President Obama delivered his last major speech on national security at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Tuesday, boasting that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack” in the U.S.

“As you know all too well, your mission, and the course of history, was changed after the 9/11 attacks,” Obama told his military audience. “By the time I took office, the United States had been at war for seven years. For eight years that I’ve been in office, there has not been a day when a terrorist organization, or some radicalized individual, was not plotting to kill Americans. And on January 20th, I will become the first President of the United States to serve two full terms during a time of war.”

Obama said that during his presidency, the U.S. military has been “able to protect our homeland, to strike crippling blows against terrorist networks, and fortify our friends and our allies.”

He portrayed his policies in Iraq and Afghanistan as a complete success, while also slipping in a claim that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq was a decision forced upon him by the previous administration:
We brought nearly 150,000 troops home from Iraq, consistent with the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the previous administration, and we surged our efforts along with our allies in Afghanistan, which allowed us to focus on dismantling al-Qaeda, and give the Afghan government the opportunity to succeed.
This focus on al-Qaeda, the most dangerous threat to the United States at the time, paid dividends. Today, by any measure, core al-Qaeda – the organization that hit us on 9/11 – is a shadow of its former self…
I don’t want to paint too rosy of a picture, the situation in Afghanistan is still tough. War has been a part of life in Afghanistan for over 30 years, and the United States cannot eliminate the Taliban, or end violence in that country. But what we can do is deny al-Qaeda a safe haven, and what we can do is support Afghans who want a better future.

Obama said that even as al-Qaeda was “decimated” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, terror threats “metastasized” in other areas, “most dangerously” including the rise of the Islamic State, which he referred to as both ISIL and ISIS at various points. He said it was debatable whether a U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have prevented the invasion from the Islamic State, and he claimed it was not an option in any event. He also blamed the “sectarian” government in Baghdad and “brutal dictator” in Syria for empowering the Islamic State.

He applauded the “relentless, sustainable, multilateral” campaign waged against ISIS since the United States’s return to Iraq, citing its low cost compared to the Iraq War. Obama said these efforts have dramatically improved U.S. domestic security. “No foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland,” he said. “And it’s not because they didn’t try. Plots have been disrupted, terrorists have been taken off the battlefield. And we’ve done this even as we drew down nearly 180,000 troops in harm’s way, in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

However, he allowed that “in some form, this violent extremism will be with us for years to come,” citing a “breakdown of order” in the Middle East that has “unleashed forces that are going to take a generation to resolve.”

He named “a change in climate” as one of these forces because it is “increasing competition for food and water.” Also, Obama said, “false prophets are peddling a vision of Islam that is irreconcilable with tolerance and modernity and basic science.”
The President then admitted there have been “deadly attacks on the homeland” during his tenure, but they “have not been carried out by operatives with sophisticated networks or equipment, directed from abroad.” Rather, they have been carried out by “homegrown and largely isolated individuals who were radicalized online.”

“These deranged killers can’t inflict the sort of mass casualties that we saw on 9/11, but the pain of those who lost loved ones in Boston, and San Bernardino, and Fort Hood, and Orlando, that pain continues to this day,” Obama said. “And in some cases, it has stirred fear in our populations, and threatens to change how we think about ourselves and our lives.”

He continued:
Somebody who’s trying to kill, and willing to be killed, is dangerous particularly when we live in a country where it’s very easy for that person to buy a very powerful weapon. So rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terror by dropping more bombs, or deploying more and more troops, or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained.

He recommended keeping the terrorist threat “in perspective” by treating them as “thugs and murderers,” rather than the “vanguard of a new world order” they posture as.

“Today’s terrorists can kill innocent people, but they don’t pose an existential threat to our nation, and we must not make the mistake of elevating them as if they do,” Obama said. “That does their job for them. It makes them more important, and helps them with recruitment.”

“These terrorists can never directly destroy our way of life,” he insisted. “But we can do it for them, if we lose track of who we are, and the values that this nation was founded upon.”
Watch Obama’s full remarks here.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/12/06/obama-says-no-foreign-terrorist-organization-planned-executed-attack-u-s-term/

Ummm, no terrorist organization has planned and executed an attack during his term?!? I wonder if he is on drugs or just think's people actually buy his bull $hit anymore.

June 1st, 2009 Little Rock Arkansas.

November 9th, 2009 Fort Hood Texas.

