President Barack Obama sought to assure the nation that the U.S.is doing everything possible to protect Americans from terrorism and to defeat the Islamic State group following the attacks in Paris and California. However, according to Republicans, the president did not offer any new ideas.
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“I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures”, he said.
Taking note of the fact that Malik had came to the U.S. in 2014 on a fiancee visa, Obama said he had “ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa programme under which the female terrorist in San Bernardino originally came to this country”.
“I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure”, Mr Obama said, speaking in his West Wing office.
HORSLEY: For the first time Obama said explicitly the San Bernardino killings were an act of terrorism.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he is part of a bipartisan group working to write a bill that will change this program.
Washington: The US and its coalition partners have intensified efforts to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State, mainly targeting the flourishing oil business of the terror group responsible for several attacks including the Paris carnage.
President Obama said tonight he’s anxious about a backlash against American Muslims.
Ahmed says the Muslim community is continuing the conversation about their faith so people can understand that they are not the enemy.
And he called on the legislature to vote for the authorization for use of force in the war against the Islamic State.
To nobody’s surprise, Obama’s speech was pilloried by GOP presidential candidates and his Republican critics in Congress. But it’s not like they’re offering any brilliant or guaranteed solutions.
In 1981 and again in 1993, the United Nations General Assembly passed declarations on religious freedom that are flagrantly violated by a number of Islamic states – most notably Saudi Arabia – from which the ideology of ISIS et al. derives. But Obama reiterated his objection to putting a large-scale USA force on the ground in Iraq or Syria.
Obama also renewed his calls to make it more hard for people to purchase “powerful” assault weapons.
OBAMA: If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.
In the president’s address Sunday night – Obama urged everyone to **not** turn against one another after the shooting in California…to not let the fight be between Americans and Islam.
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But Congress and the presidential candidates haven’t coalesced behind an alternative. No longer are terrorists seeking to commit multifaceted attacks, such as 9/11, but they have “turned to less complicated acts of violence”, such as the San Bernardino shootings. “I think not only did the president not make things better tonight, I fear he may have made things worse in the minds of many Americans”.
