Critics Blast Obama’s ISIS Address: ‘Is That All?’

President Obama delivered a prime-time address Sunday following the California shootings that killed 14 and wounded 21.

On Thursday, as investigators were searching for a motive, Obama said at the White House that the shootings could have been terrorist-related or workplace-related.

As U.S. and other Western responses have gained ground against organized, wide-scale terrorist attacks, “growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds” of home-grown attackers are evolving, the president said.

“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he said.

Scott Shane, national security reporter for our partner The New York Times and author of the book “Objective Troy: A Terrorist, A President, and the Rise of the Drone”, dissects the president’s address.

“President Obama has finally been forced to abandon the political fantasy he has perpetuated for years that the threat of terrorism was receding”, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said in a Facebook post.

“The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us”, he said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

“The president made clear, as his predecessor did, that it would only serve ISIL’s interest to leave people with the impression that somehow the West, the United States or the entire world is at war with Islam”. The US President also dealt with domestic enforcement challenges amid pressure from some Republicans for tighter scrutiny of new immigrants, particularly Muslims.

“He needed to persuade people that our fears will subside when we are engaged actively in the destruction of ISIS”, he said.

Obama also said that American should put in place stronger screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a hard look at whether they have traveled to warzones.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Obama, discusses the president’s address.

“I think what you’re going to hear from him is a discussion about what government is doing to ensure all of our highest priority – the protection of the American people”, Lynch said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”. He announced that, together with our allies, we are stepping up air strikes and working to make them more effective through the expanded use of Special Forces in Syria and Iraq Our Special Forces are now also being used to provide the assistance essential to making the local forces combating ISIS more potent. “So, this was an act of terrorism created to kill innocent people”.

Obama explained the government’s efforts to defeat ISIS and protect the nation against terrorists.

Obama began his address by remembering the fourteen lives that were taken during the attack.

Obama previously ordered the US military to bomb ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq.

While talking about the killings at San Bernardino, President Obama said, “The FBI is still gathering the facts about what happened in San Bernardino, but here is what we know. There’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse”. Obama said, “When we travel down that road, we lose”.

He continued his speech by urging the U.S. Congress “to make sure that no one on a No Fly List is able to buy a gun”.