House Speaker Paul Ryan complained Obama offered no new plan but only a halfhearted distraction from what Ryan labeled a failing policy. Would he take a position on gun control? “He spent about as much time talking about what we should not do as he did about what we will do”, said Stephanopoulous.
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Anyway, nothing in the president’s speech suggested he is seizing the moment or is willing to lead the kind of fight that the Islamic State can understand.
He pointed out that the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world were Muslims.
You see, for Muslims, this year has been a painful one.
The meat of the president’s short speech involved ticking off what the United States is doing to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, including cutting off its oil transports, dismantling its financial networks and bombing strategic targets.
In April, a former candidate for U.S. Congress from Tennessee, Robert Doggart, was arrested for plotting to attack a Muslim community with guns, bombs, even a machete. “We need a new President – FAST!”
But the California shooting, which came soon after terrorists associated with the Islamic State, also known by acronyms ISIL or ISIS, used explosives and firearms to conduct coordinated and devastating attacks in Paris, have left Democrats trying to link the two issues together.
ISIS’ self-styled confederates have bombed Kuwaiti and Saudi mosques, reportedly taken down a Russian airliner, attacked Turkey, Lebanon and France.
Yates wrote that poem in 1919, one year after the end of World War I.
That has some American Muslims fuming, and complaining that they are being unfairly singled out among other faiths, according to National Public Radio. He’s right about that.
Bush, in an MSNBC interview, twice acknowledged that he agreed with the president’s approach in specific areas. American Muslims are valuable allies against extremist Islamic ideology, and must not be forced into isolation by fear. The danger to Americans from radical Islamists is real, and the problem is only going to get worse. His decision to speak in prime time reflected the White House’s concern that his message on the recent attacks hasn’t broken through, particularly in the midst of a heated presidential campaign.
Obama says the U.S.is also working with allies to cut off the group’s financing and will continue to enhance intelligence gathering and sharing. “Here’s what else we can not do”. To define ourselves as more than a national security threat. But instead of facing up to the challenge, GOP presidential candidates and Republican lawmakers are resorting to unsafe political rhetoric instead of taking action on policies that would help keep us safe. Or that Russia’s more aggressive posture has at times threatened to push American efforts to the sidelines.
“American Muslims are often asked to condemn extremism, though we already do”.
And people who are scared go for strength.
President Obama’s Sunday night speech was meant to “reassure the nation” after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., last week.
“Asking Muslims to do this is offensive”. He called on Muslim-Americans to root out radicalization in their communities. The next one – the Third World War that we were waiting for when I was growing up – would have killed hundreds of millions, even if it didn’t cause a nuclear winter and kill billions. But he cautioned against getting sucked into another long and costly ground war in the Middle East. That is what it feels like to be an American Muslim these days.
“As we’ve become better at preventing complex multifaceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turn to less complicated acts of violence like mass shootings”, Mr Obama said. Perhaps that was why Obama insisted that we must not allow ourselves to be turned against each other.
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“Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear”, the president said.
