Tornado Alley (PROG)

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The President Holds a Press Conference in Turkey

Published on Nov 16, 2015 by The White House [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYxRlFDqcWM4y7FfpiAN3KQ / http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse , http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse/videos ]

President Obama holds a press conference in Antalya, Turkey during the G20 Summit. November 16, 2015.

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Press Conference by President Obama -- Antalya, Turkey

Kaya Palazzo Resort
Antalya, Turkey
November 16, 2015

4:42 P.M. EET

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon. Let me begin by thanking President Erdogan and the people of Antalya and Turkey for their outstanding work in hosting this G20 Summit. Antalya is beautiful. The hospitality of the Turkish people is legendary. To our Turkish friends -- çok tesekkürler. (Laughter.) I've been practicing that.

At the G20, our focus was on how to get the global economy growing faster and creating more jobs for our people. And I’m pleased that we agreed that growth has to be inclusive to address the rising inequality around the world.

Given growing cyber threats, we committed to a set of norms -- drafted by the United States -- for how governments should conduct themselves in cyberspace, including a commitment not to engage in the cyber theft of intellectual property for commercial gain. And as we head into global climate talks, all G20 countries have submitted our targets, and we’ve pledged to work together for a successful outcome in Paris.

Of course, much of our attention has focused on the heinous attacks that took place in Paris. Across the world, in the United States, American flags are at half-staff in solidarity with our French allies. We’re working closely with our French partners as they pursue their investigations and track down suspects.

France is already a strong counterterrorism partner, and today we’re announcing a new agreement. We’re streamlining the process by which we share intelligence and operational military information with France. This will allow our personnel to pass threat information, including on ISIL, to our French partners even more quickly and more often -- because we need to be doing everything we can to protect against more attacks and protect our citizens.

Tragically, Paris is not alone. We’ve seen outrageous attacks by ISIL in Beirut, last month in Ankara, routinely in Iraq. Here at the G20, our nations have sent an unmistakable message that we are united against this threat. ISIL is the face of evil. Our goal, as I’ve said many times, is to degrade and ultimately destroy this barbaric terrorist organization.

As I outlined this fall at the United Nations, we have a comprehensive strategy using all elements of our power -- military, intelligence, economic, development, and the strength of our communities. With have always understood that this would be a long-term campaign. There will be setbacks and there will be successes. The terrible events in Paris were a terrible and sickening setback. Even as we grieve with our French friends, however, we can’t lose sight that there has been progress being made.

On the military front, our coalition is intensifying our airstrikes -- more than 8,000 to date. We’re taking out ISIL leaders, commanders, their killers. We’ve seen that when we have an effective partner on the ground, ISIL can and is pushed back. So local forces in Iraq, backed by coalition airpower, recently liberated Sinjar. Iraqi forces are fighting to take back Ramadi. In Syria, ISIL has been pushed back from much of the border region with Turkey. We’ve stepped up our support of opposition forces who are working to cut off supply lines to ISIL’s strongholds in and around Raqqa. So, in short, both in Iraq and Syria, ISIL controls less territory than it did before.

I made the point to my fellow leaders that if we want this progress to be sustained, more nations need to step up with the resources that this fight demands.

Of course, the attacks in Paris remind us that it will not be enough to defeat ISIL in Syria and Iraq alone. Here in Antalya, our nations, therefore, committed to strengthening border controls, sharing more information, and stepping up our efforts to prevent the flow of foreign fighters in and out of Syria and Iraq. As the United States just showed in Libya, ISIL leaders will have no safe haven anywhere. And we’ll continue to stand with leaders in Muslim communities, including faith leaders, who are the best voices to discredit ISIL’s warped ideology.

On the humanitarian front, our nations agreed that we have to do even more, individually and collectively, to address the agony of the Syrian people. The United States is already the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people -- some $4.5 billion in aid so far. As winter approaches, we’re donating additional supplies, including clothing and generators, through the United Nations. But the U.N. appeal for Syria still has less than half the funds needed. Today, I’m again calling on more nations to contribute the resources that this crisis demands.

In terms of refugees, it’s clear that countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan -- which are already bearing an extraordinary burden -- cannot be expected to do so alone. At the same time, all of our countries have to ensure our security. And as President, my first priority is the safety of the American people. And that’s why, even as we accept more refugees -- including Syrians -- we do so only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks.

We also have to remember that many of these refugees are the victims of terrorism themselves -- that’s what they’re fleeing. Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values. Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both.

Finally, we’ve begun to see some modest progress on the diplomatic front, which is critical because a political solution is the only way to end the war in Syria and unite the Syrian people and the world against ISIL. The Vienna talks mark the first time that all the key countries have come together -- as a result, I would add, of American leadership -- and reached a common understanding. With this weekend’s talks, there’s a path forward -- negotiations between the Syrian opposition and the Syrian regime under the auspices of the United Nations; a transition toward a more inclusive, representative government; a new constitution, followed by free elections; and, alongside this political process, a ceasefire in the civil war, even as we continue to fight against ISIL.

These are obviously ambitious goals. Hopes for diplomacy in Syria have been dashed before. There are any number of ways that this latest diplomatic push could falter. And there are still disagreements between the parties, including, most critically, over the fate of Bashar Assad, who we do not believe has a role in Syria’s future because of his brutal rule. His war against the Syrian people is the primary root cause of this crisis.

What is different this time, and what gives us some degree of hope, is that, as I said, for the first time, all the major countries on all sides of the Syrian conflict agree on a process that is needed to end this war. And so while we are very clear-eyed about the very, very difficult road still head, the United States, in partnership with our coalition, is going to remain relentless on all fronts -- military, humanitarian and diplomatic. We have the right strategy, and we’re going to see it through.

So with that, I'm going to take some questions. And I will begin with Jerome Cartillier of AFP.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. One hundred and twenty-nine people were killed in Paris on Friday night. ISIL claimed responsibility for the massacre, sending the message that they could now target civilians all over the world. The equation has clearly changed. Isn't it time for your strategy to change?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, keep in mind what we have been doing. We have a military strategy that is putting enormous pressure on ISIL through airstrikes; that has put assistance and training on the ground with Iraqi forces; we're now working with Syrian forces as well to squeeze ISIL, cut off their supply lines. We've been coordinating internationally to reduce their financing capabilities, the oil that they’re trying to ship outside. We are taking strikes against high-value targets -- including, most recently, against the individual who was on the video executing civilians who had already been captured, as well as the head of ISIL in Libya. So it's not just in Iraq and Syria.

And so, on the military front, we are continuing to accelerate what we do. As we find additional partners on the ground that are effective, we work with them more closely. I’ve already authorized additional Special Forces on the ground who are going to be able to improve that coordination.

On the counterterrorism front, keep in mind that since I came into office, we have been worried about these kinds of attacks. The vigilance that the United States government maintains and the cooperation that we’re consistently expanding with our European and other partners in going after every single terrorist network is robust and constant. And every few weeks, I meet with my entire national security team and we go over every single threat stream that is presented, and where we have relevant information, we share it immediately with our counterparts around the world, including our European partners.

On aviation security, we have, over the last several years, been working so that at various airports sites -- not just in the United States, but overseas -- we are strengthening our mechanisms to screen and discover passengers who should not be boarding flights, and improving the matters in which we are screening luggage that is going onboard.

And on the diplomatic front, we’ve been consistently working to try to get all the parties together to recognize that there is a moderate opposition inside of Syria that can form the basis for a transition government, and to reach out not only to our friends but also to the Russians and the Iranians who are on the other side of this equation to explain to them that ultimately an organization like ISIL is the greatest danger to them, as well as to us.

So there will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward, but the strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work. But as I said from the start, it’s going to take time.

And what’s been interesting is, in the aftermath of Paris, as I listen to those who suggest something else needs to be done, typically the things they suggest need to be done are things we are already doing. The one exception is that there have been a few who suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground.

And keep in mind that we have the finest military in the world and we have the finest military minds in the world, and I’ve been meeting with them intensively for years now, discussing these various options, and it is not just my view but the view of my closest military and civilian advisors that that would be a mistake -- not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before, which is, if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface -- unless we’re prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.

And let’s assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria. What happens when there’s a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there? Or Libya, perhaps? Or if there’s a terrorist network that’s operating anywhere else -- in North Africa, or in Southeast Asia?

So a strategy has to be one that can be sustained. And the strategy that we’re pursuing, which focuses on going after targets, limiting wherever possible the capabilities of ISIL on the ground -- systematically going after their leadership, their infrastructure, strengthening Shia -- or strengthening Syrian and Iraqi forces and Kurdish forces that are prepared to fight them, cutting off their borders and squeezing the space in which they can operate until ultimately we’re able to defeat them -- that’s the strategy we’re going to have to pursue.

And we will continue to generate more partners for that strategy. And there are going to be some things that we try that don’t work; there will be some strategies we try that do work. And when we find strategies that work, we will double down on those.

Margaret Brennan, CBS.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. A more than year-long bombing campaign in Iraq and in Syria has failed to contain the ambition and the ability of ISIS to launch attacks in the West. Have you underestimated their abilities? And will you widen the rules of engagement for U.S. forces to take more aggressive action?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, we haven't underestimated our abilities. This is precisely why we’re in Iraq as we speak, and why we’re operating in Syria as we speak. And it’s precisely why we have mobilized 65 countries to go after ISIL, and why I hosted at the United Nations an entire discussion of counterterrorism strategies and curbing the flow of foreign fighters, and why we’ve been putting pressure on those countries that have not been as robust as they need to in tracking the flow of foreign fighters in and out of Syria and Iraq.

And so there has been an acute awareness on the part of my administration from the start that it is possible for an organization like ISIL that has such a twisted ideology, and has shown such extraordinary brutality and complete disregard for innocent lives, that they would have the capabilities to potentially strike in the West. And because thousands of fighters have flowed from the West and are European citizens -- a few hundred from the United States, but far more from Europe -- that when those foreign fighters returned, it posed a significant danger. And we have consistently worked with our European partners, disrupting plots in some cases. Sadly, this one was not disrupted in time.

But understand that one of the challenges we have in this situation is, is that if you have a handful of people who don’t mind dying, they can kill a lot of people. That’s one of the challenges of terrorism. It’s not their sophistication or the particular weapon that they possess, but it is the ideology that they carry with them and their willingness to die. And in those circumstances, tracking each individual, making sure that we are disrupting and preventing these attacks is a constant effort at vigilance, and requires extraordinary coordination.

Now, part of the reason that it is important what we do in Iraq and Syria is that the narrative that ISIL developed of creating this caliphate makes it more attractive to potential recruits. So when I said that we are containing their spread in Iraq and Syria, in fact, they control less territory than they did last year. And the more we shrink that territory, the less they can pretend that they are somehow a functioning state, and the more it becomes apparent that they are simply a network of killers who are brutalizing local populations. That allows us to reduce the flow of foreign fighters, which then, over time, will lessen the numbers of terrorists who can potentially carry out terrible acts like they did in Paris.

And that’s what we did with al Qaeda. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that al Qaeda no longer possess the capabilities of potentially striking the West. Al Qaeda in the Peninsula that operates primarily in Yemen we know has consistently tried to target the West. And we are consistently working to disrupt those acts. But despite the fact that they have not gotten as much attention as ISIL, they still pose a danger, as well.

And so our goals here consistently have to be to be aggressive, and to leave no stone unturned, but also recognize this is not conventional warfare. We play into the ISIL narrative when we act as if they’re a state, and we use routine military tactics that are designed to fight a state that is attacking another state. That’s not what’s going on here.

These are killers with fantasies of glory who are very savvy when it comes to social media, and are able to infiltrate the minds of not just Iraqis or Syrians, but disaffected individuals around the world. And when they activate those individuals, those individuals can do a lot of damage. And so we have to take the approach of being rigorous on our counterterrorism efforts, and consistently improve and figure out how we can get more information, how we can infiltrate these networks, how we can reduce their operational space, even as we also try to shrink the amount of territory they control to defeat their narrative.

Ultimately, to reclaim territory from them is going to require, however, an ending of the Syrian civil war, which is why the diplomatic efforts are so important. And it’s going to require an effective Iraqi effort that bridges Shia and Sunni differences, which is why our diplomatic efforts inside of Iraq are so important, as well.

Jim Avila.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. In the days and weeks before the Paris attacks, did you receive warning in your daily intelligence briefing that an attack was imminent? If not, does that not call into question the current assessment that there is no immediate, specific, credible threat to the United States today?

And secondly, if I could ask you to address your critics who say that your reluctance to enter another Middle East war, and your preference of diplomacy over using the military makes the United States weaker and emboldens our enemies.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Jim, every day we have threat streams coming through the intelligence transit. And as I said, every several weeks we sit down with all my national security, intelligence, and military teams to discuss various threat streams that may be generated. And the concerns about potential ISIL attacks in the West have been there for over a year now, and they come through periodically. There were no specific mentions of this particular attack that would give us a sense of something that we need -- that we could provide French authorities, for example, or act on ourselves.

But typically the way the intelligence works is there will be a threat stream that is from one source, how reliable is that source; perhaps some signal intelligence gets picked up, it’s evaluated. Some of it is extraordinarily vague and unspecific, and there’s no clear timetable. Some of it may be more specific, and then folks chase down that threat to see what happens.

I am not aware of anything that was specific in the sense -- that would have given a premonition about a particular action in Paris that would allow for law enforcement or military actions to disrupt it.

With respect to the broader issue of my critics, to some degree I answered the question earlier. I think that when you listen to what they actually have to say, what they’re proposing, most of the time, when pressed, they describe things that we’re already doing. Maybe they’re not aware that we’re already doing them. Some of them seem to think that if I were just more bellicose in expressing what we’re doing, that that would make a difference -- because that seems to be the only thing that they’re doing, is talking as if they’re tough. But I haven't seen particular strategies that they would suggest that would make a real difference.

Now, there are a few exceptions. And as I said, the primary exception is those who would deploy U.S. troops on a large scale to retake territory either in Iraq or now in Syria. And at least they have the honesty to go ahead and say that’s what they would do. I just addressed why I think they’re wrong. There have been some who are well-meaning, and I don’t doubt their sincerity when it comes to the issue of the dire humanitarian situation in Syria, who, for example, call for a no-fly zone or a safe zone of some sort.

And this is an example of the kind of issue where I will sit down with our top military and intelligence advisors, and we will painstakingly go through what does something like that look like. And typically, after we’ve gone through a lot of planning and a lot of discussion, and really working it through, it is determined that it would be counterproductive to take those steps -- in part because ISIL does not have planes, so the attacks are on the ground. A true safe zone requires us to set up ground operations. And the bulk of the deaths that have occurred in Syria, for example, have come about not because of regime bombing, but because of on-the-ground casualties. Who would come in, who could come out of that safe zone; how would it work; would it become a magnet for further terrorist attacks; and how many personnel would be required, and how would it end -- there’s a whole set of questions that have to be answered there.

I guess my point is this, Jim: My only interest is to end suffering and to keep the American people safe. And if there’s a good idea out there, then we’re going to do it. I don’t think I’ve shown hesitation to act -- whether it’s with respect to bin Laden or with respect to sending additional troops in Afghanistan, or keeping them there -- if it is determined that it’s actually going to work.

But what we do not do, what I do not do is to take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow, in the abstract, make America look tough, or make me look tough. And maybe part of the reason is because every few months I go to Walter Reed, and I see a 25-year-old kid who’s paralyzed or has lost his limbs, and some of those are people I’ve ordered into battle. And so I can’t afford to play some of the political games that others may.

We'll do what’s required to keep the American people safe. And I think it's entirely appropriate in a democracy to have a serious debate about these issues. If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan. If they think that somehow their advisors are better than the Chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them. And we can have that debate. But what I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning, or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people, and to protect people in the region who are getting killed, and to protect our allies and people like France. I'm too busy for that.

Jim Acosta.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. I wanted to go back to something that you said to Margaret earlier when you said that you have not underestimated ISIS’s abilities. This is an organization that you once described as a JV team that evolved into a force that has now occupied territory in Iraq and Syria and is now able to use that safe haven to launch attacks in other parts of the world. How is that not underestimating their capabilities? And how is that contained, quite frankly? And I think a lot of Americans have this frustration that they see that the United States has the greatest military in the world, it has the backing of nearly every other country in the world when it comes to taking on ISIS. I guess the question is -- and if you’ll forgive the language -- is why can't we take out these bastards?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Jim, I just spent the last three questions answering that very question, so I don't know what more you want me to add. I think I've described very specifically what our strategy is, and I've described very specifically why we do not pursue some of the other strategies that have been suggested.

This is not, as I said, a traditional military opponent. We can retake territory. And as long as we leave our troops there, we can hold it, but that does not solve the underlying problem of eliminating the dynamics that are producing these kinds of violent extremist groups.

And so we are going to continue to pursue the strategy that has the best chance of working, even though it does not offer the satisfaction, I guess, of a neat headline or an immediate resolution. And part of the reason, as I said, Jim, is because there are costs to the other side. I just want to remind people, this is not an abstraction. When we send troops in, those troops get injured, they get killed; they’re away from their families; our country spends hundreds of billions of dollars. And so given the fact that there are enormous sacrifices involved in any military action, it's best that we don't shoot first and aim later. It's important for us to get the strategy right. And the strategy that we are pursuing is the right one.

