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Be critical of the current president
PolitiFact rules GOP "false" far more often than Democrats, with
Bachmann one of the worst, a new report reveals Source:Salon Media By Alex Seitz-Wald
Many politicians stretch the truth or obfuscate to some degree or
another — but does one party do it more than the other? According to a
new study from the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason
University the answer is an unequivocal yes. Parsing 100 statements
evaluated by the fact-checking website PolitiFact between Obama’s second
inauguration and this month, the researchers found that claims from
Republican officials were labeled as “false” or “pants on fire” by a
3-to-1 margin, compared to claims from Democratic officials. Conversely,
half as many Republican claims were labeled “entirely true.”
“While
Republicans see a credibility gap in the Obama administration,
PolitiFact rates Republicans as the less credible party,” said CMPA
president Robert Lichter in a press release.
An earlier study from the CMPA found the website rated the Romney
campaign worse than the Obama campaign during the 2012 election. Not
surprisingly, Michele Bachmann is one of the most poorly rated politicians on PolitiFact.
Undoubtably, Republicans would blame this
on “bias,” accusing the fact checkers of operating as little more than
Democratic Party shills. “We’re not going to let our campaign be
dictated by fact-checkers,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse famously declared last summer after the campaign got whacked for running nakedly false ads.
That’s
obviously baloney, but there could be some real sampling error here in
what claims PolitiFact chooses to score and other problems with its
relatively small sample size — 100 claims over just four months. And
there are plenty oflegitimateproblems with the rise of dedicated fact-checking outfits.
Still,
PolitiFact does a pretty good job, and the numbers in the CMPA study
are so overwhelming that a pattern is not hard to discern.
There is an age-old tradition in this country: if you don't like a law and can't get rid of it, look for a loophole.
That's what some companies that don't want to comply with an
important Obamacare requirement have done, and it appears they've hit
pay dirt.
The provision of the law mandating that all new insurance policies
must cover certain "essential" benefits will take effect January 1,
2014. From that date forward, all polices offered on the online
insurance marketplaces in every state must cover ten categories of
benefits that range from prescription drugs and lab services to
hospitalization and maternity and newborn care.
The sponsors of the law hoped the provision was among those that
would all but eliminate the need for Americans to file for bankruptcy
because of medical debt.
The United States is alone among developed countries in having
medical debt as the leading cause of bankruptcies, even among people who
have health insurance. That's because a lot of the policies being sold
today have such limited benefits, high deductibles and annual and
lifetime coverage limits that many people realize after a serious
illness or injury that their policies provide little help in paying
medical bills.
"No longer will American families be a car accident or heart attack
away from bankruptcy," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in
response to the Supreme Court's decision last June upholding the
constitutionality of the law.
But as reported by the Wall Street Journal last week,
corporate loophole hunters have invalidated Reid's statement, which
honestly was an overstatement even then. While Obamacare will make
affordable coverage available to millions of Americans for the first
time, several million others-primarily low and middle-income
workers-will still be left out.
According to the Journal, regulations written by the Obama
administration pertaining to employers are being interpreted by health
insurance benefits consultants as applying only to small businesses that
buy coverage for their employees in the state online marketplaces.
Those marketplaces, also called exchanges, were created for employers
with up to 100 workers and individuals who cannot get coverage through
the workplace.
So the good news is that anyone buying coverage through a state
exchange will have the assurance of knowing that their policies will
cover essential benefits and have lower deductibles than many policies
being sold today.
The bad news for millions of others, however, especially those who
work in low paying jobs at places like chain restaurants, retailers and
nursing homes, is that many of the consumer protections that apply to
policies bought through the exchanges will not apply to them. The
adequacy of their coverage will depend on how much money their employers
are willing to devote to health insurance.
We'll probably never know, but I suspect the language in the law
pertaining to employer-sponsored coverage was written in a purposefully
ambiguous way by lobbyists for insurance companies that have found
selling inadequate coverage quite profitable. Some of the biggest
insurers, including Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealthgroup, bought companies
several years ago that specialize in so-called limited-benefit plans.
You can be certain they would try to protect their investments,
especially considering that limited-benefit plans typically have high
profit margins. That's because the insurance companies that sell them
never have to pay out much in claims.
