We’ll overcome terror threat, says Obama

Calling last week’s mass killing in San Bernardino an “act of terrorism”, President Barack Obama pledged in a nationally televised Oval Office address to destroy the so-called Islamic State.

President Barack Obama went primetime with the conversation about terrorism Sunday night.

In an address to the nation Sunday night in the wake of last week’s deadly San Bernardino attacks that the FBI is investigating as terrorism, President Obama called on tech companies for help. Facebook prohibits any praise or promotion of “acts of terror”, and a spokesman told Reuters that her profile, under an alias, contained pro-ISIS content. Malik was killed by police in a shootout after the attack.

“President Obama has finally been forced to abandon the political fantasy he has perpetuated for years that the threat of terrorism was receding”, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said in a statement.

Obama said the pair “had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West”. “If they seek to get a gun – or how about the pipe bombs that they were intending to use – there will be no restriction in place on paper that will stop them”.

Obama will talk more about his determination that the Islamic State group must be destroyed. Instead, he said we are at war with a tiny minority of “thugs and killers”, not with Muslims who are our friends and neighbors and who are “willing to die for this country” in military service.

There are no easy answers to subduing the malignant disease spreading in Syria and Iraq and – as we saw tragically last week – in America.

Speaking in the wake of deadly Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and California, Obama cautioned his fellow Americans not to demonize all Muslims, while noting that “an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities” and that it is “a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse”.

“ISIL does not speak for Islam”, the president insisted.

Republicans have become increasingly critical of the president’s handling of Daesh, or ISIS, arguing that his foreign policy has failed to address the risk from the militant group.

“To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no- fly list is able to buy a gun”, the president said.

The Oval Office should be reserved for the most significant and memorable speeches a president makes. He also asked Congress to authorize USA armed forces to wage war against the ISIS group. He also called for a review of the visa waiver programme for people seeking to come to the USA and said he would urge private companies and law enforcement leaders to work together to ensure potential attackers can’t use technology to evade detection. Gun-rights advocates say that violates the rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.

Half of the president’s remarks were devoted to his fear that successful attacks could erode the character of the nation, as Republican presidential candidates debate whether to single out the Muslim American community for surveillance and ban all refugees from Muslim nations.