Ron Allen.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I think a lot of people around the world and in America are concerned because given the strategy that you’re pursuing -- and it’s been more than a year now -- ISIS’s capabilities seem to be expanding. Were you aware that they had the capability of pulling off the kind of attack that they did in Paris? Are you concerned? And do you think they have that same capability to strike in the United States?

And do you think that given all you’ve learned about ISIS over the past year or so, and given all the criticism about your underestimating them, do you think you really understand this enemy well enough to defeat them and to protect the homeland?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: All right, so this is another variation on the same question. And I guess -- let me try it one last time.

We have been fully aware of the potential capabilities of them carrying out a terrorist attack. That’s precisely why we have been mounting a very aggressive strategy to go after them. As I said before, when you’re talking about the ability of a handful of people with not wildly sophisticated military equipment, weapons, who are willing to die, they can kill a lot of people. And preventing them from doing so is challenging for every country. And if there was a swift and quick solution to this, I assure you that not just the United States, but France and Turkey, and others who have been subject to these terrorist attacks would have implemented those strategies.

There are certain advantages that the United States has in preventing these kinds of attacks. Obviously, after 9/11, we hardened the homeland, set up a whole series of additional steps to protect aviation, to apply lessons learned. We’ve seen much better cooperation between the FBI, state governments, local governments. There is some advantages to geography with respect to the United States.

But, having said that, we’ve seen the possibility of terrorist attacks on our soil. There was the Boston Marathon bombers. Obviously, it did not result in the scale of death that we saw in Paris, but that was a serious attempt at killing a lot of people by two brothers and a crockpot. And it gives you some sense of, I think, the kinds of challenges that are going to be involved in this going forward.

So again, ISIL has serious capabilities. Its capabilities are not unique. They are capabilities that other terrorist organizations that we track and are paying attention to possess, as well. We are going after all of them.

What is unique about ISIL is the degree to which it has been able to control territory that then allows them to attract additional recruits, and the greater effectiveness that they have on social media and their ability to use that to not only attract recruits to fight in Syria, but also potentially to carry out attacks in the homeland and in Europe and in other parts of the world.

And so our ability to shrink the space in which they can operate, combined with a resolution to the Syria situation -- which will reduce the freedom with which they feel that they can operate, and getting local forces who are able to hold and keep them out over the long term, that ultimately is going to be what’s going to make a difference. And it’s going to take some time, but it’s not something that at any stage in this process have we not been aware needs to be done.

Q (Off-mic) -- Mr. President?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay, go ahead.

Q Should I wait for the microphone?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, I can hear you.

Q Okay, thank you so much. (Inaudible.) I want to ask a question (inaudible). These terrorist attacks we’ve seen allegedly have been attacks under the name of Islam. But this really takes -- or upsets the peaceful people like countries like Turkey. So how can we give off that (inaudible) this is not really representative of Muslims?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is something that we spoke a lot about at the G20. The overwhelming majority of victims of terrorism over the last several years, and certainly the overwhelming majority of victims of ISIL, are themselves Muslims. ISIL does not represent Islam. It is not representative in any way of the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims. This is something that’s been emphasized by Muslim leaders -- whether it’s President Erdogan or the President of Indonesia or the President of Malaysia -- countries that are majority Muslim, but have shown themselves to be tolerant and to work to be inclusive in their political process.

And so to the degree that anyone would equate the terrible actions that took place in Paris with the views of Islam, those kinds of stereotypes are counterproductive. They’re wrong. They will lead, I think, to greater recruitment into terrorist organizations over time if this becomes somehow defined as a Muslim problem as opposed to a terrorist problem.

Now, what is also true is, is that the most vicious terrorist organizations at the moment are ones that claim to be speaking on behalf of true Muslims. And I do think that Muslims around the world -- religious leaders, political leaders, ordinary people -- have to ask very serious questions about how did these extremist ideologies take root, even if it’s only affecting a very small fraction of the population. It is real and it is dangerous. And it has built up over time, and with social media it has now accelerated.

And so I think, on the one hand, non-Muslims cannot stereotype, but I also think the Muslim community has to think about how we make sure that children are not being infected with this twisted notion that somehow they can kill innocent people and that that is justified by religion. And to some degree, that is something that has to come from within the Muslim community itself. And I think there have been times where there has not been enough pushback against extremism. There’s been pushback -- there are some who say, well, we don’t believe in violence, but are not as willing to challenge some of the extremist thoughts or rationales for why Muslims feel oppressed. And I think those ideas have to be challenged.

Let me make one last point about this, and then unfortunately I have to take a flight to Manila. I’m looking forward to seeing Manila, but I hope I can come back to Turkey when I’m not so busy.

One of the places that you’re seeing this debate play itself out is on the refugee issue both in Europe, and I gather it started popping up while I was gone back in the United States. The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism, they are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife. They are parents, they are children, they are orphans. And it is very important -- and I was glad to see that this was affirmed again and again by the G20 -- that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.

In Europe, I think people like Chancellor Merkel have taken a very courageous stance in saying it is our moral obligation, as fellow human beings, to help people who are in such vulnerable situations. And I know that it is putting enormous strains on the resources of the people of Europe. Nobody has been carrying a bigger burden than the people here in Turkey, with 2.5 million refugees, and the people of Jordan and Lebanon, who are also admitting refugees. The fact that they’ve kept their borders open to these refugees is a signal of their belief in a common humanity.

And so we have to, each of us, do our part. And the United States has to step up and do its part. And when I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims; when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that’s shameful. That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.

When Pope Francis came to visit the United States, and gave a speech before Congress, he didn’t just speak about Christians who were being persecuted. He didn’t call on Catholic parishes just to admit to those who were of the same religious faith. He said, protect people who are vulnerable.

And so I think it is very important for us right now -- particularly those who are in leadership, particularly those who have a platform and can be heard -- not to fall into that trap, not to feed that dark impulse inside of us.

I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam. And the notion that some of those who have taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that, that’s not who we are. On this, they should follow his example. It was the right one. It was the right impulse. It’s our better impulse. And whether you are European or American, the values that we are defending -- the values that we’re fighting against ISIL for are precisely that we don’t discriminate against people because of their faith. We don’t kill people because they’re different than us. That’s what separates us from them. And we don’t feed that kind of notion that somehow Christians and Muslims are at war.

And if we want to be successful at defeating ISIL, that’s a good place to start -- by not promoting that kind of ideology, that kind of attitude. In the same way that the Muslim community has an obligation not to in any way excuse anti-Western or anti-Christian sentiment, we have the same obligation as Christians. And we are -- it is good to remember that the United States does not have a religious test, and we are a nation of many peoples of different faiths, which means that we show compassion to everybody. Those are the universal values we stand for. And that’s what my administration intends to stand for.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END
5:43 P.M. EET

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/16/press-conference-president-obama-antalya-turkey

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA38YZL0Lk0 [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/16/president-holds-press-conference-turkey


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Hillary Clinton
@HillaryClinton

We've seen a lot of hateful rhetoric from the GOP. But the idea that we'd turn away refugees because of religion is a new low. -H

10:33 AM - 17 Nov 2015

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/666685670493192194 [with comments]


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ISIS Wants Us to Think Refugees Are the Enemy


Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright participates in a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., on January 29, 2015.
Alex Wong—Getty Images

The U.S. must do its part to alleviate the crisis

by Madeleine Albright
Nov. 17, 2015

I am deeply disturbed by the calls to shut our nation’s doors to properly vetted Syrian refugees fleeing terrorism and persecution in their native land. These proposals are motivated by fear, not by the facts, and they fly in the face of our country’s proud tradition of admitting refugees from every corner of the globe and every faith background. We have always been a generous nation, and we have in place a rigorous process for refugee resettlement that balances our generosity with our need for security. It works, and it should not be stopped or paused.

This issue is personal to me, because it was 67 years ago last week that my family and I arrived in the U.S. to begin a new life in exile from our native Czechoslovakia. I will always feel an immense gratitude to this country, one shared by the millions of other refugees who have come to our shores in the years since—including Eastern European Jews, Hungarians, Vietnamese, Somalis, Cubans and Bosnian Muslims.

Today, the Syrian people are in the same position once occupied by these other groups. Their country is being destroyed by despotic leaders and terrorists, and the international community has failed them. They do not want to leave their country, but they have no choice. And while our focus should remain on supporting humanitarian efforts in the region, achieving a political settlement in Syria, and defeating the scourge of ISIS, the U.S. must do its part to alleviate the crisis by resettling some Syrian refugees. If we do otherwise, we will squander our moral authority and hurt our international credibility.

Our enemies have a plan. They want to divide the world between Muslims and non-Muslims, and between the defenders and attackers of Islam. By making Syrian refugees the enemy, we are playing into their hands. Instead, we need to clarify that the real choice is between those who think it is OK to murder innocent people and those who think it is wrong. By showing that we value every human life, we can make clear to the world where we stand.

© 2015 Time Inc.

http://time.com/4117333/madeleine-albright-refugees/


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The West Is Giving ISIS Exactly What It Wants

French imams join Jewish leaders outside the Bataclan theater to mourn and sing the French national anthem on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015.

Refugees crossing into Macedonia from Greece on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015.
Unfortunately, conservatives in the U.S. and Europe seem to want to do all the wrong things.
11/17/2015 Edited: 11/18/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/islamic-state-terrorism-response_564b7434e4b08cda348af834 [with embedded video reports, and comments]


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Remarks by the President and President Aquino in Manila

Published on Nov 18, 2015 by The White House

President Obama and President Benigno Aquino of the Republic of the Philippines deliver remarks after a bilateral meeting in Manila on November 18, 2015.

*

Remarks by President Obama and President Aquino of the Republic of the Philippines after Bilateral Meeting

Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila
Manila, Philippines
November 18, 2015

9:12 A.M. PHT

PRESIDENT AQUINO: I'm honored to welcome our very good friend, President Barack Obama, and his delegation to the Philippines.

Prior to engaging in comprehensive exchanges in this week’s APEC economic meeting, President Obama and I took the opportunity to meet and continue our discussions on the enduring bilateral partnership between the Philippines and the United States. We reaffirmed our treaty alliance, the strategic partnership, and the historic friendship between our countries. I'm confident that this firm foundation of broad cooperation and shared values will enable the Philippines and the United States to face the challenges of the present and those in the decades to come.

Our defenses security alliance commenced more than 60 years ago to this day. It remains a cornerstone of peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. As a treaty ally of the United States, the Philippines receives security assistance from the U.S. government, particularly through the foreign military financing program. We recognize with the deepest appreciation the significant contribution to our efforts by the United States -- contributions that help us ensure that we can ably respond to current security challenges, particularly in the area of maritime security and maritime awareness.

The National Coast Watch Center, completed early this year, was constructed with significant assistance from the United States. This project was first discussed during my visit to Washington, D.C. in 2012, and our administration is very pleased to see it come to fruition this year.

Today, President Obama and I discussed a number of avenues of cooperation. There is the Philippine Strategic Trade Management Act, which will enforce measures to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from or within the Philippines and fulfillment of our international obligations. We look forward to its implementation upon the completion of domestic procedures.

We also exchanged views on cybersecurity threats and resolved to explore cooperation in this area, knowing full well that all countries have a stake in maintaining peace and order in cyberspace, so that principles in international law can be applied.

This area of collaboration with the United States can impact positively on the capacity of the Philippine government effectively and swiftly respond to cybersecurity threats and challenges.

President Obama and I, likewise, had a discussion of maritime security, including on the maritime disputes in the region and how international law should remain the framework for behavior of all countries and for the peaceful resolution of disputes. I take this opportunity to reiterate the Philippines’ view that the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea must be continuously upheld consistent with international law.

On the economic front, we welcome the continued strengthening of trade and investment relations between our countries. I conveyed the keen interest of the Philippines in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and we hope that the United States, as one of our most important economic partners, can assist us in the process.

The Philippines is also proud to announce that the first Millennium Challenge Cooperation compact is nearing completion, and the Philippines has been deemed eligible for a second MCC compact. The Philippine and U.S. governments are working closely in the development of projects to be implemented under the second compact.

We discussed climate change, and our two governments are looking forward to fruitful discussions at the COP21 in Paris, which will start later this month. As a country highly vulnerable to climate and disaster risks, the Philippines underscores the importance of all countries contributing to the global effort to address the problem of climate change for the benefit of future generations.

Finally, President Obama and I reiterated the longstanding and multilayered engagement between our two peoples, and we pledged to ensure that our two countries work together not only to strengthen defense cooperation and increase mutual prosperity, but also to foster more meaningful ties between our people.

Thank you. Good day.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, President Aquino for your warm welcome. It is wonderful to be back in the Philippines. I have very fond memories of my state visit last year, and once again I can feel the friendship and hospitality of the Filipino people -- Salamat.

We're here as President Aquino and the Philippines host the APEC Summit. And this is a reflection of Filipino leadership. Mr. President, I especially want to commend you for the summit’s focus on growth that is inclusive and sustainable, that helps lift up small businesses and empowers more women.

Of course, the Philippines and the United States are great allies, so this is an occasion for me to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the security and defense of the Philippines. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder -- balikatan. I'm grateful for my partnership with President Aquino, who’s been a valuable and trusted friend to the United States.

Here in the Philippines, you’re pursuing reforms and good governance. Together, we support a rule-based order in the region, which is critical to regional security and the global economy.

Now, our rebalance to the Asia Pacific is rooted in our treaty alliances, including with the Philippines. Our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, when implemented, will bring our militaries even closer together. And we’re especially committed to ensuring maritime security in the region, including freedom of navigation. During my visit yesterday with members of the Filipino armed forces, I was able to announce that we’re increasing our maritime security assistance to the Philippines to record levels, including two new vessels.

We discussed the impact of China’s land reclamation and construction activities on regional stability. We agree on the need for bold steps to lower tensions, including pledging to halt further reclamation, new construction, and militarization of disputed areas in the South China Sea. As President Aquino indicated, disputes need to be resolved peacefully. That’s why the United States supports the Philippines’ decision to use arbitration under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to peacefully and lawfully address differences.

We also had a chance to discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a pillar of America’s rebalance in the region. We welcome the Philippines’ interest in TPP. And we’ve directed our trade ministers to have discussions about how TPP is going to be implemented among the original 12 countries, and how we can work with the Philippines to follow through on their interest. TPP is designed to be an open and inclusive trade pact for countries that can meet its high standards.

And finally, we discussed the urgent challenge of climate change -- a threat to which the Philippines is especially vulnerable. I appreciate the contribution that President Aquino has made in climate talks over the last year. The Philippines has recognized the importance of a global agreement for the future of this country and the world, and we look forward to a successful outcome in Paris.

So again, Mr. President, thank you so much for your welcome and your leadership of the APEC Summit. And thank you to the Filipino people for their friendship and hospitality.

Q For both Presidents, please. Since the U.S. is supportive of the Philippine arbitration, did you have a chance to discuss whether other claimants should also take that track? And also, with the EDCA pending before the Supreme Court, what role can the Philippines play in the Asian pivot of the United States?

PRESIDENT AQUINO: Well, on the first part of the question, we didn’t discuss getting other claimants to join us in arbitration with America. But we have been discussing with some of the other claimants who have been asking us our experience and the studies we have done leading us to the arbitration move. I think if you look at a search of previous statements with other claimant countries, they’re indicative of -- they’re watching us closely in this arbitration battle and are very close to a decision whether or not to join us in arbitration.

And the role of the Philippines in the pivot -- well, we are one of the oldest allies of America in the region. There is the longstanding treaty, the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951. And the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement seeks to make the operationalization of both forces that much more real, because we will really have -- on the Philippines’ part, we will have access to the most modern technology that will bring us into higher capabilities. And that’s why we welcome with very open arms this agreement pending before our Supreme Court.

Now, as America gets the use of our bases to be able to have more stability to project its own power within the region in an effort to help in the stability and the orderliness and the defusion of the tension within the region.

Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: As I’ve said earlier, we’re not claimants ourselves, but we fully support a process in which, through international law and international norms, these issues are resolved. And we look forward to working with all parties to move disputes through these channels.

With respect to the enhanced defense cooperation agreement, obviously the Philippines has to go through its process and the Supreme Court review. But we’re confident that it’s going to get done and we’re going to be able to implement effectively the provisions and the ideas that have come forward during the course of these discussions.

The broader point is, is that as a treaty ally we have a rock-solid commitment to the defense of the Philippines. And part of our goal is to continue to help our treaty partners build up capacity, to make sure that the architecture of both defense work but also humanitarian work and other important activities in the region are coordinated more effectively. And we think that the enhanced defense cooperation agreement is going to help us do that.

Q Thanks very much for doing this. First, to President Obama. You’re under increasing pressure to coordinate on the anti-ISIL campaign, perhaps with Moscow. President Hollande is pushing for a more unified response. I’m wondering if you’re ready to start coordinating with Vladimir Putin in a more -- in a deeper way, if you feel like you trust him and can trust him on this at this point, and if that more coordinated response might involve supporting France’s invoking of Article V of the NATO Treaty.

And then also to -- actually, I have one related question on that.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Go ahead.

Q If you also wanted to comment at all on some of the discussion back at home about allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. There have been some lawmakers talking about closing --

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah, I’ve got some comments on that.

Q Yeah, I thought you might.

And, President Aquino, as you look at joining -- considering joining the TPP down the road, I’m wondering if it gives you any pause that the President is facing some serious opposition to the deal back at home, particularly from the leading Democratic candidate to replace him. Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’m going to comment on all three, though. There is not a trade deal that has been done in modern American politics that’s not occasionally challenging, but we get it done. And I’m confident we’re going to be able to get it done. So I just want to stick my two cents in on that one.