And that's why so many Americans filing for bankruptcy because of
medical debt actualy have insurance. According to a 2009 study by
Harvard researchers, 78 percent of people who listed medical debt as the
leading reason for their bankruptcy filings had insurance.
Those researchers found that medically related bankruptcies have been
rising steadily-from 8 percent of bankruptcies in 1981 to 62 percent in
2007. Also growing steadily during that timeframe was the number of
underinsured Americans.
The Commonwealth Fund recently estimated that approximately 30
million Americans are enrolled in policies that do not offer adequate
protection. The organization's Biennial Health Insurance Survey of
2012, released last month, found that 46 percent of adults between the
ages of 19 and 64-an estimated 84 million people-did not have insurance
for the full year or were underinsured and consequently unprotected from
high out-of-pocket costs. Two of five adults reported that they had
problems paying their medical bills or were paying off medical debt.
In response to a question last month about the implementation of the
reform law, President Obama said, " ... in a country as wealthy as ours,
nobody should go bankrupt if they get sick." Regrettably, because of
loopholes in Obamacare that undoubtedly will be exploited by employers
more concerned about the bottom line than the health of their
employees, that will continue to be little more than an aspiration for
years to come.
When
you have 21 minutes to speak, two million years seems like a really long time.
But evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in two million years
the human brain has nearly tripled in mass, going from the one-and-a-quarter
pound brain of our ancestor here, Habilis, to the almost three-pound meatloaf
that everybody here has between their ears. What is it about a big brain that
nature was so eager for every one of us to have one?
Well,
it turns out when brains triple in size, they don't just get three times
bigger; they gain new structures. And one of the main reasons our brain got so
big is because it got a new part, called the "frontal lobe." And
particularly, a part called the "pre-frontal cortex." Now what does a
pre-frontal cortex do for you that should justify the entire architectural
overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time?
Well,
it turns out the pre-frontal cortex does lots of things, but one of the most
important things it does is it is an experience simulator. Flight pilots
practice in flight simulators so that they don't make real mistakes in planes.
Human beings have this marvelous adaptation that they can actually have
experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. This is a
trick that none of our ancestors could do, and that no other animal can do
quite like we can. It's a marvelous adaptation. It's up there with opposable
thumbs and standing upright and language as one of the things that got our
species out of the trees and into the shopping mall.
Now -- (Laughter) -- all of you have
done this. I mean, you know, Ben and Jerry's doesn't have liver-and-onion ice
cream, and it's not because they whipped some up, tried it and went,
"Yuck." It's because, without leaving your armchair, you can simulate
that flavor and say "yuck" before you make it.
Let's
see how your experience simulators are working. Let's just run a quick
diagnostic before I proceed with the rest of the talk. Here's two different
futures that I invite you to contemplate, and you can try to simulate them and
tell me which one you think you might prefer. One of them is winning the lottery.
This is about 314 million dollars. And the other is becoming paraplegic. So,
just give it a moment of thought. You probably don't feel like you need a
moment of thought.
Interestingly,
there are data on these two groups of people, data on how happy they are. And
this is exactly what you expected, isn't it? But these aren't the data. I made
these up!
These
are the data. You failed the pop quiz, and you're hardly five minutes into the
lecture. Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs,
and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally
happy with their lives.
Now,
don't feel too bad about failing the first pop quiz, because everybody fails
all of the pop quizzes all of the time. The research that my laboratory has
been doing, that economists and psychologists around the country have been
doing, have revealed something really quite startling to us, something we call
the "impact bias," which is the tendency for the simulator to work
badly. For the simulator to make you believe that different outcomes are more
different than in fact they really are.
From
field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election,
gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion,
passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less
intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. In fact, a
recent study -- this almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life
traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with
only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.
Why?
Because happiness can be synthesized. Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, "I
am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to
riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune
hath not one place to hit me." What kind of remarkable machinery does this
guy have in his head?
Well,
it turns out it's precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have.
Human beings have something that we might think of as a "psychological
immune system." A system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious
cognitive processes, that help them change their views of the world, so that
they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves. Like Sir
Thomas, you have this machine. Unlike Sir Thomas, you seem not to know it.
(Laughter)
We
synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found. Now, you
don't need me to give you too many examples of people synthesizing happiness, I
suspect. Though I'm going to show you some experimental evidence, you don't
have to look very far for evidence.
