my fellow americans, these are the steps that we can take together to defeat the terrorist threat. let me now say a word about what we should not do. we should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in iraq or syria. that s what groups like isil want. they know they can t defeat us on the battlefield. isil fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in iraq, but they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops and draining our resources, and using our presence to draw new recruits. the strategy that we are using now, air strikes, special forces, and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country, that is how we ll achieve a more sustainable victory, and it won t require us
and over again from the people who live here is that they cannot believe that international terrorism, that any sort of ideology of isis, might sprout up here. they felt very protected from that outside world. and for it to come here, to a county health, public health party, a holiday party, it has simply shocked people to the core. what we re seeing are people going to this memorial that has been at at a corner. it started off as one small cross. people are dropping candles or having conversations with their children about what isis is. it is something that they never thought they d have to do. so it is certainly a community, wolf, that is coming to grips with learning about the world. wolf? our hearts go out to that community, especially the families who lost loved ones. pam, the president said he wants congress to review the so-called visa waiver program. and he also said at one point that the wife, tashfeen fa lema
or part of any broader conspiracy, but he did say as jake just said it was an act of terrorism. he did say that, and also, you know, to echo jake, i ve never heard this language from the president before. he said these are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death. he challenged congress not only on assault weapons but vote for the use of force against isis. he pledged we will destroy. wasn t degrading he didn t say ultimately destroy, he said we will destroy. we will destroy isil. talked about steps he would take about reviewing the visa waiver program, make it harder for terrorists to use technology to their advantage. and, again, challenging congress not only on the assault weapon issue, but also on vote to authorize the use of force against isil because we re going to need we re going to need the money. and he repeated a call that he did yesterday, if you re on
had a chance to absorb ha we heard in the oval office address. the challenge as we noted in the beginning of the night was that president obama started this night with poll numbers that showed that the public is not confident of the way he s handling this. 60% disapproving of how he s handling terrorism, this is before the san bernardino attacks, and 64% disapproving his handling of isis. it has gotten so bad as far as the public is concerned that a majority of the american people now favor ground troops in iraq and syria to fight isis. two thoughts. one is, i don t hear any republicans, many republicans, i should say, because there are a couple exceptions, calling for ground troops in iraq and syria. so it s not just president obama who s skeptical that that s the right thing to do. it is the republican candidates who are running for president as well with the few exceptions who also are not putting that on the
sending a new generation of americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil. here s what else we cannot do. we cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between america and islam. that, too, is what groups like isil want. isil does not speak for islam. they are thugs and killers. part of a cult of death. and they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic muslim-americans who reject their hateful ideology. moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are muslim. if we re to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.