With respect to the activities of France, Moscow, and our coalition -- from the start, our goal has been to unify the entire world around a concerted effort against ISIL. And that’s why we lead a 65-nation coalition that has been systematically going after ISIL on the ground, but also trying to cut off their financing, cut off their oil exports, identify high-value targets.

And as I indicated in Turkey during my press conference, we continue to examine what’s working well, what’s not working as well. We adjust strategy in accordance with what we’re seeing on the ground, and continually encouraging other countries to do more.

So, obviously, in light of what happened in Paris, I think President Hollande wants to step up and be more involved in the work that we have been doing. He was already an excellent partner, and I welcome the fact that they’re now willing to step up some of the strikes that they’ve been taking in Syria. And, in fact, we’re obviously helping to facilitate them doing so. There’s been very close coordination from the start between Paris and the United States in the French response.

With respect to Moscow, from the start, I’ve also welcomed Moscow going after ISIL. The problem has been that in their initial military incursion into Syria, they’ve been more focused on propping up Mr. Assad and targeting the moderate opposition, as opposed to targeting those folks who threaten us, Europe, and Russia, as well. And I’ve had repeated discussions -- first in New York at the United Nations General Assembly, and then most recently in Turkey -- with President Putin that if, in fact, he shifts his focus and the focus of his military to what is the principal threat, which is ISIL, then that is something that we very much want to see.

That's not how they’ve been operating over the last several weeks. It may be that now, having seen ISIL take down one of their airliners in a horrific accident, that that reorientation continues. And we'll be in discussions with Moscow and Mr. Putin to see if that will continue.

We can't separate that out from the broader issue of how do we settle the war in Syria. And for the last several weeks, Russia has been a constructive partner in Vienna in trying to create a political transition. There is obviously a catch, which is Moscow still is interested in keeping Assad in power; we do not believe that we can arrive at a political settlement so long as he remains President. But those differences have not prevented us from looking at how can we set up a ceasefire, how can we move forward on setting up a political transition period that could lead to new elections. And we will continue to work with not just Russia but all the parties in the region to see if we can arrive at a political solution.

If we get a better understanding with Russia about the process for bringing an end to the Syrian civil war, that obviously opens up more opportunities for coordination with respect to ISIL. And so the two things can't be completely separated. But we're going to wait and see whether, in fact, Russia does end up devoting more attention to targets that are ISIL targets. And if it does so, then that's something we welcome. That's exactly what I've been arguing for since we set up this anti-ISIL coalition. And that's what I've been arguing to all our coalition partners and those who have not been in the coalition over the last several years.

With respect to the refugee debate that's been taking place, I gather, while we've been gone -- what happened in Paris is terrible. And because you have this vibrant, modern, open, diverse, tolerant Western city that reminds us of home, that reminds us of our own cafes and our own parks and our own stadiums, I understand why the American people have been particularly affected by the gruesome images that have happened there.

And it is important for us to be reminded that we have to be vigilant, that rooting out these terrorist networks and protecting the homeland is hard work, and we can't be complacent or lulled into thinking somehow that we are immune from these kinds of attacks. That's why we built an entire infrastructure over the last decade-plus to make it much harder for terrorists to attack us; to go after terrorists where they live and plan these attacks; to coordinate with our partners and our allies; to improve our intelligence. All the work that we've been doing in our intelligence communities and our military over the last decade is in recognition of the fact that this is something we should be concerned about and we've got to work hard to prevent it.

But we are not well-served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic. We don't make good decisions if it's based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.

I think the refugee debate is an example of us not being well-served by some of the commentary that’s been taking place by officials back home and in the media.

Understand, under current law, it takes anywhere from, on average, 18 to 24 months to clear a refugee to come into the United States. They are subjected to the most rigorous process conceivable. The intelligence community vets fully who they are. Biometrics are applied to determine whether they are, in fact, somebody who might threaten the United States. There is an entire apparatus of all of our law enforcement agencies and the center that we use for countering terrorism to check and ensure that a refugee is not admitted that might cause us harm.

And, if anything, over the last several years that the refugee crisis has emerged in Europe, we’ve been criticized that it is so cumbersome that it’s very difficult for us to show the kind of compassion that we need to for these folks who are suffering under the bombings of Assad and the attacks of ISIL.

They’re victims of this terrorism.

And so if there are concrete, actual suggestions to enhance this extraordinary screening process that’s already in place, we’re welcome -- we’re open to hearing actual ideas. But that’s not really what’s been going on in this debate. When candidates say, we wouldn't admit three-year-old orphans -- that’s political posturing. When individuals say that we should have a religious test and that only Christians -- proven Christians -- should be admitted -- that’s offensive and contrary to American values.

I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that’s been coming out of here during the course of this debate. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there is a war between Islam and the West. And when you start seeing individuals in positions of responsibility, suggesting that Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims are in a war-torn land, that feeds the ISIL narrative. It’s counterproductive, and it needs to stop.

And I would add, by the way, these are the same folks oftentimes who suggest that they’re so tough that just talking to Putin or staring down ISIL, or using some additional rhetoric somehow is going to solve the problems out there. But apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion. First, they were worried about the press being too tough on them during debates. Now they’re worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to me.

So if there are specific suggestions about what it is that is not already being done under this rigorous 18-to-24 month process to admit refugees, and the screening that’s taking place by an entire set of U.S. agencies that are specialists in countering terrorism -- if they’ve got a specific suggestion, then they can make it. But that’s not really what’s been going on.

They’ve been playing on fear in order to try to score political points or to advance their campaigns. And it’s irresponsible. And it’s contrary to who we are. And it needs to stop, because the world is watching.

I was proud, when the attacks in Boston took place, and we did not resort to fear and to panic. Boston Strong. People went to the ballgame that same week, and sang the National Anthem, and went back to the stores and went back to the streets. That’s how you defeat ISIL. Not by trying to divide the country, or suggest somehow that our tradition of compassion should stop now.

Oh, one last thing. With respect to Congress, I know that there’s been discussion about legislation suddenly surfacing around refugees. I’ve been waiting for a year and a half, or more, for legislation that would authorize the military activities that we’re carrying out in Syria as we speak, and have not been able to get anything out of Congress. And now, suddenly, they’re able to rush in, in a day or two, to solve the threat of widows and orphans and others who are fleeing a war-torn land, and that’s their most constructive contribution to the effort against IISL? That doesn’t sound right to me. And I suspect it won’t sound right to the American people.

Sorry, Mr. President, I had a lot to say on that one.

PRESIDENT AQUINO: No problem. Very educational, Mr. President. (Laughter.)

With regards to trade, we have a political system that is very similar to that that exists in the United States of America. We are both facing elections come next year. We recognize the pressure to make populous statements at this point in time. At the end of the election period, there will be sobriety, and the argument that not opening ourselves up to a bigger market and freer access to that bigger market cannot be made. Therefore, we think that once elections are over, that current voice will die down and there will be new champions of increased free trade amongst all countries.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: President Aquino is more succinct. (Laughter.)

END
9:39 A.M. PHT

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/17/remarks-president-obama-and-president-aquino-republic-philippines-after

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VhhZXQJYKw [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/18/remarks-president-and-president-aquino-manila


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Army Wants Military.com to Pull Story for the Same Reason it Was Written in the First Place

By Chris Rodda [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/ ]
Senior Research Director, Military Religious Freedom Foundation [ http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ ]; Author, 'Liars For Jesus [ http://www.liarsforjesus.com/ , http://www.liarsforjesus.com/downloads/LFJ_FINAL.pdf , http://www.amazon.com/Liars-For-Jesus-Religious-Alternate/dp/1419644386 ]'
Posted: 11/18/2015 12:45 pm EST Updated: 11/18/2015 1:59 pm EST

On November 13, the Army's United States Pacific Command put out an article titled "Pacific Soldiers Create Warrior Training Center at Fort Shafter." Accompanying the article were four photos, the first of which was the sign outside of the facility -- a nice big sign sporting the image of a Christian crusader knight.



The article, complete with the image of the Christian crusader sign, was subsequently tweeted by the United States Pacific Command (which has 95,900 twitter followers [ https://twitter.com/PacificCommand ]) on November 14, just hours after the attacks in Paris, and by Major General Edward F. Dorman III, the commanding general of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Shafter, on November 15, the day after the attacks.




Now, just having this Christian crusader imagery on a sign outside of a U.S. Military training facility is bad enough. Innumerable service members -- both Christian and non-Christian -- find the use of this holy war, crusader imagery by the military that they are a part of to be completely repulsive. But, worse than that, it is dangerous.

As Military.com reported in the first of two articles [ http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/11/16/crusader-image-a-propaganda-bonanza-jihadists-watchdog-group.html ] about this crusader sign at Fort Shafter's Warrior Training Center:

In numerous statements over social media, including Twitter, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has referenced the U.S. and western allies engaged in operations across the Middle East as "Crusaders."

Following the attacks on several civilian venues in Paris on Friday night, which killed nearly 130 and left more than 300 wounded or injured, ISIS released a video threatening attacks on other Western cities, including Washington, D.C.

"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the centre of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its centre in Washington," an ISIS spokesman said in the video, according to various media reports.

So, yeah, you geniuses at the U.S. Pacific Command, let's send the message far and wide to all of our Islamic extremist enemies out there that our Army's new Warrior Training Center is training our warriors to be Christian crusaders! Very smart. And, by all means, let's do it right after a massive attack by Islamic extremists who are vowing to strike more "crusaders." Even smarter!

On November 16, after a demand was sent to Major General Edward F. Dorman by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [ http://mrff.org/ ] (MRFF), the Army began scrubbing the image, and ultimately the entire article, from various Army and DoD websites, and the tweets by the Pacific Command and Major General Dorman were deleted. Later that day, the actual sign at Fort Shafter was taken down.

In a follow-up article yesterday [ http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/11/17/crusader-knight-sign-taken-down-at-hawaii-army-base.html ] reporting that the sign had been removed, Military.com also reported that a spokesperson from the 8th Theater Sustainment Command's public affairs office "went so far as to ask Military.com to remove its article about the sign." And what was the Army's reason for its request that Military.com pull its article? Because it "brings attention to jihadists over a non-issue ... contributing to their agenda"!!! Really? Now they think that an article about their great big Christian crusader sign at an Army Warrior Training Center might contribute to the jihadists' agenda? This didn't occur to them when the Pacific Command put out its own article and image of the Christian crusader sign and tweeted it to its 95,900 Twitter followers? It didn't occur to them when the commanding general of Fort Shafter's 8th Theater Sustainment Command retweeted it the next day? But now the Army wants Military.com to pull its article, paradoxically citing the very same reason that its own article was reported on by Military.com in the first place!

Military.com has not pulled either its original article or its follow-up article, and appears to have no intention of doing so.

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/army-wants-militarycom-to_b_8592300.html [with comments]


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A Post-Paris “Clash of Civilizations”?
It’s the Islamic State’s Dream and Marco Rubio Agrees
Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 8:00am, November 19, 2015.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176071/ [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-engelhardt/a-postparis-clash-of-civilizations_b_8599504.html (with comments)]


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Hillary Clinton on National Security and the Islamic State

A Conversation with Hillary Clinton

November 19, 2015

Speaker:
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Former U.S. Secretary of State; Candidate, 2016 Democratic Presidential Nomination

Presider:
Fareed Zakaria
Host, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

Description

Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state and candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, joins CNN's Fareed Zakaria to discuss U.S. foreign policy and national security in the aftermath of the recent Paris terror attacks. Speaking in the wake of terror attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, that killed scores, Clinton outlines her plan to defeat the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Clinton outlines how the United States should work with its allies in Europe and elsewhere to counter the threat of extremism in the Middle East.

Audio

[audio embedded]

Transcript

HAASS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Mayor, welcome. I’d like to welcome you all to the Council on Foreign Relations.

For those of you who do not know us, we are an independent, nonpartisan, membership organization, a think tank, and a publisher, dedicated to being a resource for our nearly 5,000 members, for government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other citizens to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing this and other countries.

Consistent with this mission, we are making ourselves a resource for the presidential candidates and their staffs, as well as for the American people, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. I’ve written to the Democratic and Republican candidates alike, offering briefings from our experts, as well as the opportunity for them to come here to the Council and speak and take questions from our members. So far, we have had Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, and Jim Webb, the former senator from Virginia. This Tuesday in Washington, Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, is scheduled to speak.

Today, however, we are pleased and honored to host the former secretary of state and former senator from the great state of New York, Hillary Clinton. Today’s conversation will be conducted by Fareed Zakaria, one of this country’s leading thinkers on international relations and American foreign policy. Fareed was also managing editor of our in-house magazine, Foreign Affairs, and is host of a show, coincidentally named “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” (Laughter.)

The format for today is that we will first hear remarks from Secretary Clinton on the critical topic of U.S. national security in the wake of Paris, after which she will take some questions from Dr. Zakaria, and then from CFR members. We aim to accomplish all this in the span of one hour, so that we can conclude by roughly 11:30.

Madam Secretary, Senator, I want to welcome you back to the Council on Foreign Relations. The podium is yours. (Applause.)

CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Richard. And thanks for the great work that the Council does under your leadership. It truly is an important resource for us all.

Fareed, I look forward to having the conversation with you, everyone here at the Council.

And, Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for being here and for everything you are doing and will do to keep our city safe and strong. I’m very grateful.

I wanted to come here to our city, which has shown such resilience in the face of terrorism, to talk about the events of the past week and the work we must do together to protect our country and our friends. When the United States was hit on 9/11, our allies treated that attack against one as an attack against all. Now it’s our turn to stand in solidarity with France and all of our friends. We cherish the same values. We face the same adversaries. We must share the same determination. After a major terrorist attack, every society faces a choice between fear and resolve. The world’s great democracies can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs on those in need. Therefore, we must choose resolve and we must lead the world to meet this threat.

Now, let’s be clear about what we’re facing. Beyond Paris, in recent days, we’ve seen deadly terrorist attacks in Nigeria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, and a Russian civilian airline destroyed over the Sinai. At the heat of today’s new landscape of terror is ISIS. They persecute religious and ethnic minorities, kidnap and behead civilians, murder children. They systematically enslave, torture, and rape women and girls. ISIS operates across three mutually reinforcing dimensions—a physical enclave in Iraq and Syria, an international terrorist network that includes affiliates across the region and beyond, and an ideological movement of radical jihadism. We have to target and defeat all three.

And time is of the essence. ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach, and capabilities. We have to break the group’s momentum, and then its back. Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS but to defeat and destroy ISIS.

But we have learned that we can score victories over terrorist leaders and networks only to face metastasizing threats down the road. So we also have to play and win the long game. We should pursue a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, one that embeds our mission against ISIS within a broader struggle against radical jihadism that is bigger than any one group, whether it’s al-Qaida or ISIS or some other network.

An immediate war against an urgent enemy and a generational struggle against an ideology with deep roots will not be easily torn out. It will require sustained commitment in every pillar of American power. This is a worldwide fight, and America must lead it.

Our strategy should have three main elements: one, defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East; two, disrupt and dismantle the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilities the flow of fighters, financing arms, and propaganda around the world; three, harden our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats.

Let me start with the campaign to defeat ISIS across the region. The United States and our international coalition has been conducting this fight for more than a year. It’s time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate and deny ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria.

That starts with a more effective coalition air campaign, with more allies’ planes, more strikes, and a broader target set. A key obstacle standing in the way is a shortage of good intelligence about ISIS and its operations. So we need an immediate intelligence surge in the region, including technical assets, Arabic speakers with deep expertise in the Middle East, an even closer partnership with regional intelligence services.

Our goal should be to achieve the kind of penetration we accomplished with al-Qaida in the past. This would help us identify and eliminate ISIS’ command and control and its economic lifelines. A more effective coalition air campaign is necessary but not sufficient. And we should be honest about the fact that to be successful, air strikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS.

Like President Obama, I do not believe that we should again have 100,000 American troops in combat in the Middle East. That is just not the smart move to make here. If we’ve learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them, and we should, but we cannot substitute for them. But we can and should support local and regional ground forces in carrying out this mission.

Now, the obstacles to achieving this are significant. On the Iraqi side of the border, Kurdish forces have fought bravely to defend their own lands and to retake towns from ISIS, but the Iraqi National Army has struggled and it’s going to take more work to get it up to fighting shape. As part of that process we may have to give our own troops advising and training the Iraqis greater freedom of movement and flexibility, including embedding in local units and helping target airstrikes.

Ultimately, however, the ground campaign in Iraq will only succeed if more Iraqi Sunnis join the fight. But that won’t happen so long as they do not feel they have a stake in their country or confidence in their own security and capacity to confront ISIS.

Now, we’ve been in a similar place before in Iraq. In the first “Sunni awakening” in 2007 we were able to provide sufficient support and assurances to the Sunni tribes to persuade them to join us in rooting out al-Qaida. Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Maliki’s rule, those tribes were betrayed and forgotten.

So the task of bringing Sunnis off the sidelines into this new fight will be considerably more difficult. But nonetheless, we need to lay the foundation for a second “Sunni awakening.” We need to put sustained pressure on the government in Baghdad to gets its political house in order, move forward with national reconciliation, and finally, stand up a national guard. Baghdad needs to accept, even embrace, arming Sunni and Kurdish forces in the war against ISIS. But if Baghdad won’t do that, the coalition should do so directly.

