Using perhaps his strongest language yet to describe radical jihadists as “thugs” who perpetrate “a cult of death,” Obama directly called the San Bernardino shooting “an act of terror.” He challenged the Muslim community at home and abroad to speak out against violent ideology and at the same time urged Americans not to abandon their own values by turning against Muslims.
“Muslim leaders here and around the globe must decisively and unequivocally reject ... hateful ideology,” Obama said, while Americans “must enlist Muslim communities as our strongest allies, rather than push them away through hate.”
Outlining steps the administration is taking to counter terrorism at home, Obama said the U.S. is working with foreign allies to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while firmly ruling out an American ground force invasion of Syria. Better, he said, is a military strategy that relies on local forces in Syria “to regain control of their own country.”
The nature of the San Bernardino attack, apparently conducted by a radicalized couple acting largely alone, has raised alarms in the White House about the potential for a rapidly evolving new form of homegrown, “do-it-yourself” terrorism that can evade the vast infrastructure of homeland security measures such as airport screening put in place since Sept. 11, 2001.
The attack also has put Obama on the defensive against charges by Republicans that his administration has underestimated the threat posed by the Islamic State, and has been too passive in confronting the group militarily at its base in war-torn Syria.
Polling shows less than 40 percent of the public approves of the president’s ability to contain the Islamic State. Obama also has been roundly criticized by lawmakers in his own party, such as California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, for asserting several weeks ago that the Islamic State has been “contained.”
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton bluntly said Sunday, “We’re not winning” the fight against Islamic extremism. As Obama’s former secretary of state, Clinton urged a more aggressive stance in Syria’s civil war.
Obama reiterated his insistence, ridiculed by several Republican presidential candidates, that expanded gun controls should be part of the solution.
He urged Congress to pass legislation written by Feinstein that Republicans rejected just last week, which would make it harder for people on terrorist watch lists to buy guys. Current law allows anyone on a terrorist watch list to buy firearms. “What could possibly be the argument allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” Obama said.
“The fact is, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, no matter how effective, cannot identify every would-be mass shooter,” Obama said. “What we can do — and must do — is make it harder for them to kill.”
Obama said there is no indication yet that the married couple who conducted the attack, a Pakistani American man named Syed Farook, 28, and a native Pakistani woman, Tashfeen Malik, 29, who was admitted to the United States on an K-1 visa as Farook’s fiancee, were linked to a broader terrorist cell or were directed from overseas.
Farook was a health inspector for San Bernardino County, where he and his wife opened fire with assault rifles on fellow employees gathered at a work meeting. The couple had a six-month-old child.
Obama said that as U.S. defenses against complex attacks such as Sept. 11 have proven effective, the terrorist threat has evolved to simpler attacks such as mass shootings. He drew a connection between the San Bernardino attack and other deadly assaults, including the the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 by two radicalized Chechen brothers and the Ft. Hood shooting in 2009.
A top administration official speaking to reporters before the address, stressed that a key part of the administration’s strategy is to “partner with Muslim communities in the U.S.” to combat jihadist ideology and to alert law enforcement of potential violent radicals.
“The worst thing you can do is embrace the idea that this is a war between the United States and Islam” or otherwise stigmatize Muslims “in ways that are counterproductive,” the official said. Muslim communities “need to be our most important and effective partners in countering the ISIL narrative.”
“It’s very important, if you are concerned about radicalization, not to take steps that frankly make this harder,” he said.
The official also emphasized the “acute challenge” of combatting the spread of jijadist propaganda on social media given “the volume and effort of groups like ISIL to disseminate this information.”
National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the Islamic State has used social media “perhaps more effectively” than previous terrorist groups such as al Qaeda to propagate “a very intoxicating message that has attracted significant numbers of foreign fighters.”
Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Sunday that the public wants to hear Obama outline “a military strategy to finally defeat and destroy ISIS, drain the ... swamps in Syria so they can’t come into the United States. San Bernardino is an example of the swamp coming to the United States.”
McCaul said there were “no warning signs or red flags” before the San Bernardino attacks.
“We didn’t see this one coming,” McCaul said. “We need to do a better job identifying the signs of radicalization from within the United States.”
McCaul agreed with the administration on the challenge posed by social media. “You just can’t stop it all when you have 200,000 ISIS tweets per day on the internet coming into the United States to kill. ... The volume is so high and the chatter is so high that it’s almost impossible to stop it all.”
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