As a
challenge to myself, since I say this once in a while in lectures, I took a
copy of the New York Times and tried to find some instances of people
synthesizing happiness. And here are three guys synthesizing happiness. "I
am so much better off physically, financially, emotionally, mentally and almost
every other way." "I don't have one minute's regret. It was a
glorious experience." "I believe it turned out for the best."
Who
are these characters who are so damn happy? Well, the first one is Jim Wright.
Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of
Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named
Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost
everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country, he lost everything. He
lost his money; he lost his power. What does he have to say all these years
later about it? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally
and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better
off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there.
Moreese
Bickham is somebody you've never heard of. Moreese Bickham uttered these words
upon being released. He was 78 years old. He spent 37 years in a Louisiana
State Penitentiary for a crime he didn't commit. He was ultimately exonerated,
at the age of 78, through DNA evidence. And what did he have to say about his
experience? "I don't have one minute's regret. It was a glorious
experience." Glorious! This guy is not saying, "Well, you know, there
were some nice guys. They had a gym." It's "glorious," a word we
usually reserve for something like a religious experience.
Harry
S. Langerman uttered these words, and he's somebody you might have known but
didn't, because in 1949 he read a little article in the paper about a hamburger
stand owned by these two brothers named McDonalds. And he thought, "That's
a really neat idea!" So he went to find them. They said, "We can give
you a franchise on this for 3,000 bucks." Harry went back to New York,
asked his brother who's an investment banker to loan him the 3,000 dollars, and
his brother's immortal words were, "You idiot, nobody eats
hamburgers." He wouldn't lend him the money, and of course six months later
Ray Croc had exactly the same idea. It turns out people do eat hamburgers, and
Ray Croc, for a while, became the richest man in America.
And
then finally -- you know, the best of all possible worlds -- some of you
recognize this young photo of Pete Best, who was the original drummer for the
Beatles, until they, you know, sent him out on an errand and snuck away and
picked up Ringo on a tour. Well, in 1994, when Pete Best was interviewed --
yes, he's still a drummer; yes, he's a studio musician -- he had this to say:
"I'm happier than I would have been with the Beatles."
Okay.
There's something important to be learned from these people, and it is the
secret of happiness. Here it is, finally to be revealed. First: accrue wealth,
power, and prestige, then lose it. (Laughter) Second: spend as much of your
life in prison as you possibly can. (Laughter) Third: make somebody else
really, really rich. (Laughter) And finally: never ever join the Beatles.
(Laughter)
OK.
Now I, like Ze Frank, can predict your next thought, which is, "Yeah,
right." Because when people synthesize happiness, as these gentlemen seem
to have done, we all smile at them, but we kind of roll our eyes and say,
"Yeah right, you never really wanted the job." "Oh yeah, right.
You really didn't have that much in common with her, and you figured that out
just about the time she threw the engagement ring in your face."
We
smirk because we believe that synthetic happiness is not of the same quality as
what we might call "natural happiness." What are these terms? Natural
happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is
what we make when we don't get what we wanted. And in our society, we have a
strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind. Why do we have
that belief? Well, it's very simple. What kind of economic engine would keep
churning if we believed that not getting what we want could make us just as
happy as getting it?
With
all apologies to my friend Matthieu Ricard, a shopping mall full of Zen monks
is not going to be particularly profitable because they don't want stuff
enough. I want to suggest to you that synthetic happiness is every bit as real
and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly
what you were aiming for. Now, I'm a scientist, so I'm going to do this not
with rhetoric, but by marinating you in a little bit of data.
Let me
first show you an experimental paradigm that is used to demonstrate the
synthesis of happiness among regular old folks. And this isn't mine. This is a
50-year-old paradigm called the "free choice paradigm." It's very
simple. You bring in, say, six objects, and you ask a subject to rank them from
the most to the least liked. In this case, because the experiment I'm going to
tell you about uses them, these are Monet prints. So, everybody can rank these
Monet prints from the one they like the most, to the one they like the least.
Now we give you a choice: "We happen to have some extra prints in the
closet. We're going to give you one as your prize to take home. We happen to
have number three and number four," we tell the subject. This is a bit of
a difficult choice, because neither one is preferred strongly to the other, but
naturally, people tend to pick number three because they liked it a little
better than number four.