On the Syrian side, the big obstacle to getting more ground forces to engage ISIS beyond the Syrian Kurds, who are already deep in the fight is that the viable Sunni opposition groups remain understandably preoccupied with fighting Assad, who, let us remember, has killed many more Syrians than the terrorists have. But they are increasingly under threat from ISIS as well, so we need to move simultaneously toward a political solution to the civil war that paves the way for a new government with new leadership, and to encourage more Syrians to take on ISIS as well.

To support them, we should immediately deploy the special operations force President Obama has already authorized, and be prepared to deploy more as more Syrians get into the fight. And we should retool and ramp up our efforts to support and equip viable Syrian opposition units. Our increased support should go hand in hand with increased support from our Arab and European partners, including special forces who can contribute to the fight on the ground.

We should also work with the coalition and the neighbors to impose no-fly zones that will stop Assad from slaughtering civilians and the opposition from the air. Opposition forces on the ground with materiel support from the coalition could then help create safe areas where Syrians could remain in the country rather than fleeing toward Europe.

This combined approach would help enable the opposition to retake the remaining stretch of the Turkish border from ISIS, choking off its supply lines. It would also give us new leverage in the diplomatic process that Secretary Kerry is pursuing.

Of course, we’ve been down plenty of diplomatic dead ends before in this conflict, but we have models for how seemingly intractable multi-sectarian civil wars do eventually end. We can learn lessons from Lebanon and Bosnia about what it will take. And Russia and Iran have to face the fact that continuing to prop up a vicious dictator will not bring stability.

Right now I’m afraid President Putin is actually making things somewhat worse. Now, to be clear, though, there is an important role for Russian to help in resolving the conflict in Syria, and we have indicated a willingness to work with them toward an outcome that preserves Syria as a unitary nonsectarian state with protections for the rights of all Syrians, and to keep key state institutions intact. There is no alternative to a political transition that allows Syrians to end Assad’s rule.

Now, much of this strategy on both sides of the border hinges on the roles of our Arab and Turkish partners, and we must get them to carry their share of the burden with military intelligence and financial contributions, as well as using their influence with fighters and tribes in Iraq and Syria. Countries like Jordan have offered more, and we should take them up on it, because ultimately our efforts will only succeed if the Arabs and Turks step up in a much bigger way. This is their fight and they need to act like it.

So far, however, Turkey has been more focused on the Kurds than on countering ISIS. And to be fair, Turkey has a long and painful history with Kurdish terrorist groups, but the threat from ISIS cannot wait. As difficult as it may be, we need to get Turkey to stop bombing Kurdish fighters in Syria who are battling ISIS and become a full partner in our coalition efforts against ISIS.

The United States should also work with our Arab partners to get them more invested in the fight against ISIS. At the moment they’re focused in other areas because of their concerns in the region, especially the threat from Iran. That’s why the Saudis, for example, shifted attention from Syria to Yemen. So we have to work out a common approach.

In September I laid out a comprehensive plan to counter Iranian influence across the region and its support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. We cannot view Iran and ISIS as separate challenges. Regional politics are too interwoven. Raising the confidence of our Arab partners and raising the costs to Iran for bad behavior will contribute to a more effective fight against ISIS.

And as we work out a broader regional approach, we should of course be closely consulting with Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East. Israel increasingly shares with our Arab partners and has the opportunity to do more in intelligence and joint efforts as well.

Now, we should have no illusions about how difficult the mission before us really is. We have to fit a lot of pieces together, bring along a lot of partners, move on multiple fronts at once. But if we press forward on both sides of the border, in the air and on the ground, as well as diplomatically, I do believe we can crush ISIS’s enclave of terror.

And to support this campaign, Congress should swiftly pass an updated authorization to use military force. That will send a message to friend and foe alike that the United States is committed to this fight. The time for delay is over. We should get this done.

Now, the second element of our strategy looks beyond the immediate battlefield of Iraq and Syria to disrupt and dismantle global terrorist infrastructure on the ground and online. A terror pipeline that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world has allowed ISIS to strike at the heart of Paris last week, and an al-Qaida affiliate to do the same at Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.

ISIS is working hard to extend its reach, establish affiliates and cells far from its home base. And despite the significant setbacks it has encountered, not just with ISIS and its ambitious plans, but even al-Qaida, including the death of Osama bin Laden, they are still posing great threats to so many.

Let’s take one example. We’ve had a lot of conversation about ISIS in the last week. Let’s not forget al-Qaida. They still have the most sophisticated bomb makers, ambitious plotters, and active affiliates in places like Yemen and North Africa. So we can’t just focus on Iraq and Syria. We need to intensify our counterterrorism efforts on a wider scope.

Most urgent is stopping the flow of foreign fighters to and from the war zones of the Middle East. Thousands, thousands, of young recruits have flocked to Syria from France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and, yes, even the United States. Their western passports make it easier for them to cross borders and eventually return home, radicalized and battle-hardened.

Stemming this tide will require much better coordination and information-sharing among countries every step of the way. We should not stop pressing until Turkey, where most foreign fighters cross into Syria, finally locks down its border.

The United States and our allies need to know and share the identities of every fighter who has traveled to Syria. We also have to be smart and target interventions that will have the greatest impact. For example, we need a greater focus on shutting down key enablers who arrange transportation, documents, and more.

When it comes to terrorist financing, we have to go after the nodes that facilitate illicit trade and transactions. The U.N. Security Council should update its terrorism sanctions. They have a resolution that does try to block terrorist financing and other enabling activities. But we have to place more obligations on countries to police their own banks. And the United States, which has quite a record of success in this area, can share more intelligence to help other countries.

And, once and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as the schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path to radicalization.

When it comes to blocking terrorist recruitment, we have to identify the hot spots, the specific neighborhoods and villages, the prisons and schools, where recruitment happens in clusters, like the neighborhood in Brussels where the Paris attacks were planned. Through partnerships with local law enforcement and civil society, especially with Muslim community leaders, we have to work to tip the balance away from extremism in these hot spots.

Radicalization and recruitment also is happening online. There’s no doubt we have to do a better job contesting online space, including websites and chat rooms, where jihadists communicate with followers. We must deny them virtual territory just as we deny them actual territory.

At the State Department, I built up a unit of communications specialists fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Somali, and other languages to battle with extremists online. We need more of that, including from the private sector. Social media companies can also do their part by swiftly shutting down terrorist accounts so they’re not used to plan, provoke, or celebrate violence.

Online or offline, the bottom line is that we are in a contest of ideas against an ideology of hate, and we have to win. Let’s be clear, though. Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. The obsession in some quarters with a clash of civilization or repeating the specific words radical Islamic terrorism isn’t just a distraction. It gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve. It actually plays into their hands by alienating partners we need by our side.

Our priority should be how to fight the enemy. In the end, it didn’t matter what kind of terrorist we called bin Laden. It mattered that we killed bin Laden. But we still can’t close our eyes to the fact that there is a distorted and dangerous stream of extremism within the Muslim world that continues to spread. Its adherents are relatively few in number but capable of causing profound damage, most especially to their own communities, throughout an arc of instability that stretches from North and West Africa to Asia.

Overlapping conflicts, collapsing state structures, widespread corruption, poverty, and repression have created openings for extremists to exploit. Before the Arab spring, I warned that the region’s foundations would sink into the sand without immediate reforms. Well, the need has only grown more urgent.

We have to join with our partners to do the patient, steady work of empowering moderates and marginalizing extremists, supporting democratic institutions and the rule of law, creating economic growth that supports stability, working to curb corruption, helping train effective and accountable law enforcement, intelligence, and counterterrorism services.

As we do this, we must be building up a global counterterrorism infrastructure that is more effective and adaptable than the terror networks we’re trying to defeat. When I became secretary of state, I was surprised to find that nearly a decade after 9/11 there was still no dedicated international vehicle to regularly convene key countries to deal with terrorist threats. So we created the Global Counterterrorism Forum, which now brings together nearly 30 countries, many from the Muslim world.

It should be a clearinghouse for directing assistance to countries that need it or mobilizing common action against threats. And let’s not lose sight of the global cooperation needed to lock down loose nuclear material and chemical and biological weapons and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.

At the end of the day, we still must be prepared to go after terrorists wherever they plot, using all the tools at our disposal. That includes targeted strikes by U.S. military aircraft and drones, with proper safeguards, when there aren’t any other viable options to deal with continuing imminent threats. All of this, stopping foreign fighters, blocking terrorist financing, doing battle in cyberspace, is vital to the war against ISIS, but it also lays the foundation for defusing and defeating the next threat and the one after that.

Now, the third element of our strategy has to be hardening our defenses at home and helping our partners do the same against both external and homegrown threats. After 9/11, the United States made a lot of progress breaking down bureaucratic barriers to allow for more and better information sharing among agencies responsible for keeping us safe. We still have work to do on this front, but by comparison Europe is way behind. Today, European nations don’t even always alert each other when they turn away a suspected jihadist at the border, or when a passport is stolen. It seems like after most terrorist attacks we find out that the perpetrators were known to some security service or another, but too often the dots never get connected.

I appreciate how hard this is, especially given the sheer number of suspects and threats, but this has to change. The United States must work with Europe to dramatically and immediately improve intelligence sharing and counterterrorism coordination. European countries also should have the flexibility to enhance their border controls when circumstances warrant. And here at home, we face a number of our own challenges. The threat to airline security is evolving as terrorists develop new devices, like nonmetallic bombs. So our defenses have to stay at least one step ahead.

We know that intelligence gathered and shared by local law enforcement officers is absolutely critical to breaking up plots and preventing attacks. So they need all the resources and support we can give them. Law enforcement also needs the trust of residents and communities including, in our own country, Muslim Americans. Now, this should go without saying, but in the current climate it bears repeating. Muslim Americans are working every day on the front lines of the fight against radicalization.

Another challenge is how to strike the right balance of protecting privacy and security. Encryption of mobile communications presents a particularly tough problem. We should take the concerns of law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals seriously. They have warned that impenetrable encryption may prevent them from accessing terrorist communications and preventing a future attack. On the other hand, we know there are legitimate concerns about government intrusion, network security, and creating new vulnerabilities that bad actors can and would exploit. So we need Silicon Valley not to view government as its adversary. We need to challenge our best minds in the private sector to work with our best minds in the public sector to develop solutions that will both keep us safe and protect our privacy. Now is the time to solve this problem, not after the next attack.

Since Paris, no homeland security challenge is being more hotly debated than how to handle Syrian refugees seeking safety in the United States. Our highest priority, of course, must always be protecting the American people. So, yes, we do need to be vigilant in screening and vetting any refugees from Syria, guided by the best judgment of our security professionals in close coordination with our allies and partners. And Congress needs to make sure the necessary resources are provided for comprehensive background checks, drawing on the best intelligence we can get. And we should be taking a close look at the safeguards and the visa programs as well.

But we cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values and our humanitarian obligations. Turning away orphans, applying a religious test, discriminating against Muslims, slamming the door on every Syrian refugee—that is just not who we are. We are better than that. And remember, many of these refugees are fleeing the same terrorists who threaten us. It would be a cruel irony indeed if ISIS can force families from their homes, and then also prevent them from ever finding new ones. We should be doing more to ease this humanitarian crisis, not less. We should lead the international community in organizing a donor conference and supporting countries like Jordan, who are sheltering the majority of refugees fleeing Syria.

And we can get this right. America’s open, free, tolerant society is described by some as a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism, but I actually believe it’s one of our strengths. It reduces the appeal of radicalism and enhances the richness and resilience of our communities. This is not a time for scoring political points. When New York was attacked on 9/11 we had a Republican president, a Republican governor, and a Republican mayor. And I worked with all of them. We pulled together and put partisanship aside to rebuild our city and protect our country.

This is a time for American leadership. No other country can rally the world to defeat ISIS and win the generational struggle against radical jihadism. Only the United States can mobilize common action on a global scale. And that’s exactly what we need. The entire world must be part of this fight, but we must lead it. There’s been a lot of talk lately about coalitions. Everyone seems to want one. But there’s not nearly as much talk about what it actually takes to make a coalition work in the heat and pressure of an international crisis. I know how hard this is because we’ve done it before.

To impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran, to stop a dictator from slaughtering his people in Libya, to support a fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, we have to use every pillar of American power—military, and diplomacy; development, and economic, and cultural influence; technology, and, maybe most importantly, our values. That is smart power. We have to work with institutions and partners like NATO, the EU, the Arab League, and the U.N., strengthen our alliances and never get tired of old-fashioned, shoe-leather diplomacy. And if necessary, be prepared to act decisively on our own, just as we did to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The United States and our allies must demonstrate that free people and free markets are still the hope of humanity.

This past week, as I watched the tragic scenes from France, I kept thinking back to a young man the world met in January, after the last attack in Paris. His name was Lassana, a Muslim immigrant from Mali, who worked at a kosher market. He said the market had become a new home and his colleagues and customers a second family. When the terrorists arrived and the gunfire began, Lassana risked his life to protect his Jewish customers. He moved quickly, hiding as many people as he could in the cold storage room, and then slipping out to help the police. I didn’t know or care, he said, if they were Jews, or Christians, or Muslims. We’re all in the same boat. What a rebuke to the extremists’ hatred.

The French government announced it would grant Lassana full citizenship. But when it mattered most, he proved he was a citizen already. That’s the power of free people. That’s what the jihadis will never understand and never defeat. And as we leave here today, let us resolved that we will go forward together. And we will do all we can to lead the world against this threat that threatens people everywhere. Thank you all. (Applause.)

ZAKARIA: Thank you so much, Madam Secretary. And thanks to Richard Haass, again, for organizing this extraordinary opportunity.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, President Obama said that he thought what was needed now was an intensification of his existing strategy against ISIS. Is what you are proposing an intensification of the existing strategy, or a change to it?

CLINTON: Well, as I said in the speech, it is in many ways an intensification and acceleration of the strategy, but it has to also intensify and accelerate our efforts in the other arenas. What we have done with airstrikes has made a difference, but now it needs to make a greater difference, and we need more of a coalition, you know, flying those missions with us.

What we have done with the president saying there would be special forces sent is right in line with what I think, but they need to get there and we need to take stock of whether we need more. And we need to also empower our trainers in Iraq to have more support to do what they’re trying to accomplish by getting the Iraqi army once again to be a fighting force.

And we need—one thing that I believe we haven’t done yet is make it clear to Baghdad that we are going to be arming Sunni tribes and Kurds if they don’t, because at some point they have to be in the fight. The Kurds, as you know, are fighting bravely on both sides of the border, and they need the support that we’ve given them in some of the special ops work and the assault and taking back of Sinjar, and then these other two elements that I mentioned. We have pieces in place but I think we have to deepen and better coordinate not only within our own country and Europe but more broadly.

ZAKARIA: Do you believe that President Obama underestimated ISIS when he called it the JV team?

CLINTON: Look, I don’t think it’s useful to go back and re-plow old ground. I think that from the perspective of what they had accomplished at that time, even though they had seized and held territory, the major focus of our government was on trying to remove Assad from power so that there could be a resolution, a political resolution.

And there were so many groups fighting. There were so many other factors at work. Now that ISIS has made clear that—I think in part because they have been pushed hard by the airstrikes, by the Kurds, they’re now expanding their reach so that they can keep their propaganda going. So I think there’s been, you know, an evolution in their threat and we have to meet it.

ZAKARIA: A couple of days ago the New York Times had a headline that said, “Paris Attacks Complicate Hillary Clinton’s Alignment with Obama.” Has it?

CLINTON: Well, it’s not the first headline I’ve disagreed with. (Laughter.) Look, I have made clear that I have differences, as I think any two people do. I was very proud to serve as President Obama’s secretary of state. I think we made a good team. We largely agreed on what needed to be done to repair our alliances to get our country in a position to deal with the wars that had been inherited and to take on some of the new challenges we faced.

But even when I was still there, which is publicly known, I thought we needed to do more earlier to try to identify indigenous Syrian fighters, so-called moderates, and I do think there were some early on, that we could have done more to help them in their fight against Assad. But, you know, this is an evolving and fast-moving situation. I think we’re all, you know, working to, you know, make sure that what we do actually will produce the results we seek.

ZAKARIA: When you were secretary of state, you tended to agree a great deal with the then-secretary of defense, Bob Gates. Gates was opposed to a no-fly zone in Syria, thought it was an act of war that was risky and dangerous. This seems to me the major difference right now between what Obama’s administration is doing and what you are proposing. Do you not—why do you disagree with Bob Gates on this?

CLINTON: Well, I believe that the no-fly zone is merited and can be implemented, again, in a coalition, not an American-only no-fly zone.

I fully respect Bob and his knowledge about the difficulties of implementing a no-fly zone, but if you look at where we are right now we have to try to clear the air of the bombing attacks that are still being carried out to a limited extent by the Syrian military, now supplemented by the Russian air force. And I think we have a chance to do that now. We had a no-fly zone over Northern Iraq for years to protect the Kurds, and it proved to be successful—not easy. It never is, but I think now is the time for us to revisit those plans.

I also believe, as I said in the speech, that if we begin the conversation about a no-fly zone, something that, you know, Turkey discussed with me back when I was secretary of state in 2012, it will confront a lot of our partners in the region and beyond about what they’re going to do. And it can give us leverage in the discussions that Secretary Kerry is carrying on right now. So I see it as both a strategic opportunity on the ground and an opportunity for leverage in the peace negotiations.

