Obama: Islamic State and Al Qaeda ‘Now Pose a Direct Threat’ To Americans

President Obama declared that “Both al Qaeda, and now ISIL, pose a direct threat to our people” during Tuesday’s State of the Union.

Obama stated, “Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda, and now ISIL, pose a direct threat to our people, because in today’s world, even a handful of terrorists, who place no value on human life, including their own, can do a lot of damage. They use the Internet to poison the minds of individuals inside our country, their actions undermine and destabilize our allies. We have to take them out.”

The president continued, “But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks, twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages, they pose an enormous danger to civilians. They have to be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence. That is 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, and we sure don’t need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is somehow representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are ,  killers and fanatics, who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. For more than a year, America has led a coalition of more than 60 countries to cut off ISIL’s financing, disrupt their plots, stop the flow of terrorist fighters, and stamp out their vicious ideology. With nearly 10,000 airstrikes, we’re taking out their leadership, their oil, their training camps, their weapons. We’re training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria.”

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