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Obama on terror: U.S. President vows to defeat ISIS and plotters
“People are scared not just because of these attacks but because of a growing sense that we have a president that is completely overwhelmed by them,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination for the November 2016 election, told Fox News.
Delivering his speech from a lectern, Obama called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communications to plan and promote violence, setting up renewed debate over personal privacy online. Obama also seized the opportunity to make the case again for U.S. gun control, something he has done to little avail because of stiff Republican resistance, following numerous shooting sprees during his presidency.
“We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino,” Obama said. “What we can do – and must do – is make it harder for them to kill.”
At the same time, Obama cautioned against overreaction to the militant threat at home.
“We cannot turn against each other by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam,” he said, alluding to the incendiary rhetoric by Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump, which is seen by critics as fear-mongering against the Muslim community.
Given that the California couple were not on the U.S. national security radar before they launched their shooting spree on Wednesday, Obama faced the challenge of convincing the U.S. public he is doing everything possible to deal with an evolving militant threat.
There was mounting evidence that the pair were “lone wolf” assailants who may have become radicalized by Islamic State propaganda and then acted independently, making it all the more difficult for authorities to track them.
Last week’s massacre, if proven to be linked to or motivated by foreign Islamist militancy, would be the deadliest such incident on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington.
Obama’s address came amid growing pressure from Republicans and even some Democrats for a tougher response to Islamic State now that the San Bernardino shootings have raised fears among Americans about the threat of more attacks at home.
Obama’s last speech in the Oval Office, a symbol of presidential power, was in August 2010, when he hailed the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, a milestone in his campaign promise to extract the United States from the war there. His policy was upended, however, with the rise of Islamic State.