Sometime
later -- it could be 15 minutes; it could be 15 days -- the same stimuli are
put before the subject, and the subject is asked to re-rank the stimuli.
"Tell us how much you like them now." What happens? Watch as happiness
is synthesized. This is the result that has been replicated over and over
again. You're watching happiness be synthesized. Would you like to see it
again? Happiness! "The one I got is really better than I thought! That
other one I didn't get sucks!" (Laughter) That's the synthesis of
happiness.
Now
what's the right response to that? "Yeah, right!" Now, here's the
experiment we did, and I would hope this is going to convince you that
"Yeah, right!" was not the right response.
We did
this experiment with a group of patients who had anterograde amnesia. These are
hospitalized patients. Most of them have Korsakoff's syndrome, a polyneuritic
psychosis that -- they drank way too much, and they can't make new memories.
OK? They remember their childhood, but if you walk in and introduce yourself,
and then leave the room, when you come back, they don't know who you are.
We
took our Monet prints to the hospital. And we asked these patients to rank them
from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least. We then gave
them the choice between number three and number four. Like everybody else, they
said, "Gee, thanks Doc! That's great! I could use a new print. I'll take
number three." We explained we would have number three mailed to them. We
gathered up our materials and we went out of the room, and counted to a half
hour. Back into the room, we say, "Hi, we're back." The patients,
bless them, say, "Ah, Doc, I'm sorry, I've got a memory problem; that's
why I'm here. If I've met you before, I don't remember." "Really,
Jim, you don't remember? I was just here with the Monet prints?"
"Sorry, Doc, I just don't have a clue." "No problem, Jim. All I
want you to do is rank these for me from the one you like the most to the one
you like the least."
What
do they do? Well, let's first check and make sure they're really amnesiac. We
ask these amnesiac patients to tell us which one they own, which one they chose
last time, which one is theirs. And what we find is amnesiac patients just
guess. These are normal controls, where if I did this with you, all of you
would know which print you chose. But if I do this with amnesiac patients, they
don't have a clue. They can't pick their print out of a lineup.
Here's
what normal controls do: they synthesize happiness. Right? This is the change
in liking score, the change from the first time they ranked to the second time
they ranked. Normal controls show -- that was the magic I showed you; now I'm
showing it to you in graphical form -- "The one I own is better than I
thought. The one I didn't own, the one I left behind, is not as good as I
thought." Amnesiacs do exactly the same thing. Think about this result.
These
people like better the one they own, but they don't know they own it.
"Yeah, right" is not the right response! What these people did when
they synthesized happiness is they really, truly changed their affective,
hedonic, aesthetic reactions to that poster. They're not just saying it because
they own it, because they don't know they own it.
Now,
when psychologists show you bars, you know that they are showing you averages
of lots of people. And yet, all of us have this psychological immune system,
this capacity to synthesize happiness, but some of us do this trick better than
others. And some situations allow anybody to do it more effectively than other
situations do. It turns out that freedom -- the ability to make up your mind
and change your mind -- is the friend of natural happiness, because it allows
you to choose among all those delicious futures and find the one that you would
most enjoy. But freedom to choose -- to change and make up your mind -- is the
enemy of synthetic happiness. And I'm going to show you why.
Dilbert
already knows, of course. You're reading the cartoon as I'm talking.
"Dogbert's tech support. How may I abuse you?" "My printer
prints a blank page after every document." "Why would you complain
about getting free paper?" "Free? Aren't you just giving me my own
paper?" "Egad, man! Look at the quality of the free paper compared to
your lousy regular paper! Only a fool or a liar would say that they look the
same!" "Ah! Now that you mention it, it does seem a little
silkier!" "What are you doing?" "I'm helping people accept
the things they cannot change." Indeed.
The
psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck, when we are
trapped. This is the difference between dating and marriage, right? I mean, you
go out on a date with a guy, and he picks his nose; you don't go out on another
date. You're married to a guy and he picks his nose? Yeah, he has a heart of
gold; don't touch the fruitcake. Right? (Laughter) You find a way to be happy
with what's happened. Now what I want to show you is that people don't know
this about themselves, and not knowing this can work to our supreme
disadvantage.
