Washington – President Barack Obama accused critics on Tuesday of playing into the hands of Islamic State by comparing the fight against the militant group to World War Three, in an address aimed at laying out an optimistic vision of America’s future.
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Obama, who is delivering his last State of the Union speech to Congress before leaving office next year, said it was fiction to declare the United States was in economic decline or getting weaker on the international stage, despite rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates vying to replace him in the Nov. 8 election.
“Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence,” Obama said, according to prepared remarks.
“That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions,” he said, referring to Islamic State by an acronym.
The remarks were a repudiation of Republican criticism of his strategy against Islamic State and, not so subtly, of Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Obama’s address comes as 10 sailors aboard two U.S. Navy boats were taken into Iranian custody. Iran told the United States the crew members would be “promptly” returned, U.S. officials said. The event gave Republicans further fodder to criticize Obama’s nuclear deal with Tehran.
Obama did not address the issue at the top of his speech.
The address is one of Obama’s few remaining chances to capture the attention of millions of Americans before November’s election of a new president who will take office next January.
The battle against ISIS to Obama is no big deal. In fact, he isn’t going to battle ISIS at all. Hussein O’ thinks of ISIS as victims and (what was supposed to be) his country, the perpetrators. We just need to apologize to them and they’ll say, “You are forgiven”!
The real criminal, to Obama, and where we must wage WW3, is against the US citizens that are causing Global Warming. Uh, I mean, Global Cooling. Uh, I mean, Climate Change.. Hashem Yishmor!
Obama was right with one thing…We need Change!!!
Who is he kidding? !
what an ego this president has . like its up to him to decide if we are in world war 3.
I reviewed a much more extensive report on the text of the address. This guy has got to be kidding. He blames America for the murderous passion of ISIS. He openly stated that ISIS is being triggered by us. Is he mad? What has he been smoking?
There is painful reality that he is too stupid, or perhaps evil, to recognize. ISIS is driven by their own energy, and will not be stopped with anything but destruction. This will require, on the part of US and the rest of the free world, a major investment of time, effort, money, and manpower. If we label ISIS as victims of American incitement, we will have energized them, and committed a fatal disservice to the rest of the world.
Obama’s legacy is a crippled ACA, a foreign policy that trashed immigration, generated mega-digits of debt, pushed political correctness to ridiculous levels, made politics more important than morality or the Constitution, and openly supported terror. Thanks. I wish Obama fades into history, which will read like a horror novel for his era.
Tyere Yidden: Forget about government handouts. Do NOT vote for a Democrat in the upcoming elections for federal office.
Obama’s Legacy = Creation of ISIS and the Failed ObamaCare.