ZAKARIA: You talked about Arab partners, but it’s worth noting that after having announced with great fanfare that they would join us in the strikes, Saudi Arabia has essentially dropped out, the UAE has essentially dropped out. What would you—what could—can you do particularly to make these key Sunni states that seem more interested in fighting in Yemen, where they are battling a Shiite force, as they see it—what can you do to make them actually take this on as their struggle?

CLINTON: Well, we did build that coalition with respect to Libya. We had the UAE, Qatar, Jordan involved in what we were doing on the ground. And it takes constant outreach, and obviously you have to define the problem in a way that they see it as affecting their national interests. And you’re right; the Saudis were actually involved in Syria and now have put all of their resources against the Houthis and the Iranian backers of the Houthis in Yemen.

Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that they see the battle that they want to fight as one against Iran and its proxies. My argument to them would be, left untended you could have Iranian reach from Tehran to Baghdad if you allow Syria to fall into as terrible a distress as it currently is, and basically Assad being a proxy for, a front man for, the Iranians. The Russians are interested in their naval base, and so you will find a consolidation of authority with the Iranians and, moving into Baghdad, even more so.

So what you’re facing in Yemen could be a limited preview of what you could face going forward unless we get some concerted effort to stop the fighting and to seek a political solution that does give some room to all the different groups within Syria to have a say in the future.

ZAKARIA: Donald Trump says that if you look back you see that every time—I get a laugh just saying it—(laughter). Donald Trump says that every time we have deposed or encouraged the removal of a dictator in the Middle East, what has followed has been political chaos and a worse humanitarian situation than existed before. And if you look at Iraq, if you look at Libya, if you look at Yemen, if you look at the fragility of the Assad regime and what it has produced, isn’t he right?

CLINTON: Well, he has a very short-term view of history, because it is not at all clear what the final outcome will be in the places that you named. As I mentioned in the speech, I spoke about the foundations of the region sinking into the sand just as the Arab Spring was breaking. And I did so not knowing about the Arab Spring coming to full bloom, but because it was so clear that what was being done by dictatorships, by the denial of opportunity, by the repression, by the sectarian divide just could not stand. It was going to explode at some point or another.

And with the developments in Libya, for example, the Libyan people have voted twice in free and fair elections for the kind of leadership they want. They have not been able to figure out how to prevent the disruptions that they are confronted with because of internal divides and because of some of the external pressures that are coming from terrorist groups and others.

So I think it’s too soon to tell. And I think it’s something that we have to be, you know, looking at very closely. Now, deposing Milosevic left problems, but problems that we came at by having a deal—in fact, my husband’s in Dayton today speaking about the Dayton Accord, where people who had been slaughtering each other had to come together and resolve to exist within a government together.

Is it perfect? No. But has it, you know, kind of kept going and do we have some work to do there? Absolutely. So we have to look at all these different situations, I think, on their own, as well as part of bigger trends.

ZAKARIA: Several of the people running against—against whoever the Democrat is argue that—argue that we should not be taking in Syrian refugees, but if we do we should prioritize Christian refugees. Jeb Bush has said this. Ted Cruz has said this. And the argument is that they are being persecuted particularly harshly by ISIS. Why isn’t that right?

CLINTON: Well, I just don’t think we should have religious tests about who we bring as refugees into our country. We’ve had, last I looked, more than 2 million refugees since 1990. So far, we know that trying to vet and understand he connections that a person or a family might have with somebody in the United States, you know, looking to see what organization—often a faith-based organization—will sponsor them, and what they’ll do to help them get education or a job, is by far the best way to sort out and to determine who should be included.

Now, this is going to take a long time. I mean, really, doing this is hard under any circumstances. Doing it when people are essentially stateless, they don’t necessarily have documents, it’s hard to do the vetting. It’s going to be challenging, which is again why I said in the speech that Congress should be providing resources for us to do it right, you know, not trying to stop it. I just don’t believe that’s in keeping with our values or our history. And frankly, it doesn’t send the kind of message that we want to send to the rest of the world.

So, yeah, we have to be careful. We have to be vigilant. And we have to have a system that does all of that.

ZAKARIA: Let’s open it up to members of the Council. Let me—if somebody wants to put up their hand, identify themselves, and please make sure it is a question with a question mark at the end, and be brief.

Sir.

Q: Thank you very much for your comments. With respect to TPP, I would like to understand a little bit better why you oppose it and what changes would perhaps make it acceptable to you.

CLINTON: I think, you know, there are two problems that I see with it. One, the final language of the treaty itself, which I don’t think went far enough to meet the test that I’ve always applied to any trade agreement. I have voted for them and I have voted against them when I was a senator. Does it help to create more good-paying jobs in America? Does it raise incomes? Does it advance our national security? And I think there are enough unanswered questions—it was an—it was an extraordinary effort to try to bring these countries together to come up with an agreement. But I think that, at the end of the day, for a number of reasons—including that they couldn’t figure out how to get currency into the agreement and it’s only in a side agreement—I opposed it.

The other side of the coin, though, is we have been doing so little—because of Republican opposition, mostly—to better train and prepare people who have been really either sidelined or whacked up against their head by globalization. Globalization is real. It’s happening. It’s having an impact. We don’t have a good training program. We don’t have the kind of support that people need to be able to move into positions where they can acquire new skills. And I see those two things as going together, because we have to first and foremost focus on how we better prepare more Americans to be competitive in the global economy. And I don’t think we’ve done that. I want to see that done alongside any trade agreement to a greater extent than the Republicans have been willing to support it.

ZAKARIA: Ma’am.

Q: Madam Secretary, Amy Bondurant. Hi.

So, importantly, you’ve recommended that the U.S. lead the air coalition. And I wondered what next steps might be taken to ensure that that would happen.

CLINTON: Well, Amy, there’s nothing magic or easy about putting together such a coalition. I know President Hollande will be coming to the United States to see President Obama this week, and I assume that there will be a group of French officials—defense officials, intelligence officials, homeland security officials—who will be meeting with their American counterparts. And on the defense side, I think that certainly the United States, working with France, and then from that, you know, sort of hub beginning to reach out to other countries to seek out support. And I would go back to Arab countries as well. So looking for a way to begin the discussions about the negotiations that lead to the coalition as quickly as possible.

You know, going back to Libya, you know, the Europeans were the ones who wanted American support, and we did not agree to do so until we had a very clear idea what they were willing to do. And then we reached out and worked with the Arab League so that there would be Arab partners as well. And that took weeks; it wasn’t something that just happened overnight. But it is definitely doable if we begin, I think, with the French-American position and move out from there.

ZAKARIA: Sir.

Q: Terry Whitney Castle (sp).

My understanding was, with regard to U.S. support for Syrian rebels over the last year or two, one of the main restraints was that they could not fight Assad directly, and that this was a severe limitation and part of the reason the plan didn’t work. When you recommend supporting additional training for Syrian rebel groups, would you advise them to allow them to fight Assad? Or is that part of the conflict that we don’t want to get involved in?

CLINTON: Well, back in the first term, when Leon Panetta and Dave Petraeus and I made our recommendation about vetting and arming Syrian moderate rebels, the target was Assad. It was to defend themselves and be able to prevent the military taking over territory and creating the kind of humanitarian disaster that, obviously, we’ve all seen. So that was what we recommended back in the first term.

Since then, I know it’s been a very difficult task for the—our government to take on and pursue successfully. But one of the challenges has been trying to draw lines, and you draw lines because you want to be able to vet and follow what happens to the arms that you are equipping people with. But what happened to some of the few groups that have been trained is that they were quickly overrun by much more hardened fighters who were fighting Assad. So it was a—it was a very hard task to do two or three years later. I think it might have been—but again, I’ve said many times I can’t predict sitting here what would have happened if we had moved earlier. It might have worked. It might not have worked. But you can’t really take Syrians who are rebelling against Assad and tell them they can’t use their training and their weapons against the person who, as I said in my speech, has killed far more Syrians than ISIS has to date.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask a follow-up on that, Madam Secretary. If the only way you could put together a moderate Syrian force is by having the United States cajole, bribe, arm, and train it, we are then looking for this force to defeat ISIS, then defeat Assad, then defeat al-Nusra, then defeat other al-Qaida affiliates, keep at bay the Shiite militias and Hezbollah, take control of Damascus, and establish a pluralistic democracy in Syria. Isn’t that kind of a tall order?

CLINTON: Well, certainly, described like that. (Laughter.) And that’s why I focused on ISIS, I mean, because I think it’s—I think right now we have one overriding goal, as I outlined. We need to crush their territorial domain, and we need to try to secure the entire border between Syria and Turkey.

There is not going to be a successful military effort at this point to overturn Assad. That can only happen through the political process. So our effort should be focused on ISIS.

And, yes, there are other terrorist groups. Al-Nusra, whom you mention, is a particularly lethal fighter.

ZAKARIA: So no fight—no fight against Assad for now?

CLINTON: There—we have to prioritize. And we had an opportunity, perhaps—I won’t say that it would have worked. But right now, we’ve got the Russians in protecting Assad, the Iranians, and Hezbollah protecting Assad. We need to get people to turn against the common enemy of ISIS. And then we need to figure out how we put together a political outcome that provides enough autonomy so that the separate immunities within Syria will be able to recreate a Syrian state, even though it probably is unlikely it will be controlled by the Alawites from Damascus, the same way it was before the civil war started.

ZAKARIA: There’s policy here, but there’s also politics. There are inescapably people trying to appear tough and tougher. If there were, god forbid, another terrorist attack, god forbid, in the United States, do you think the pressure to send American troops into Syria would be unstoppable?

CLINTON: Well, it would certainly grow, but I think it would be a mistake. Look, as I said, we should be sending more special operators. We should be empowering our trainers in Iraq. We should be, you know, leading an air coalition using both fighter planes and drones. We have a lot of work to do to be able to, you know, really decimate ISIS in Iraq and in Syria. But we’ve got to work with the Kurds on both sides of the border. We’ve got to figure out how to, if possible, have a second Arab awakening in Anbar province, get the Sunni tribes to feel that it is their fight again, as they once did. And that requires a lot of political pressure being put on Baghdad. Injecting some large contingent of American forces complicates that, in my opinion. Right now, we need to keep the pressure on the people on the ground, and get them to change their priorities, and work together.

ZAKARIA: Final question.

Q: Jim Zirin. Madam Secretary, hi.

Back to the no-fly zone, are you advocating a no-fly zone over the entire country or a partial no-fly zone over an enclave where refugees might find a safe haven? And in the event of either, do you foresee you might be potentially provoking the Russians?

CLINTON: I am advocating the second, a no-fly zone principally over northern Syrian, close to the Turkish border, cutting off the supply lines, trying to provide some safe refuges for refugees, so they don’t have to leave Syria, creating a safe space away from the barrel bombs and the other bombardment by the Syrians. And I would certainly expect to and hope to work with the Russians to be able to do that.

You know, the Russians have, as you know, been primarily focused on Assad’s enemies and not on ISIS. I think that has changed. And there is an indication that has changed. After Hollande comes here, he’s going to go to Moscow to see Putin. And as I said earlier, I think getting Russia to play a role in that and getting Assad to understand that what happens to him will be a result of a political resolution, which Secretary Kerry is undertaking right now. But to have a swath of territory that could be a safe zone, both for Syrians so they wouldn’t have to leave but also for humanitarian relief. And I think that it would give us this extra leverage that I’m looking for in the diplomatic pursuits with Russia with respect to the political outcome in Syria.

ZAKARIA: We can take one last brief question. Ma’am.

Q: Thank you. I’m Sylvana Sinha.

My question relates to Saudi Arabia. Do you think that the goals that you outlined in the Middle East can be achieved without more cooperation from Saudi Arabia? And if not, how do you think Saudis can be convinced to changed course?

CLINTON: Well, I think that that the Saudis are critical to achieving the goals. And, you know, the Saudis are now engaged in the discussions that Secretary Kerry is leading. They’re in the same process as the Iranians, which is something that was hard to get to, but finally achieved. And I think that the Saudis have a multiple level of responsibilities. First and foremost, stopping their own citizens from continuing the financing for extremists. And you know, Saudi financing is still a major source of revenue for terrorist groups inside Syria, inside Iraq, elsewhere.

ZAKARIA: Including ISIS, you think?

CLINTON: I have no evidence of that. But they’re—ISIS has become quite a self-financing terrorist network, with their theft of oil, selling it on the black market; with their destruction and seizure of antiquities, selling that on the black market; with their taking over Mosul and raiding the banks. They’ve got a source of funding. So I don’t really know, but I know that Saudi individuals have certainly funded other related terrorist groups over time, and also exported a lot of Wahhabi radicalism by kicking out or sending out imams and teachers to set up schools and mosques to preach that particularly harsh brand of Islam.

So the Saudis have a lot that they can do to both stop and then to help. And that’s why I said, look, they are legitimately concerned about a takeover in Yemen that butts up against their border. And so that is why they are expending a lot of money and a lot of military resources trying to beat back the Houthis, trying to reestablish Hadi’s government. They’ve got a lot going on there. But I would hope to draw them into a broader reading of what’s going on in the region.

And, you know, for a lot of people, the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide is one of the major reasons for what’s happening there. It’s understandable, but the Saudis need to have a broader view. And looking at Iran’s influence inside Syria, their growing influence in Iraq, as well as in Yemen, they need to understand they have to help us stabilize at least northern Syria to start with, while trying to come up with some resolution of the civil war. And I hope they will be more willing to be involved.

ZAKARIA: Madam Secretary, thank you so much for giving us your time. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.

© Copyright 2015, Council on Foreign Relations

http://www.cfr.org/radicalization-and-extremism/hillary-clinton-national-security-islamic-state/p37266 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy_WJEs71Gw [embedded; with comments]


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Holocaust Museum Condemns Treatment Of Syrian Refugees In U.S.

"While recognizing that security concerns must be fully addressed, we should not turn our backs on the thousands of legitimate refugees."

Alana Horowitz Satlin
Posted: 11/20/2015 08:33 AM EST | Edited: 11/20/2015 09:09 AM EST

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemned the U.S. treatment of Syrian refugees on Thursday and compared their plight to the ordeal of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

Over half of U.S. governors [ http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/260388-more-than-half-of-us-governors-oppose-refugee-resettlement ] and a slew of national [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congressman-hard-determine-refugees-terrorists/story?id=35264287 ] and local [ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/18/roanoke-mayor-syrian-refugees/76016936/ ] lawmakers have recently said they would turn away Syrian refugees in light of last week's attacks in Paris. During World War II, the U.S. government rejected [ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/ ] thousands of Jews fleeing Europe, fearing they were Nazi spies.

Here's the museum's statement [ http://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museum-statement-on-syrian-refugees ]:

Acutely aware of the consequences to Jews who were unable to flee Nazism, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum looks with concern upon the current refugee crisis [ http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/syria ]. While recognizing that security concerns must be fully addressed, we should not turn our backs on the thousands of legitimate refugees.

The Museum calls on public figures and citizens to avoid condemning today’s refugees [ http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/syria ] as a group. It is important to remember that many are fleeing because they have been targeted by the Assad regime and ISIS for persecution and in some cases elimination on the basis of their identity.

A number of other commenters also noted the similarities [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/us/comparing-jewish-refugees-of-the-1930s-with-syrians-today.html ] between the current refugee crisis and the wave of people fleeing Europe during World War II.

"With politicians in the U.S. and Europe again calling for refugee bans in the name of national security, it’s easy to see parallels with the history of World War II," Smithsonian Magazine's Daniel A. Gross wrote [ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/ ].

The country's largest Orthodox Jewish lobbying group [ http://advocacy.ou.org/2015/orthodox-union-statement-regarding-syrian-refugees-issue/ ] also urged Americans to remember the past.

"We cannot and should not blame [refugees] for the actions of an evil terrorist organization," the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center said in a statement. "The Jewish community has an important perspective on this debate. Just a few decades ago, refugees from the terror and violence in Hitler’s Europe sought refuge in the United States and were turned away due to suspicions about their nationality."

Georgette Bennett, the president of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, said that [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgette-bennett-phd/theyre-victims-not-terror_b_8602730.html ] U.S. politicians' opposition to receiving Syrian refugees reminded her of "the refusal to allow the passengers of the St. Louis to disembark in an American port, sending them back to Europe -- many to their deaths."

The MS St. Louis was a German ship that carried hundreds of Jews who were trying to escape Nazi Germany in 1939. The U.S., Canada and Cuba all turned the ship away, and those aboard were forced to return to Europe, which would soon be taken over by the Nazis.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/holocaust-museum-syrian-refugees_564f10ede4b0d4093a573793 [with comments]


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Remarks by the President and Prime Minister Najib in Malaysia

Published on Nov 20, 2015 by The White House

President Obama and Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia delivered remarks after a bilateral meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. November 20, 2015.

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Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia After Bilateral Meeting

Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
November 20, 2015

7:59 P.M. MYT

PRIME MINISTER NAJIB: Well, first of all, I’d like to thank President Obama for visiting Malaysia once again. Not only he has corrected history; we had a hiatus of almost 50 years without a U.S. President visiting Malaysia. But he’s visited us twice now. So that’s a wonderful accomplishment in terms of his commitment not only to Malaysia, but also to the region. And we are delighted at his support for the ASEAN as well as the Asia Summit progress.