Here's
an experiment we did at Harvard. We created a photography course, a
black-and-white photography course, and we allowed students to come in and
learn how to use a darkroom. So we gave them cameras; they went around campus;
they took 12 pictures of their favorite professors and their dorm room and
their dog, and all the other things they wanted to have Harvard memories of.
They bring us the camera; we make up a contact sheet; they figure out which are
the two best pictures; and we now spend six hours teaching them about
darkrooms. And they blow two of them up, and they have two gorgeous eight-by-10
glossies of meaningful things to them, and we say, "Which one would you
like to give up?" They say, "I have to give one up?" "Oh,
yes. We need one as evidence of the class project. So you have to give me one.
You have to make a choice. You get to keep one, and I get to keep one."
Now,
there are two conditions in this experiment. In one case, the students are
told, "But you know, if you want to change your mind, I'll always have the
other one here, and in the next four days, before I actually mail it to
headquarters, I'll be glad to" -- (Laughter) -- yeah,
"headquarters" -- "I'll be glad to swap it out with you. In fact,
I'll come to your dorm room and give -- just give me an email. Better yet, I'll
check with you. You ever want to change your mind, it's totally
returnable." The other half of the students are told exactly the opposite:
"Make your choice. And by the way, the mail is going out, gosh, in two
minutes, to England. Your picture will be winging its way over the Atlantic.
You will never see it again." Now, half of the students in each of these
conditions are asked to make predictions about how much they're going to come
to like the picture that they keep and the picture they leave behind. Other
students are just sent back to their little dorm rooms and they are measured
over the next three to six days on their liking, satisfaction with the
pictures. And look at what we find.
First
of all, here's what students think is going to happen. They think they're going
to maybe come to like the picture they chose a little more than the one they
left behind, but these are not statistically significant differences. It's a
very small increase, and it doesn't much matter whether they were in the
reversible or irreversible condition.
Wrong-o.
Bad simulators. Because here's what's really happening. Both right before the
swap and five days later, people who are stuck with that picture, who have no
choice, who can never change their mind, like it a lot! And people who are
deliberating -- "Should I return it? Have I gotten the right one? Maybe
this isn't the good one? Maybe I left the good one?" -- have killed
themselves. They don't like their picture, and in fact even after the
opportunity to swap has expired, they still don't like their picture. Why?
Because the reversible condition is not conducive to the synthesis of
happiness.
So
here's the final piece of this experiment. We bring in a whole new group of
naive Harvard students and we say, "You know, we're doing a photography
course, and we can do it one of two ways. We could do it so that when you take
the two pictures, you'd have four days to change your mind, or we're doing
another course where you take the two pictures and you make up your mind right
away and you can never change it. Which course would you like to be in?"
Duh! 66 percent of the students, two-thirds, prefer to be in the course where
they have the opportunity to change their mind. Hello? 66 percent of the
students choose to be in the course in which they will ultimately be deeply
dissatisfied with the picture. Because they do not know the conditions under
which synthetic happiness grows.
The
Bard said everything best, of course, and he's making my point here but he's
making it hyperbolically: "'Tis nothing good or bad / But thinking makes
it so." It's nice poetry, but that can't exactly be right. Is there really
nothing good or bad? Is it really the case that gall bladder surgery and a trip
to Paris are just the same thing? That seems like a one-question IQ test. They
can't be exactly the same.
In
more turgid prose, but closer to the truth, was the father of modern
capitalism, Adam Smith, and he said this. This is worth contemplating:
"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to
arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and
another ... Some of these situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to
others, but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor
which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to
corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from the
remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse for the horror of our own
injustice." In other words: yes, some things are better than others.
We
should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when
those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the
difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded,
it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to
lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value.
When our fears are bounded, we're prudent; we're cautious; we're thoughtful.
When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we're reckless, and we're cowardly.
The
lesson I want to leave you with from these data is that our longings and our
worries are both to some degree overblown, because we have within us the
capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we
choose experience.
A four-part series that gives a rare insight into the country on the move, with history in tow.
Source:Al Jazeera
Following the revolution of 1949, legislation regarding equality was
passed, which was a huge step forward for China at the time.
And the economic reforms of recent decades have further improved the
lives of women, yet it is the only country in the world where more women
than men commit suicide, according to the World Health Organization.
So, as China surges forward, how will society change and what role will the new generation play in this new global powerhouse?