March 2nd, 2011 Frankfurt Germany.

September 11th, 2012 Benghazi.

April 15th, 2013 Boston Massachusetts.

September 24, 2014 Moore Oklahoma.

October 23rd, 2014 Queens New York.

December 20th, 2014 Brooklyn New York.

May 3rd, 2014 Garland Texas.

July 16th, 2015 Chattanooga Tennessee.

December 14th, 2015 San Bernardino California.

June 13th, 2016 Orlando Florida.

Overall, the amount of terrorism injuries and deaths has quadrupled under Obama's presidency.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/4291/here-your-complete-list-islamic-terror-attacks-aaron-bandler

You guys insist on interpreting the facts one way, which is based on your well established dislike of Obama. In the quoted article, that writer also is clearly biased in only one direction about things, and so wrote inaccurate interpretations of the facts he was presenting as well. You want to pretend that all the one-of attacks that happened in the last eight years, contradict what Obama was referring to (organized large scale attacks) , because that fits your bias.

When we were repeatedly attacked during the Bush administration, they trotted out the "no one could have foreseen" cover story again and again, to answer to the people who wanted them to have prevented all those attacks.

Fans of the Republicans, or of Bush, like to interpret what happened as proof that he was willing to lead us in an effort to "fight them over there so that they can't attack us here." Opponents point out, identically to this complaint, that the wars overseas didn't stop attacks here, and might have made the enemy more determined to come after us.

Well, maybe he sucks at stopping attacks.. but he is great at crying... that has to be worth something?

this is posted like it isn't known that obarry is a liar... i don't listen to anything he or most other libs say about anything...

so are you saying none of the attacks listed happened? or are you saying the are GW's fault? either way, you're losing your the battle of wits...

no.. no you don't understand. All the planning for the above attacks actually happened during Bush's time in office, so theoretically they all belong to him.

Nopedidntstarthere... mentality.. its catchy with some folks... a new urban dictionary phrase.

Honestly....I stopped caring what he says years ago

the other good news is that for the past 18 years doing war against the evil doers that blow up Dumpster Trash Cans in Blue States ...

Heroin from Afghanistan is the BEST and the CHEAPEST it has been ... ever.

Also that Oil Corporations have had the BEST 18 years in profits ever.

AND ... global warming is so much Hooie .. he has done nothing what so ever just like the white digger in the Casablanca before him.

Viva Cinco De Mayo Putah Pendajo Gringo Cavassa

Get Drunk - Party - Rape and Kill White Libtards like they were Lara Logan.

sumbuddie wear blind sea

Seriously. 8 years of Charlie Brown's teacher....whaa whaa wha wha wha whaaaa wha

the attacks listed contain two locations that are NOT even in the US

looking up the rest, I'M sure they will be INDIVIDUALS committing mass shootings, ya know, like the columbine teens?

,, and possibly trying to claim it had something to do with someone else,, kind of like Reagan's shooter claimed it was for Jodie Foster

and if Jodie were crazy and trying to intimidate as many people as possible , she may have gladly claimed that she 'made' him do it too,,,

Can someone translate the above gibberish into something that can be understood?

umm, maybe it means

'you are not as smart as I am, so you don't see all the conspiracy around us' ?

I am surprised you don't recognize the message, its like a commercial break/psa in the politics thread,,,,,

Of course I don't recognize the message. I am sober right now.

lol @ right now,,,

if a terrorist group claims responsibility then it is an organized attack

thats not how that works

lol

thats like saying if someone confesses to a crime, that proves they did it...lol

the most it does is prove their support of the action


unless they can show where they brought the person to an 'organized' facility and gave them training and instructions,,,,

no it don't work that way in terrorist groups

they are in small groups that do not have a major picture of the group

so they can not give away other members of the terrorist group

these are called cells and the very definition of cell is the smallest
building block of an organism

organized: arranged in a systematic way, especially on a large scale.
"organized crime"



IF I were to kill someone after reading a bunch of NBP party nonsense , and after going to an NBP event, and say I did it in their name and they take 'responsibility' or show support

that is not an ORGANIZED crime, that is one crazy individual deciding to take an action that a group of crazy individuals happen to support

the last organized terrorist attack IN THE US, was on 9/11 where several people had been specifically trained and given detailed instructions (down to what date and place) by a terrorist organization,,,