We had a very good discussion on bilateral issues. As expected, we have a very similar position in terms of combatting violent extremism. We both agree that we need to work closely together to make this region safer. This region is not immune from threat of violent of extremism. There are groups here operating, and there are groups here that have are aligned to IS. The Malaysian government is very clear on unequivocally that we are up against IS, against its ideology, what it stands for. It is evil. It is against Islam. It’s a perverted Islam. And they do not represent us. So we will work very closely together with the United States and other like-minded countries to make this region safer and to combat any form of violent extremism.

We also agreed to make Malaysia as a center for counter-messaging center. Because in fighting violent extremism, it’s not only a military solution that’s required, but it’s winning the hearts and minds of its people. And that is why it’s important for us to present the counter-narrative, to present the authentic Islam, the true Islam, so that people realize what IS represents, or tries to represent, is the total perversion of Islam. So that work is important for us, and we will continue to present what we believe is a true picture of Islam.

We also talked about the TPP, which is important. We crossed the finishing line. I’ve explained to the President the domestic process. The people present to the Cabinet the cost-benefit analysis which we will take to Parliament in January, special session. And we hope with the support and the approval of Parliament, the TPP will be ratified within two years, or put into operation within two years.

We believe it will create the kind of increase in trade and investment, innovation, and set the kind of standards with respect to labor and environment, which will ensure that TPP countries be able to create more wealth, more innovation, and set new standards in terms of things like environment and labor.

We also discussed about climate change. The President and I agree that we need a deal in Paris. Malaysia is committed to work to find a deal. But if necessary, we will revive our position to make sure that we do not fail in Paris. I think we owe this to the world. We cannot afford not to have a deal in Paris. And I hope we will be able to find common ground so that we can find -- a deal can be reached in Paris.

We also talked about the South China Sea. We know the position of the United States, (inaudible) position consistent with the role. And we hope that periodic tensions are not escalated, and that we be able to find a negotiated settlement that’s consonant with the principle of international law and that respects the rights of big and small nations, as well.

We also talked about general development. I explained the current situation in Malaysia. The President also raised certain of his views. And we take into account some of his views and concerns. But Malaysia is committed to reforms, and we are committed to reassuring at the same time there’s peace and stability.

So, overall, it’s been a very good meeting, and we appreciate the strengthening of the partnership with the United States on all fronts. And we look forward to working closely together.

Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it is good to be back in Malaysia. And hopefully I’ve set a good example so that future Presidents won’t wait another 50 years before coming back.

As I said at the town hall meeting with young people from all across ASEAN, this part of the world occupies a very special place in my heart. But I’m here as the President of the United States because ASEAN countries represent enormous growth, enormous potential, and are critical partners for the United States in order to achieve our national security, economic and environmental objectives.

And over the last several years, the relationship between the United States and Malaysia has strengthened on a whole variety of fronts. We have, as the Prime Minister indicated, developed a very strong relationship around counterterrorism issues. Malaysia, like Indonesia, is a majority-Muslim country that represents tolerance and peace. And as a consequence, its voice is critical in the debate that is taking place internationally around terrorism.

And Malaysia, as part of the coalition to fight ISIL, I think can be extraordinarily helpful, particularly, as the Prime Minister mentioned, on issues like countering the destructive and perverse narrative that’s developed. And Malaysia’s willingness to host a center that uses all the tools of social media and engagement with scholars and clerics to counter this violent narrative is extremely important and most welcome. So we look forward to working with them on that.

Malaysia is also one of the 12 countries that have joined together around TPP. And we had a good discussion about the progress that’s being made, even as Malaysia debates and hopefully ultimately ratifies the agreement. Malaysia has already started to take some special reforms, for example, around countering human trafficking and other issues that are embedded in the agreement. And so we will continue to work with Malaysia on that front.

We talked about the South China Sea, and this will be a topic with all the ASEAN countries. There are a number of claimants there. The United States is not one of them, but the United States does strongly believe in the need to apply rule of law and international norms to the resolution of maritime disputes. And ASEAN has taken a common position on that. And we look forward to working with them to ensure that those basic rules apply -- because freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce has been really the foundation stone for extraordinary development here in this region.

And as the Prime Minister discussed, we talked about the importance of civil society and issues not just in Malaysia, but in the region generally, and how we can promote those values that will encourage continued development and opportunity and prosperity. And so I very much appreciate this conversation. I think it was constructive. We thank Malaysia for the extraordinary job they’ve done not only here in ASEAN, but also hosting the EAS Summit. The East Asia Summit has become one of the premier mechanisms by which countries can coordinate on a whole range of issues. And we look forward to participation in the summit over the next several days.

So, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your hospitality again, and to the people of Malaysia. Thank you so much. It’s good to be back.

END
8:10 P.M. MYT

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/20/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-najib-malaysia-after

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E47ZnpmCin8 [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/20/remarks-president-and-prime-minister-najib-malaysia


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President Obama Met With Young Muslim Refugees And It Was Absolutely Heartwarming


President Obama speaks alongside former refugees.
SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


President Obama smiles with a 16-year-old refugee girl from Myanmar that was subjected to human trafficking and will now be moving to the United States, following a tour of the Dignity for Children Foundation in Kuala Lumpur. The Foundation serves more than 1,000 poor and vulnerable children, many of them refugees, in a specialized learning environment to help develop children academically and socially to empower them to become productive members of society.
SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


President Obama speaks with children between the ages of seven and nine as he tours the Dignity for Children Foundation.
SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images

They represent "the opposite of terror," he said.

Posted: 11/21/2015 12:20 AM EST

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Pushing back against efforts to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the U.S., President Barack Obama vowed Saturday that his country will be a welcoming place for millions fleeing violence around the world "as long as I'm president."

Obama commented Saturday at a learning center in the Malaysian capital that serves the poor, including some refugees. He met with boys and girls wearing crisp white and black uniforms and neckties as they sat at tables and worked on painting and puzzle projects.

Obama said the youngsters "represent the opposite of terror, the opposite of the type of despicable violence we saw in Mali and Paris."

Most of the children the president met with are Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar to escape persecution by the country's Buddhist majority, with many ending up in Malaysia, where Obama was attending a regional economic summit.

Obama noted that the world is currently focused on the humanitarian tragedy in Syria, where years of civil war have forced millions to flee to other countries to escape the bloodshed. But he said the world must not forget about some 60 million people who have been displaced around the globe.

Last week's Paris attacks have led U.S. lawmakers to seek to halt or delay the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. out of concern that terrorists could try to slip in with them and carry out similar attacks. Obama has rejected that idea and pledged to veto any bill sent to him to block Syrians from entering.

Speaking of the children he had just met with, Obama said: "Anybody who had a chance to see those kids, hopefully you understood the degree to which they're just like our kids. They deserve love and stability and protection."

He said more and more countries are recognizing that they need to do more, vowing that "as long as I'm president we are going to keep stepping up."

The refugees Obama met with have all been cleared to come to the U.S. and have been assigned to specific cities, the White House said.

Obama will confront the refugee debate even more directly when he returns to Washington on Monday. One of his first orders of business will be a White House meeting Tuesday with French President Francois Hollande, who is vowing war against the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, as European nations tighten border controls out of fear that terrorists could strike again.

© 2015 Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-muslim-refugees_564ff9c9e4b0d4093a57f652 [with additional photos, and comments]


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The President Delivers Remarks at the Dignity for Children Foundation

Published on Nov 22, 2015 by The White House

President Obama delivered remarks at the Dignity for Children Foundation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on November 21, 2015.

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Remarks by President Obama at the Dignity for Children Foundation

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
November 21, 2015

11:57 A.M. MYT

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it is a privilege to be here at the Dignity for Children Foundation. I want to thank Pastor Satvinder and his wife, Petrina, who’ve run this foundation for years with the support of private donors and the United Nations. And I want to acknowledge the Malaysian government for its efforts to welcome and support refugees from around the world. Today, Malaysia hosts some 150,000 refugees and asylum seekers from countries as varied as Sudan, Somalia, and Myanmar.

One of the reasons that I wanted to come visit here is because globally, we're seeing an unprecedented number of refugees. The world is rightly focused on the humanitarian tragedy taking place in Syria, but we can't forget that there are millions of other refugees from war-torn parts of the world -- in fact, 60 million people are displaced all around the world.

And today, as you saw, I had a chance to visit with some incredible young people -- those children upstairs, many of them have gone through extraordinary hardships. They’ve taken really tough journeys. Most of the children that we saw in the classroom there were Rohingya, who had fled discrimination and oftentimes ethnic violence in Myanmar. And we're hopeful that with the transition in the politics of Myanmar, that the Rohingya people will begin to get treated fairly and justly in their own country. But in the meantime, the refugees from Myanmar -- again, mostly Rohingya, mostly Muslim -- those young children up there, they’re deserving of the world’s protection and the world’s support.

And anybody who had a chance to see those kids, hopefully you understood the degree to which they’re just like our kids, and they deserve love and protection and stability and an education. They are lucky that they’re here at this wonderful center and getting that kind of support, but there are a lot of children just like them who are not. That's the face of not only refugees from Myanmar, that's the face of Syrian children, and Iraqi children, and children from war-torn regions of Sudan.

And when I sat there and talked to them, and they were drawing and doing their math problems, they were indistinguishable from any child in America. And the notion that somehow we would be fearful of them, that our politics would somehow leave us to turn our sights away from their plight is not representative of the best of who we are.

I just had an incredible conversation with the young men and women around this table who represent refugees from Myanmar and Sudan and from Somalia. These are some of the bravest, hardest-working individuals that you’ll ever meet. They recently completed steps to settle in the United States, and each of them described how incredibly grateful they were to have this opportunity to be part of a country that accepts people from around the world with all their diversity.

This young lady here is 16 years old, fled Myanmar on her own when she was eight, and was subject to human trafficking until the United Nations was able to help her resettle. She’s now 16, and intends to be an advocate on behalf of fellow refugees in the future after she gets an education in the United States.

This is who we want to help. This is the face of people all around the world who still look to the United States as a beacon of hope. When we talk about American leadership, American leadership is us caring about people who have been forgotten, or who have been discriminated against, or who have been tortured, or who have been subject to unspeakable violence, or have been separated from families at very young ages. That's American leadership. That's when we're the shining light on the hill. Not when we respond on the basis of fear.

And if people have a chance to hear the individual stories here, you will see the degree to which they represent the opposite of terrorism and the opposite of the kind of despicable violence that we saw in Mali and in Paris. We should lift them up, give them a hand -- because the more that we are spreading our concern and our values and our hopes and dreams with young individuals like this -- some of whom, even though they look very young, already have children themselves -- then we're creating more and more space for good people around the world to come together and to fight the darker, more violent forces in our world.

So the good news is, is that in the face of this global crisis, more and more countries are recognizing that they need to do more. The United States is currently the world’s largest donor for humanitarian aid. We have shown that we can welcome refugees and ensure our security, that there’s no contradiction. And as long as I'm President, we're going to keep on stepping up and making sure that America remains as it has always been, a place where people who, in other parts of the world, are subject to discrimination or violence, that they have in America a friend and a place of refuge.

And I'm very excited to see what the individuals sitting around this table end up doing in the United States of America, because my suspicion is that they’re going to do great things.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END
12:05 P.M. MYT

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/21/remarks-president-obama-dignity-children-foundation

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD5UgmAm8BY [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/21/president-delivers-remarks-dignity-children-foundation


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A Refugee in the White House: What My Story Reveals About America

By Elizabeth Phu, White House Director for Southeast Asia, Oceania, and East Asian Security Affairs
November 21, 2015

A re-education camp. That’s what they called it?—?a euphemism for jail.

I was born in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. During the war, my mother was a nurse, my father worked for the U.S. Army, and my uncle was an officer in the South Vietnamese Army. As far as the state was concerned, we were on the wrong side of history. My parents, and others like them, lived in constant fear and uncertain of the kind of future their daughter would have under such circumstances.

So when I was two, my parents planned our escape. We tried to flee, but they found us. My mother and I were sent to a re-education camp for 7 months. My father and uncles were locked up for an entire year before my grandparents were able to buy their freedom.

It was clear we couldn’t stay. So, once out, my family made another attempt to leave Vietnam. My parents and grandparents gathered what they could to pay for our passage on an over-crowded boat headed out to sea.

It was a dangerous journey. Twice, we encountered pirates. The second band of pirates attacked and ransacked our boat, took all that we had, and smashed our remaining water tanks. But, we eventually made it to Pulau Bidong, an island in Malaysia.

I was one month shy of my fourth birthday when we finally made it to America on December 3, 1979. My parents had $20 in their pockets and a few friends in Oakland, CA who helped us start our new lives in America. It took one month of food stamps and daily searching, but they found jobs and slowly managed to build a modest life for our family. Our neighbors opened their homes and their hearts to us, teaching us about American traditions and cultures.

I learned English, and I still remember my first English sentence: “Teacher, can you please push me on the swing?” I practiced it over and over so I could say it in school the next day.

Because of my parents, and because of the home and opportunity this country offered us, my American-born sister and I went on to graduate from college and today, I work in the White House for President Obama on his national security team.

Only in America is a story like this possible. I do not want to imagine what kind of life I would have led if the American people hadn’t taken us in.

Right now, there are millions of refugees who are hoping their story can go the same way. The world is facing a refugee crisis right now?—?the worst it’s ever seen since World War II. Sixty million parents and children have been displaced and are now looking for safe haven?—?just like I was as a little girl. Today, I joined President Obama [ https://www.facebook.com/potus/posts/428389327350913 ] at a Foundation in Kuala Lumpur dedicated to helping refugees and some of the city’s poor, providing them education, training, and hope. Thousands of refugees have been helped by the Dignity for Children Foundation and many other organizations providing aid over the years?—?refugees who would be facing a very different fate had Malaysia not welcomed them.

My dad always reminds us that the freedom we have isn’t freely won. We risked everything to flee and run toward these shores, and we must earn it here by making the most of the opportunity America gives us. That’s what so many fleeing the violence and terrorism in Syria and other places around the world are seeking?—?an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.

There are many things that make America great. But to me, above all else, it is our boundless compassion and generosity?—?to defend freedom and protect those seeking it?—?that sets us apart. It’s who we are. I hope that never changes.

https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/a-refugee-in-the-white-house-what-my-story-reveals-about-america-dd1115b8e0f7 [with additional photos from Obama's visit to the Dignity for Children Foundation, and comments]


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Weekly Address: In the Face of Terror, We Stand As One

Published on Nov 21, 2015 by The White House

In this week's address, the Vice President speaks to his and the President’s commitment to protecting our country from terrorists, while also providing refuge to some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

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Remarks of Vice President Joe Biden

Weekly Address
The White House
November 21, 2015

Good morning everyone. This past week we’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist’s depravity.

And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don’t dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There’s nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe.

In the past few weeks though, we’ve heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States.

So let’s set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access.

And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we’ve instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don’t set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted.

Let’s also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help.

To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists’ hands. We know what ISIL – we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us.

Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here’s what he said: “Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution.” So it’s clear. It’s clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of “us versus them.”

They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That’s how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we’ve been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s how we win.

May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/21/weekly-address-face-terror-we-stand-one

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcQl-3cAGI [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/20/weekly-address-face-terror-we-stand-one


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The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear-Mongers Themselves




By Robert S. McElvaine
Posted: 11/21/2015 9:25 am EST Updated: 11/21/2015 10:00 am EST

The fears and knee-jerk reactions that accompany them are understandable in the wake of the terrorist attack in Paris, but the cynical attempts by Republican politicians to gain political advantage by stoking those fears and reactions are reprehensible.

But they are worse than that--far worse. When Donald Trump said [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/19/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-threat-to-country/ ] of the creation of a national database to register all Muslims living in the United States, "I would certainly implement that. Absolutely," he went beyond being merely the stupid, obnoxious jerk that he has long shown himself to be. Most commentators have focused on how such comments might help him with the Republican base, but would assure his defeat in a general election.

But such statements--along with that by Ted Cruz that only Christian refugees [ http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/ted-cruzs-religious-test-for-syrian-refugees ], not Muslims fleeing ISIS, should be allowed into the United States--are not just politically foolish in the longer run than the race for the Republican nomination. They are not just un-American. They are anti-American; they are almost certain to lead to a lot of people, including Americans, being killed.

The statements by Trump and Cruz are tailor-made to be used in ISIS propaganda to recruit more terrorists. ISIS will point out to Muslims around the world that the leading candidate for the presidential nomination of one of the two major political parties in the United States wants to oblige all Muslims in the country to register and carry identification with them. The terrorist group will correctly say that another leading presidential candidate wants to impose a religious test for entry into the United States and exclude Muslims. See, just as we told you, the United States is anti-Islam and you should join us in committing acts of terror against Americans.

What these Republican fear-mongers are saying is despicable. It is evil. It is anti-American. It is aiding and abetting the enemy. They have become major recruiters for ISIS.

Many of us who are progressive Democrats have salivated at the prospect of Trump winning the Republican presidential nomination. But we have reached the point where we, unlike Trump and many other Republicans, have to be responsible and place the safety and well-being of people above political goals. It is now clear that the damage to our country that comes from having Trump continue as the leading Republican candidate outweighs the benefit of having him as the so-easy-to-defeat GOP nominee.

The same is the case with Cruz. Either of these Republicans would lose badly next November, but the irreparable damage their prominence as leading presidential candidates will do in the meantime to the United States and the world through their provision of recruiting points to terrorists requires us to hope that they are eliminated from the Republican field as soon as possible.

