President Barack Obama on Sunday described the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group as “a bunch of killers with good social media” and vowed that the international coalition against the group will “not relent”
“They are dangerous and they’ve caused great hardship to … an overwhelming majority of people,” Obama said at a press conference in Malaysia, according to CNN.
“We will not accept the idea that terrorist assaults on restaurants and theaters and hotels are the new normal, or that we are powerless to stop them,” he continued.
“They can’t beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid, and changing our patterns of behavior, and panicking, and abandoning our allies and partners, and retreating from the world,” Obama said. “As president, I will not let that happen.”
At the same time, he also stressed that it is “absolutely false” that “we are somehow at war with an entire religion.”
“The United States could never be at any war with any religion because America is made up by multiple religions. We’re strengthened by people from every religion, including Muslim Americans. So I want to be as clear as I can on this — prejudice and discrimination helps (ISIS) and undermines our national security,” continued Obama, according to CNN.
He also addressed the backlash in the United States against accepting Syrian refugees after it was widely reported that one of the Paris attackers may have entered France from Greece among a group of refugees.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to ban Syrian and Iraqi migrants from entering the United States until stricter screening measures are in place, with even Democrats backing the Republican bill, but the White House has said Obama would veto the bill.
“People have understandably been so concerned, given how similar Paris is to many American cities, that I get why legislation in the House moved forward quickly,” Obama was quoted as having said Sunday. “My hope though is, now that we have some time to catch our breath and take a look at this carefully, that people understand that refugees who end up in the United States are the most vetted, scrutinized, thoroughly investigated individuals that ever arrived on American shores.”
The process that has been “constructed over the course of several administrations, on a bipartisan basis, is extraordinarily thorough,” he said.
The legislation that passed only “gums up the works so much” that “effectively, you don’t see any refugees being admitted.”
