marathon so that s the current threat lethal, less capable al qaeda affiliates. threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad homegrown extremists, this is the future of terrorism we have to take these threats seriously and do all we can to confront them. as would of shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of the threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11 in the 1980s we lost americans to terrorism at our embassy in beirut, at our marine baraks in lebanon, on a cruise ship at sea at a disco in berlin and on a panam flight 103 over locker lockerbie. in 1990s we lost americans
discipline of our troops, thousands of civilians have been killed. so neither conventional military action nor waiting for attacks to occur offers moral safe harbor. neither does a sole reliance on law enforcement in territories that have no functioning police or security services and indeed have no functioning law. this is not to say that the risks are not real. any operation in foreign lands creates enemies and impacts public opinion overseas. moreover, our laws constraint the power of the president. even during war time. and i ve taken an oath to defend
this is part of free speech is you being able to speak but also you listening and me being able to speak. [ applause ] now, even after we take these steps, one issue will remain. how to deal with those gitmo detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted, for example, because the evidence again them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. but once we commit to a process of closing gitmo, i am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved consistent with our commitment to the rule of law. and i know the politics are hard. but history had cast a harsh
presidential policy guidance that i signed yesterday. in the afghan war theater, we must and will continue to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. that means we will continue to take strikes against high value al qaeda targets but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection. and the progress we ve made against core al qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes. beyond the afghan theater, we only target al qaeda and its associated forces. and even then the use of drones is heavily could not strained. america does not take strikes when we have the ability to
shooting at ft. hood and the bombing of the boston marathon. that s the current threat. lethal, yet less capable of al qaeda affiliates, threats on diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad, home-grown extremists. this is the future of terrorism. we have to take these threats seriously and do all that we can to confront them. as we shape our response we have to recognize the scale of the threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11. we lost embassies in beirut, at our marine barracks in lebanon, on a cruise ship at sea, at a disco in berlin, and on a pan am flied 103 over lockerbie.