When we cower in fear, when we abandon American principles, when we turn away desperate people trying to escape the terrorists, we provide immeasurable assistance to those terrorists and achieve for them their objective of undermining American freedom.

The powerful words Langston Hughes wrote [ https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/let-america-be-america-again ] in 1935 come to mind:

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
...
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
...
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
...
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
...
And make America again!

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-s-mcelvaine/the-only-thing-we-have-to_b_8616226.html [with comment]


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The President Holds a Press Conference in Malaysia

Published on Nov 22, 2015 by The White House

President Obama held a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits on November 22, 2015.

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Press Conference by President Obama

Ritz Carlton
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
November 22, 2015

2:34 P.M. MYT

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody. Let me begin by once again thanking the government and the people of Malaysia for hosting us at the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits. These gatherings are enormous undertakings, but thanks to Malaysia’s leadership and incredible hospitality, they have been a great success.

Earlier this week, as I headed to this region, there was a headline in one of our publications back home that asked -- “Obama’s Asian Distraction?” And the premise seemed to be that this region was somehow disconnected from pressing global events. I could not disagree more. This region is not a distraction from the world’s central challenges, like terrorism. The Asia Pacific is absolutely critical to promoting security, prosperity and human dignity around the world. That’s why I’ve devoted so much of my foreign policy to deepening America’s engagement with this region. And I’m pleased that on this trip we made progress across the board.

With my fellow leaders from Japan, Australia and the Philippines, I reaffirmed that our treaty alliances remain the foundation of regional security. The United States is boosting our support for the Philippines' maritime capabilities and those of our regional partners. At the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits, a key topic was the South China Sea, and many leaders spoke about the need to uphold international principles, including the freedom of navigation and overflight and the peaceful resolution of disputes. And to make sure we keep deepening our partnership here in Southeast Asia, I invited all 10 ASEAN leaders to the United States next year. I’m pleased they accepted, and I look forward to continuing our work.

On the economic front, we worked with our APEC partners to advance a regional economic order where all nations play by the same set of rules. Based on my meeting with our Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, I am optimistic that our 12 nations will approve this pact and that we can increasingly focus on implementing it.

APEC joined the G20 in sending an unequivocal message that we need to reach an ambitious climate change agreement in Paris. I also want to note the landmark step we took this week with more than 30 other nations at the OECD to dramatically reduce subsidies for coal-fired power plants around the world -- which is an important way to advance the fight against climate change.

Of course, given the events of this week, much of my work here in Asia focused on the urgent threat of terrorism. Today, families in too many nations are grieving the senseless loss of their loved ones in the attacks in France and in Mali. As Americans, we remember Nohemi Gonzalez, who was just 23 years old, a design major from California State University. She was in Paris to pursue her dream of designing innovations that would improve the lives of people around the world. And we remember Anita Datar of Maryland. She’s a veteran of the Peace Corps, a mother to her young son, who devoted her life to helping the world’s poor, including women and girls in Mali, lift themselves up with health and education.

Nohemi and Anita embodied the values of service and compassion that no terrorist can extinguish. Their legacy will endure in the family and friends who carry on their work. They remind me of my daughters, or my mother, who, on the one hand, had their whole life ahead of them, and on the other hand, had devoted their lives to helping other people. And it is worth us remembering when we look at the statistics that there are beautiful, wonderful lives behind the terrible death tolls that we see in these places.

Over the years, our friends here in Asia have been victims of terrorism, and many of them are close counterterrorism partners with us. So my time here has also been an opportunity to work with many of our partners in the Asia Pacific that are members of our coalition against ISIL -- Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Which brings me to the point I want to emphasize today. For more than a year, the United States has built and led a broad coalition against ISIL of some 65 nations. Given the frequent focus on America’s leadership of this campaign, sometimes the contributions of our partners are overlooked. In fact, since the G20, a number of our coalition members have stepped up with new commitments. So today I want to take a moment to recognize how our allies and partners help advance every element of our strategy.

Nearly two dozen nations -- among them Turkey and our Arab partners -- contribute in some way to the military campaign, which has taken more than 8,000 strikes against ISIL so far. And as I’ve said, we’re ready to welcome or cooperate with other countries that are determined to truly fight ISIL as well. Fifteen countries have deployed personnel to train and support local forces in Iraq. The United Arab Emirates and Germany are organizing 25 coalition partners in helping to stabilize areas in Iraq liberated from ISIL. Italy is coordinating the multinational effort to train Iraqi police.

On the political front, U.S. leadership brought all the key countries together in the Vienna to discuss a common understanding on the principles for ending the Syrian civil war. On the humanitarian front, the United States is helping to lead the effort to mobilize more aid for the Syrian people, including refugees.

More than 40 countries have now passed or strengthened laws to prevent the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, and 34 nations, including the United States, have arrested foreign terrorist fighters. Saudi Arabia is helping to coordinate the crackdown on ISIL financing. The United Arab Emirates’ new messaging center is working to discredit ISIL’s propaganda, and Malaysia just announced the creation of its own center to do the same. And by joining our summit at the United Nations that we organized this fall, more than 100 nations, more than 20 multilateral institutions and some 120 civil society groups -- including many leaders from Muslim communities around the world -- have become part of a global movement against ISIL and its twisted ideology.

All of which is to say that our coalition will not relent. 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. After all, that’s precisely what terrorists like ISIL want, because, ultimately, that’s the only way that they can win. That’s the very nature of terrorism --they can’t beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid, into changing our patterns of behavior, into panicking, into abandoning our allies and partners, into retreating from the world. And as President, I will not let that happen.

In our diverse societies, everybody can do their part. And we will not give in to fear, or start turning on each other, or treating some people differently because of religion or race or background. That wouldn’t just be a betrayal of our values, it would also feed ISIL’s propaganda -- there assertion, which is absolutely false, that we must absolutely reject, that we are somehow at war with an entire religion. The United States could never be at war with any religion because America is made up of 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 ISIL and undermines our national security. And so, even as we destroy ISIL on the battlefield -- and we will destroy them -- we will take back land that they are currently in. We will cut off their financing. We will hunt down their leadership. We will dismantle their networks and their supply lines, and we will ultimately destroy them. Even as we are in the process of doing that, we want to make sure that we don't lose our own values and our own principles. And we can all do our part by upholding the values of tolerance and diversity and equality that help keep America strong.

The United States will continue to lead this global coalition. We are intensifying our strategy on all fronts, with local partners on the ground. We are going to keep on rolling back ISIL in Iraq and in Syria, and take out more of their leaders and commanders so that they do not threaten us. And we will destroy this terrorist organization.

And we’ll keep working with our allies and partners for the opportunity and justice that helps defeat violent extremism. We’ll keep standing up for the human rights and dignity of all people -- because that is contrary to what these terrorists believe. That's part of how we defeat them. And I'm confident we will succeed. The hateful vision of an organization like ISIL is no match for the strength of nations and people around the world who are united to live in security and peace and in harmony.

So with that, I'm going to take a couple of questions. We'll start with Angela Greiling-Keane of Bloomberg.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You're scheduled to meet this week with President Hollande in Washington to talk about stepping up efforts against ISIL even further. Given that Russia would be part of the coalition that France proposes, have you seen any signs in the past couple days of Russia redirecting its military efforts in Syria to actually focus on ISIL? Are there any circumstances that you could see President Assad remaining in power, even if only temporarily, if that's what it took to effectively have a broad alliance directed at ISIL?

And finally, as you've said, the U.S. won’t work with Russia if their goal is to keep Assad in power. If that's the case, is defeating ISIL or destroying ISIL a realistic goal?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, destroying ISIL is not only a realistic goal, we're going to get it done, and we're going to pursue it with every aspect of American power and with all the coalition partners that we’ve assembled. It’s going to get done.

It will be helpful if Russia directs its focus on ISIL, and I do think that as a consequence of ISIL claiming responsibility for bringing down their plane, there is an increasing awareness on the part of President Putin that ISIL poses a greater threat to them than anything else in the region. The question at this point is whether they can make the strategic adjustment that allows them to be effective partners with us and the other 65 countries who are already part of the counter-ISIL campaign. And we don't know that yet.

So far, over the last several weeks, when they started taking strikes in Syria, their principal targets have been the moderate opposition that they felt threatened Assad. Their principal goal appeared to be -- if you follow the strikes that they took -- to fortify the position of the Assad regime. And that does not add to our efforts against ISIL. In some ways, it strengthens it because ISIL is also fighting many of those groups that the Russians were hitting.

When we were in Turkey I discussed with President Putin, in a brief pull-aside, his need to recognize that he needs to go after the people who killed Russian citizens. And those aren’t the groups that they were currently hitting with strikes. So they're going to have to make an adjustment in terms of what they're prioritizing.

More broadly -- I’ve said this before; I said it to President Putin five years ago and I repeated it to him just a few days ago -- the issue with Assad is not simply the way that he has treated his people. It’s not just a human rights issues. It’s not just a question of supporting somebody who has been ruthlessly dropping bombs on his own civilian populations. As a practical matter, it is not conceivable that Mr. Assad can regain legitimacy in a country in which a large majority of that country despises Assad and will not stop fighting so long as he’s in power, which means that the civil war perpetuates itself.

And so the goal in Vienna is to see if -- with all the countries around the table, including Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and Iran, and Russia, as well as the United States and other countries that have concerns about this -- whether we can arrive at a political transition process that recognizes the need for a new government and can quell the fighting and bring about a ceasefire and allows all of us to refocus our attention on this barbaric organization that is killing so many people.

Russia has not officially committed to a transition of Assad moving out, but they did agree to the political transition process. And I think we’ll find out over the next several weeks whether or not we can bring about that change of perspective with the Russians.

Keep in mind that we all have an interest in maintaining a Syrian state because we don’t want complete chaos. I mean, and there are problems that we’ve seen in, for example, Lebanon, when the machinery of state entirely breaks down. So there’s going to be a need for the international community and the United Nations to work in order to maintain -- maintaining a Syrian state and be able to move forward with a political transition that’s orderly. And that’s going to be difficult, but that’s what we have to focus on.

In terms of the position of the United States and the other 65 members of the coalition, my view on Assad is it will not work to keep him in power. We can’t stop the fighting. Even if I were to cynically say that my priority is ISIL and not removing Assad regardless of the terrible things that he’s done to his people, the United States could not stop the fighting in Syria by those who are opposed to Assad’s rule. And so this is a practical issue, not just a matter of conscience. And I think that there are a large number of members of this coalition, including President Hollande, who agree with me on that.

Michael Shear.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. On a different topic -- when you go to Paris next week for the climate talks, you do so in the shadow of what happened in that city a week ago. Could you talk a little bit about how you think those terror attacks might affect the talks? And substantively, on the talks, can you talk a little bit about concerns that the United States might not have the ability to convince poor countries that nations will help them pay for what they need to do to achieve the climate talks, given especially the Republican opposition back home?

And on one separate matter, could you comment on the investigations that we reported about in our paper this morning into whether or not intelligence officials are altering the assessments of the ISIL campaign to make them seem more rosy?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’ll take the last question first. One of the things I insisted on the day I walked into the Oval Office was that I don’t want intelligence shaded by politics. I don’t want it shaded by the desire to tell a feel-good story. We can’t make good policy unless we’ve got good, accurate, hard-headed, clear-eyed intelligence. I believe that the Department of Defense and all those who head up our intelligence agencies understand that, and that I have made it repeatedly clear to all my top national security advisors that I never want them to hold back, even if the intelligence or their opinions about the intelligence, their analysis or interpretations of the data contradict current policy. So that’s a message that we’ve been adamant about from the start.

I don’t know what we’ll discover with respect to what was going on at CENTCOM. I think that’s something that’s best left to the IG and the processes. I have communicated once again to both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as well as Secretary Carter that I expect that we get to the bottom of whether or not what you describe has been happening.

There are always going to be some disputes with respect to how to interpret facts on the ground. I get intelligence briefings every single day, and there are times where they’re making their best judgments -- they’ll say, with moderate confidence, or low confidence, or high confidence, this is what we think is happening. There may be times where there are disputes internally among various intelligence agencies about that. But I don’t know the details of this. What I do know is my expectation, which is the highest fidelity to facts, data -- the truth.

And if there are disagreements in terms of how folks are interpreting the facts, then that should be reflected in the reports that we receive -- that some folks think this is going on; other folks thinks that’s going on. And that’s part of what I weigh in terms of making decisions.

One last thing I’ll say, though -- as a consumer of this intelligence, it’s not as if I’ve been receiving wonderfully rosy, glowing portraits of what’s been happening in Iraq and Syria over the last year and a half. So to the extent that it’s been shaded -- again, I don’t know the details of what the IG may discover -- but it feels to me like, at my level at least, we’ve had a pretty clear-eyed, sober assessment of where we’ve made real progress and where we have not.

On Paris, a lot of the discussion out here both at the G20, APEC, and finally here at ASEAN, has been that we’ve got to get a strong Paris deal. And I’m optimistic that we can -- 160 countries have now put forward their national targets for how they can reduce emissions; that accounts for about 90 percent of the world’s emitters.

And the key to a strong agreement is going to be that, although there’s going to be differentiation between countries -- the United States doesn't expect that our obligations are identical to Laos, for example, given our levels of development, how much carbon we emit compared to theirs -- that everybody does have a plan, that everybody is accountable to a single set of reporting requirements, that there’s transparency about what each country is doing -- that once we’ve set that architecture in place, in five years time, we can review what we’ve done, turn up the dials in light of additional information and additional technology. In some cases, we may make progress faster than we expected, and we can increase our targets. So the key is to make sure that everybody is doing their part.

You raise one important issue, and that is climate finance. There are going to be a number of countries who recognize the threat of climate change, want to do something about it, but they also have large populations suffering from extreme poverty, who don't have electricity, who don't have the ability to feed their families. And any leader of those countries has to ask themselves, am I going to be sacrificing development and poverty alleviation in order to deal with climate change, particularly since a lot of more developed countries are responsible for at least the current carbon emissions that are causing climate change.

And so the answer to that we’ve all agreed is a finance mechanism to help these countries adapt -- in some cases, leapfrog old technologies so that instead of building old, dirty power plants, here are some smart, clean-energy plants. And we’ll help you through technology transfer and financing so that you can achieve your development goals, but not add to the carbon problem.

So far, with a target of $100 billion, we’ve reached between private and public sources $62 billion, and that target did not need to be met until 2020, based on our original commitments. So we're well on our way to meeting these commitments. And it’s a smart investment for us to make.

Sometimes, back home, critics will argue, there’s no point in us doing something about getting our house in order when it comes to climate change because other countries won’t do anything and it will just mean that we're in a less competitive position. Well, when I met with President Xi and China signed on to an aggressive commitment, that took a major argument away from those critics. We now the two largest emitters signed on. And it makes sense for us and the Chinese and the Europeans and others to help these countries, because, ultimately, if a country like India, for example, with over a billion people, is a major polluter, that's going to affect all of us. If, on the other hand, they're developing and growing in a clean way, that's going to be good for all of us.

I guess you want to know how the atmosphere, as a consequence of the attack in Paris would affect it. Look, I think it is absolutely vital for every country, every leader to send a signal that the viciousness of a handful of killers does not stop the world from doing vital business, and that Paris -- one of the most beautiful, enticing cities in the world -- is not going to be cowered by the violent, demented actions of a few.

And that's part of the overall message that I want to very clearly send the American people. We do not succumb to fear. That's the primary power that these terrorists have over us. They cannot strike a mortal blow against the United States, or against France, or against a country like Malaysia. But they can make people fearful. And that's understandable, because that could have been us; that could have been our families; that could have been our children in these places. And our hearts are broken when we see these images.

But in addition to hunting down terrorists, in addition to effective intelligence, and in addition to missile strikes, and in addition to cutting off financing and all the other things that we're doing, the most powerful tool we have to fight ISIL is to say that we’re not afraid; to not elevate them; to somehow buy into their fantasy that they’re doing something important. They’re a bunch of killers. And there have been people throughout human history who can find an excuse to kill people because they don’t think like them or look like them. And we fight them, and we beat them, and we don’t change our institutions and our culture and our values because of them.

I want to be very clear about this. I am not afraid that ISIL will beat us because of their operations. When I see a headline that says this individual who designed this plot in Paris is a mastermind -- he’s not a mastermind. He found a few other vicious people, got hands on some fairly conventional weapons, and, sadly, it turns out that if you’re willing to die, you can kill a lot of people.

And so it is in our capacity to roll up those networks. Now, we got to take precautions, we have to take it seriously, and we have to go at the heart of the problem that exists inside of Syria and Iraq right now. And we have to address the broader issues that exist in a tiny fraction of the Muslim community. But it is a real problem that leaders -- from Prime Minister Najib to the President of Indonesia and others who have large Muslim populations -- acknowledge. A country like Indonesia has 250 million people; if just a tiny fraction of those are in some ways attracted by a vicious ideology like ISIL’s, then that’s a real problem for us. And so tools like countering this narrative, and Muslim clerics and political leaders and community leaders coming forward and making sure that our children are not being fed this kind of bile, that’s critically important as well.

But in all of this, we cannot respond from fear. And the American people, in the past, have confronted some very real, enormous threats, and we beat them. We vanquished them. This will be no different.

