, particularly. Ted stevens, blessed memory was my neighbor and dear friend. Lets say he had a well, how do i describe it . He was a very emotional perso danny inouye was more calm. But they formed this remarkable friendship based on shared history going back to world war ii, probably some sense of shared destiny in the sense they were both from the two last states to join the union, not part of the continental united states, came as the first senators and were here so long but really what united them is an enormous dedication t america, patriotism. And when i said that dan inouyes leag is in connecticut and legacy is in connecticut and probably most every other state, i could go around the state and im thinking of the years and years danny was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the defense Appropriations Committee. There wasnt anything that we were able to do for connecticut in that time he didnt support. Protecting long island sound, the connecticut river, improving our transportation stems systems, making gras to our schools, colleges, and universities, support of the Defense Industries in connecticut, which have meant so much to the defense of our country but also to the economy of our state. So i salute his memory. All of us should honor it, and try in our own way to emulate this great man. Mr. President , senator blumenthal and i come to the floor today to thank our colleagues for adopting by unanimous consent last night s. R. , Senate Resolution 621 which is the exactly mirrored to in the words of House Resolution 833 condemning the attacks that occurred in newtown, connecticut last friday and expressing sorrow to all those affect by those attacks. Were still in shock in connecticut. All of us who know this little town as americas come to know it, 27,000, 28,000 people, beautiful town, hardworking people who worked their way to get there, tight families, very religious, very much involved in the life of the community, peaceful, and out of nowhere and this tragically is the point and the warning comes this one deranged individual with guns and slaughters 26 innocents, breaking our hearts with 20 of those being young children. Im sureverybody now fee as if they are parof the family of those who were killed. You look at the faces of those children, pure, innocent, and i think of the words of one of the clergy men at the Interfaith Service, these are angels and theyre with the angels in heaven now. The work, the response of the first responders, and the trauma that they have gone through to face what they had to face and the carnage that they wiessed there and yet you talk to some of them and theyre guilty that they didnt get there earlier and couldnt have stopped it somehow. Of course, they did more than we could ask of anybody. They ran to the danger. The principal, the teachers, i mean the stories that come out about the heroism. I remember long ago somebody i heard speak said the definition of courage is grace under pressure. Pressure is not really even the word here. Its grace in a moment of terror. The singlemindedness and grace of the principal, the teachers who acted in a way that put their own lives on the line to protect the lives of the children. And let us speak the truth, there were hundreds more children in that building that could have been targets of this madman. So we are wounded, but i will tell you and america is wounded, the world is wounded. One of the priests said to me at the other night at the service he was so touched he had received a bundle of letters from schoolchildren in russia. And it reminded me that there was an incident in russia years ago where a gunman went into a schoolhouse and wantonly killed children and the monsignor was so touched by it, but thats the way this event has touched the world. I will tell you that this is a strong town, and you can feel the people of this Community Pulling together to support the survivors and thinking about how they can rebuild the town and its spirit. The first selectwoman said so pointedly the other night at the Interfaith Service that we will not allow this event to define newtown, connecticut, and they will not. But the families of those who have been lost have been changed forever. And its in that regard that i particularly want to thank my colleagues for this resolution of condolence and support. I want to thank my colleague, senator reid, for the moment of silence yesterday in this chamber. In my faith tradition, when you visit a house of mourning, one of the customs is for the visitor to sitilently with the mourners. D its very awkward. Its actually not the natural thing we want to do but this adition has come about because one, as an act of respect to the mourners because they may be in their own mourning internally. But the other, really and we want to allow them to speak first if thept to speak. But they want to speak. But the other is in the face of death and particularly the senseless, brutal deaths of these 26 in newtown, sometimes the best response is silencend all that the silence contains. So i thank my colleague, senator reid, for that moment of silence. Senator blumenthal and i and our coecticut congressional delegation convened a vigil last night in which we all spoke and father con roy, the chaplain of the house offered prayer, chaplain black could not be there because he was at senator inouyes bedside with his family. We thank all of you who came last night. Your presence metropolitan a lot to us, meant a meant a lot to the people back home in newtown. And now the question is, mr. President , can we do anything to stop this from happening again . Even once, but hopefully more often. Can we what can we do . And i understand that as the president said incidentally, the president s visit to newtown was so comforting to the families and all of the town or all of the people of connecticut. He broug comfort, and i will say he brought resolve, which was very moving and insring to everyone there. And as he sd, these situations are always complicated and we can always say as we look at all the possible causes of such a tragedy that, well, even if we did something about that, even if we banned all guns, there would still be violence or even if we provided Better Mental Health treatment, there would still be people who would break through and commit acts of violence and even if we removed all the stimuli to violence in our entertainment culture, still people would commit these acts. Of course thats true. But do we not have the capacity to intervene at the different points in the story of this young man to to stop this from happening, at least once again, and probably more many more times . Of course we have that capacity. I keep taking back, as people say human nature is violence. Of course, there is violence. That goes back to the beginning of recorded history. We remember that the two children of adam and eve, cain killed abel in a terribly violen act. But i think we also have to be instruct by what happened after that when god speaks to cain and says where is your brother . A