Kevin Corke.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you about what Secretary Carter said about expanding the rules of engagement versus ISIS. What was that conversation like? And what did he mean by that?

And I’d like to ask you also about immigration. The high court is looking into executive action on immigration, as you know. And I understand the sensitivity of it, you don’t want to be prejudicial. But I’m curious, are you where you thought you’d be in immigration reform? And what would you say to family members who say, listen, we did it the right way, we’ve waited our turn in line -- how do these other guys get to skip the line, if you will?

And lastly, the Attorney General announced eight indictments of individuals in the U.S. and Mexico on sex trafficking and related charges. Where is the fight against sex trafficking among the priorities for your administration? Are you where you thought you’d be on that?

Thank you, sir.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay. Kevin, you asked all those questions so nicely, but if everybody is asking three questions, we’re not going to get home. So let me see if I can go through these very quickly.

With respect to rules of engagement, we are in a constant conversation inside the Situation Room about how do we apply force most effectively to go after key ISIL targets, key ISIL leaders, strategic positions, their infrastructure, their supply lines, while minimizing civilian casualties. We do so for two reasons: One, because it’s the right thing to do. There are people who are caught up in Mosul right now, for example, who despise ISIL, who are essentially captive to ISIL, are being brutalized by ISIL. And to the extent that we can avoid them being killed by those of us who are trying to defeat ISIL, that’s a legitimate concern in any military campaign. Because if we’re not careful about it -- and this brings us to the practical element of it -- then you can alienate the very populations that you need to win over, because ultimately those are the folks who are going to have to drive ISIL out, stomp it out all the way.

The good news is, is the U.S. military has become very good at this. I think that there have been some circumstances where the military proceeds in steps and are continually reevaluating whether, well, maybe this is a situation where we can, in fact, take the strike without a lot of civilian casualties.

A good example with the recent trucks that were struck. There may be ways in which warnings can be given to the drivers
-- many of whom may not work for ISIL, they may just be for hire or being forced into it -- so that they better abandon those trucks before we shoot them down, because we’re shooting them down. So that’s the kind of conversation, and that’s been ongoing throughout the process.

With respect to immigration reform, I can’t comment on the ins and outs of the legal case. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I am confident that the rules and executive action that I put forward are squarely within the category of prosecutorial discretion that historically has been under a President’s power. And you’ve got lower courts who’ve disagreed, but we think that past precedent is on our side.

Substantively, I’ve got 11 million people in our countries, many of whom are working, paying taxes, our neighbors, coworkers, friends who’ve lived in the United States for a very long time. We’re not going to deport them, despite what some political leaders may say. It would be contrary to who we are, would be too costly, is too impractical. What we want to do is allow them to get out of the shadows and to get right with the law, pay a fine, go to the back of the line, but hopefully, over time, be contributors to society.

Of course, none of this would be necessary if we just passed the legislation that was passed in the Senate with a bipartisan majority. And I continue to believe that the ultimate solution is going to be one that comes from Congress. And although, during this political season, it may be difficult for Republican leaders in either the House or in the Senate to resuscitate that legislation, my hope is, is that after the election, they will. And in the interim, I’m going to do everything I can to sensibly apply our immigration laws in a way that is reflective of the fact that we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

And just very briefly, with respect to sex trafficking -- this is a critical problem. We take it very seriously. We have entire divisions in our law enforcement agencies that are dedicated to this. I’ve elevated this within the White House so that we have people focusing specifically on ending trafficking. And in our international discussions -- most specifically, out here in Southeast Asia -- we are working very closely to promote mechanisms that will end trafficking.

In fact, TPP, one of the central mechanisms in TPP, to ensure high labor standards and human rights and human dignity, are requirements among the members who are signatories to have in place real, serious, enforceable ways to prevent the kind of human trafficking that causes such hardship and brutality for so many people.

And those of you who were with me when I visited the refugee center yesterday will recall the lovely young 16-year-old who was sitting next to me -- she’s somebody who had been a victim of trafficking. And it reminds you of the terrible toll that is often placed on children, people who are the most vulnerable, people who are least able to protect themselves. And every country has an obligation to put an end to it.

David Nakamura.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You said moments ago that Americans should not give in to fear when it comes to these terrorist attacks. But you also said that the person who may have been the person behind thinking about the attacks is not a mastermind and that anybody who can get their hands on some conventional weapons can -- and is willing to die can blow themselves up. How should Americans feel that if they shouldn’t be scared?

And if I may, The Washington Post and ABC News just this week came out with a poll that said 83 percent of the voting public believes that an attack, a terrorist attack against the U.S. with mass casualties is likely to happen in the near future, and 40 percent say it’s very likely. Does that in your mind -- given the fact that you think the public should not be so fearful -- mean that the terrorists are winning? And do you believe that this is sort of the new normal, and Americans will have to live with this kind of fear?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I think that the American people are right to be concerned, and to expect that we in the government and in law enforcement are doing everything we can to disrupt terrorist attacks, to intercept intelligence that may lead us to individuals who are willing to carry out these attacks, that we make sure that these terrorists are not gaining the kinds of weaponry that would make it easier for them to cause mass attacks. This is a serious problem. And as somebody who more often than I would like has met with or comforted families of victims of terrorism, the losses are real and they're devastating. So this is a serious problem. And we have to work collectively across the board, as we’ve been doing since I became President and since previous administrations identified the kinds of organized terrorist activity like al Qaeda that we’ve seen -- we’ve got to do everything we can to stop it.

But there is a difference between being vigilant and being concerned and taking this seriously and taking precautions and, in some cases, changing our security arrangements, as we’ve done, for example, in aviation -- there’s a difference between smart applications of law enforcement and military and intelligence, and succumbing to the kind of fear that leads us to abandon our values, to abandon how we live, to abandon -- or change how we treat each other.

And the good news is, there, Americans actually have been resilient. They’ve been tested. We had a mass casualty attack on 9/11. And as I said before, I was very proud of the fact that the fundamental nature of America and how we treated each other did not change.

I think we made some bad decisions subsequent to that attack in part based on fear, and that's why we have to be cautious about it. We have to think things through. But overall, the American people went about their lives. Times Square is filled with people -- rightly so. After the Boston bombing attack, folks went right back to the ballpark and sang, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” That's what they needed to do.

And so the message I have is that those of us who are charged with protecting the American people are going to do everything we can to destroy this particular network. Once this network is destroyed -- and it will be -- there may be others that pop up in different parts of the world, and so we're going to have to continue to take seriously how we maintain the infrastructure that we’ve built to prevent this. But it doesn't have to change the fundamental trajectory of the American people. And that we should feel confident about.

And the media needs to help in this. I just want to say -- during the course of this week, a very difficult week, it is understandable that this has been a primary focus. But one of the things that has to happen is how we report on this has to maintain perspective, and not empower in any way these terrorist organizations or elevate them in ways that make it easier for them to recruit or make them stronger.

They're a bunch of killers with good social media. And they are dangerous, and they’ve caused great hardship to people. But the overwhelming majority of people who go about their business every day, the Americans who are building things, and making things, and teaching, and saving lives as firefighters and as police officers -- they're stronger. Our way of life is stronger. We have more to offer -- we represent 99.9 percent of humanity. And that's why we should be confident that we’ll win.

Colleen McCain Nelson.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You've threatened to veto the bill the House passed that would tighten screening procedures for Syrian refugees, but you've left the door open to legislation that is more constructive in the White House’s view.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes.

Q What specific changes to your refugee program would you support? And do you think that Democrats who are calling for a halt to your program are betraying our country’s values, as you've suggested of some Republicans?

And one last thing -- I’m sorry -- separately. Not a four-part question.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Just a two-parter. Okay, go ahead.

Q You met Friday with Prime Minister Najib, who is facing allegations of corruption and human rights violations. And you’d said at your town hall event that you would raise those issues with him when you spoke privately. What was your message to Najib about the investments funds scandal and also about the issue of jailing his political opponents?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay. With respect to the refugee program, Paris just happened a week ago. News moves so fast these days that sometimes we just lose track. It’s been so recent and so pervasive in the news, and 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.

My hope, though, is, is that now that we’ve got some time to catch our breath and take a look at this carefully, people understand that refugees who end up in the United States are the most vetted, scrutinized, thoroughly investigated individuals that ever arrive on American shores; that the process that's been constructed over the course of several administrations on a bipartisan basis is extraordinarily thorough and currently takes between 18 to 24 months for somebody to be approved.

And so although, on its face, the House legislation simply says, well, we can just certify -- and this is not along the lines of some of the more radical proposals that we were hearing earlier in the week from some presidential candidates -- the fact of the matter is, is that if it gums up the work so much, then effectively you don’t end up seeing any refugees admitted. If you layer it with more and more bureaucracy, that doesn’t actually make us safer because it doesn’t do a better job of screening but simply makes it almost impossible to process individuals who are coming in, then you’re effectively ending the refugee program for people who desperately need it.

And when I referred to a betrayal of our values, I was being very specific about some of the commentary that was made that would suggest, for example, that we might let Christians in but not Muslims; that we -- somehow we’re so fearful that a four-year-old orphan might be let in. And those of you who joined me to the refugee center yesterday and you saw those kids, that’s who we’re talking about. If you are a parent and you saw those kids, and you thought about what they had gone through, the notion that we couldn’t find a home for them anywhere in the United States of America, that is contrary to our values.

And the good news is, is that the overwhelming majority of the people who know that we are screening and all the precautions that are already taken -- if they saw those kids, they’d say, yeah, we need to do right by those children.

So with respect to Prime Minister Najib, I don’t comment on investigations happening back in the United States; I certainly am not going to comment on any investigations or legal proceedings that may be taking place in a foreign country where I’m a visitor. But I did raise with Prime Minister Najib -- as I have with many of the leaders here in Southeast Asia, but also many leaders in Africa and Latin America and everywhere we go -- the importance of transparency, accountability, the importance of rooting out corruption -- all of which are impediments to development; all of which hold countries back; all of which contribute to poverty and stunted growth.

And if countries solve those problems, even if they are resource-poor and landlocked, they will do better. And if they don’t solve those problems, it doesn’t matter how much they’re blessed by natural resources, or size, or geography -- they’re going to fail.

And I also emphasized to Prime Minister Najib the importance of civil society and a free press in countries thriving. And every country here is at different levels and stages of development, both social and economic, and we don’t expect that everybody follows the same path that the United States does. But I do think there are some basic principles that are important for us to uphold as friends and partners to the countries that we’re talking to.

The good news is, is that -- take a country like Myanmar, that just went through a historic election after having been subject for 40 years to military rule. They’re not going to immediately be Sweden in terms of their democratic practices, but there is a sea change taking place there, and we want to encourage that and engage it.

And a lot of the work that we do -- the Open Government Partnership that we set up through United Nations, the bilateral work we do in terms of improving transparency, the principles and rules that we’ve embedded in TPP -- all those things are designed to raise the bar, to have people set sights that are a little bit higher. And some will go forward, some will slip back. Paces will vary, but the trajectory is the same -- and that is a world where ordinary people are treated fairly, there’s rule of law, there’s transparency, governments are accountable, people’s voices are heard, women are treated equally, minorities are not discriminated against.

Those are profoundly American values, but I also think they are universal values.

All right. Thank you, everybody. Let’s go home.

END
3:26 P.M. MYT

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/22/remarks-president-obama-press-conference

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS3VmdzUumE [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/11/22/president-holds-press-conference-malaysia


--


My Grandma Used to Lose at Checkers


Thomas Hawk | Flickr [ https://www.flickr.com/photos/51035555243@N01/3117498019 ]

By Rep. Alan Grayson
U.S. Congressman for Florida's 9th District
Posted: 11/22/2015 7:21 pm EST Updated: 11/22/2015 7:59 pm EST

My mother was born in Canada. There's no shame in that. If you don't believe me, then just ask Ted Cruz's two children.

There is a reason why my Mom was born in Canada. Her parents, my grandparents, were refugees from Eastern Europe. And America wouldn't let them in. So they took a right turn, and ended up in Canada.

My Grandma had four siblings who were less fortunate. They had to stay where they were. They died in the Holocaust.

I'm sure that there were right-wingers in America in 1929 (they called them "nativists" back then) who said, "Don't let the Sabins in -- they might be terrorists. Or criminals. Or rapists."

My Grandma was not a terrorist. She just needed somewhere to go, when it wasn't safe for her to stay in Eastern Europe any more.

When I was a small boy, my Grandma taught me how to play checkers. And then she lost to me, over and over again, to show me the thrill of winning.

She was a good person. So was my Grandpa. But if Canada had turned them away, like the United States did, then they both would have died in the concentration camps, and I never would have been born.

Every one of those refugees from Syria is somebody's daughter, somebody's son. And if Life smiles on them, they might one day be somebody's grandma, somebody's grandpa. But only if they have a safe place to live. Otherwise, for them, it will be just ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The only question is whether there would be anyone left alive, to say whatever their version of Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for mourning) is for them.

I didn't fret, brood, fuss or perseverate over that nasty anti-refugee vote last week. That one was as clear as day. You'd have to have a hard, hard heart to know that you have the power of life and death over thousands and thousands of people, and then consign them to death.

As the President noted, a three-year-old orphan is no threat to us. And -- who knows? -- maybe one day that orphan will have a grandchild who serves in Congress, and that Member of Congress will cast his vote in favor of compassion and peace.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson

May there be abundant peace from Heaven,
And good life,
Satisfaction, help, comfort, REFUGE,
Healing, redemption, forgiveness, atonement,
Relief and salvation,
For us and for all His people.
- The Kaddish Prayer

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/my-grandma-used-to-lose-a_b_8623642.html [with comments]


--


Hillary Clinton Is Most Trusted Candidate To Handle Terrorism, Poll Finds
Respondents ranked terrorism as one of the most important issues for 2016.
11/23/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-terrorism-poll_56535eb6e4b0258edb32583a [with comments]


===


Words Of Wisdom From Mr. Rogers For All Of Us After The Paris Tragedy

"If you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope."

By Carol Kuruvilla
Posted: 11/18/2015 01:02 PM EST | Edited: 11/18/2015 01:05 PM EST

It's in times of great catastrophe and heartbreak that we need our friends the most. So in the wake of the attacks on Paris and violence in many other parts of the world, we're turning to our favorite neighbor, Mr. Fred Rogers, for a bit of advice.

"My mother used to say, a long time ago, whenever there would be any... catastrophe that was in the movies or on the air, she would say, 'Always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers. Even just on the sidelines,'" Rogers said in an interview with the Archive of American Television [ http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/fred-rogers ]. "Because if you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope."

Rogers' timeless words were meant to help parents who are struggling to explain tragic events to their children [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/12000620/Paris-attacks-How-to-explain-the-horror-to-children.html ]. But they've also been a source of comfort for adults, often resurfacing [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/04/16/look_for_the_helpers_mister_rogers_quote_a_brief_history.html ] on social media during atrocities, such as the Boston Marathon bombing [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/04/16/look_for_the_helpers_mister_rogers_quote_a_brief_history.html ], as a reminder that there will always be good people in the world who are willing to risk their own lives to help.

The "helpers" weren't hard to find in Paris -- from the man who pulled a pregnant woman to safety [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paris-attacks-pregnant-woman-safe_5649d704e4b060377349bf70 ], to the concertgoers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/video-paris-terror-attack_564728d2e4b0603773492ffa ] and restaurant workers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paris-attacks-everyday-heroes_564b6351e4b06037734b003b ] who dragged injured victims away from the scene. Daniel Psenny, the LeMonde journalist who captured the dramatic footage [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/video-paris-terror-attack_564728d2e4b0603773492ffa ] of people fleeing the Bataclan, eventually turned off his camera and rushed outside to help. He was shot in the arm [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11996451/Paris-terror-attack-Horror-at-rock-concert-where-woman-tells-how-her-ex-lover-died-in-her-arms.html ], but managed to pull a victim inside his building.

Another journalist, Sylvain Lapoix, created a hashtag [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sylvain-lepoix-porteouverte_564b4609e4b045bf3df0cae0 ] that told stranded Parisians where they could find safe lodging.

And in the days after the attack, we saw Parisians waiting in long lines to donate blood [ http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734486/paris-attacks-blood-donation ]. Others rallied to express their support [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paris-muslims-interfaith_5648d60be4b045bf3def8a7e ] for French Muslims, who still [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/11/16/frances-muslims-fear-fresh-backlash-after-terrorist-attacks/ ] fear an uptick in misguided, anti-Muslim acts.

According to Yale psychologist David Rand, the altruistic instinct that emerges in times of tragedy may actually be built [ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151117-the-reason-why-everyday-heroes-emerge-in-atrocities ] into human nature. In lab experiments, he found that the less time people had to think, the more they were willing to be kind and generous.

“When forced to make rapid, intuitive decisions, we tend to act the most selflessly,” he told the BBC. “Our default is to cooperate.”

Check out the video for Mr. Rogers' words of wisdom on how to find hope in the middle of tragedy.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/words-of-wisdom-from-mr-rogers-for-all-of-us-after-the-paris-tragedy_564c91ede4b045bf3df1cf7a [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LGHtc_D328 [as embedded; with comments]


===


note: this is the concluding part 5 of a 5-part post; part 4 is the post to which this is a reply -- the following listing of "see also" links is the same in all 5 parts


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in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding (my last prior big one in this string at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118176080 ) and (any future other) following, see also (linked in):

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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118540487 (the working White House YouTube, with transcript, of that press conference above) and following

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