China's economic role in the world is growing at a record pace, and it is also now a key player in world politics .
The country has no doubt become a global manufacturing giant, but how
will it deal with issues on the home front such as increase in
pollution and water shortages?
Although it has been confronted with tough environmental problems, efforts are being made to solve these.
In the final episode of this series, through a range of interviews
from Africa, the EU, the US, and China, we find out how it is
positioning itself as a major global player.
Hi, everybody. This week, I’ve been speaking about America’s national security – our past, our present, and our future.
On Thursday, I outlined the future of our fight against terrorism – the threats we face, and the way in which we will meet them.
On Friday, I went to Annapolis to celebrate the extraordinary young
men and women of the United States Naval Academy’s Class of 2013 – the
sailors and Marines who will not only lead that fight, but who will lead
our country for decades to come.
And on Monday, we celebrate Memorial Day. Unofficially, it’s the
start of summer – a chance for us to spend some time with family and
friends, at barbecues or the beach, getting a little fun and relaxation
in before heading back to work.
It’s also a day on which we set aside some time, on our own or with
our families, to honor and remember all the men and women who have given
their lives in service to this country we love.
They are heroes, each and every one. They gave America the most
precious thing they had – “the last full measure of devotion.” And
because they did, we are who we are today – a free and prosperous
nation, the greatest in the world.
At a time when only about one percent of the American people bear the
burden of our defense, the service and sacrifice of our men and women
in uniform isn’t always readily apparent. That’s partly because our
soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and coast guardsmen are so skilled at
what they do. It’s also because those who serve tend to do so
quietly. They don’t seek the limelight. They don’t serve for our
admiration, or even our gratitude. They risk their lives, and many give
their lives, for something larger than themselves or any of us: the
ideals of liberty and justice that make America a beacon of hope for the
world.
That’s been true throughout our history – from our earliest days,
when a tiny band of revolutionaries stood up to an Empire, to our 9/11
Generation, which continues to serve and sacrifice today.
Every time a threat has risen, Americans have risen to meet it. And
because of that courage – that willingness to fight, and even die –
America endures.
That is the purpose of Memorial Day. To remember with gratitude the
countless men and women who gave their lives so we could know peace and
live in freedom.
And we must do more than remember.
We must care for the loved ones that our fallen service members have left behind.
We must make sure all our veterans have the care and benefits they’ve earned, and the jobs and opportunity they deserve.
We must be there for the military families whose loved ones are in harm’s way – for they serve as well.
And above all, we must make sure that the men and women of our armed
forces have the support they need to achieve their missions safely at
home and abroad.
The young men and women I met at the Naval Academy this week know the
meaning of service. They’ve studied the heroes of our history.
They’ve chosen to follow in their footsteps – to stand their watch, man a
ship, lead a platoon. They are doing their part. And each of us must
do ours.
So this weekend, as we commemorate Memorial Day, I ask you to hold all our fallen heroes in your hearts.
And every day, let us work together to preserve what their sacrifices
achieved – to make our country even stronger, even more fair, even more
free. That is our mission. It is our obligation. And it is our
privilege, as the heirs of those who came before us, and as citizens of
the United States of America.
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated.
It is a great honor to return to the National Defense
University. Here, at Fort McNair, Americans have served in uniform
since 1791 -- standing guard in the earliest days of the Republic, and
contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.
For over two centuries, the United States has been bound
together by founding documents that defined who we are as Americans, and
served as our compass through every type of change. Matters of war and
peace are no different. Americans are deeply ambivalent about war, but
having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for
freedom. From the Civil War to our struggle against fascism, on through
the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, battlefields have changed
and technology has evolved. But our commitment to constitutional
principles has weathered every war, and every war has come to an end.
With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a new dawn of
democracy took hold abroad, and a decade of peace and prosperity arrived
here at home. And for a moment, it seemed the 21st century would be a
tranquil time. And then, on September 11, 2001, we were shaken out of
complacency. Thousands were taken from us, as clouds of fire and metal
and ash descended upon a sun-filled morning. This was a different kind
of war. No armies came to our shores, and our military was not the
principal target. Instead, a group of terrorists came to kill as many
civilians as they could.
And so our nation went to war. We have now been at war
for well over a decade. I won’t review the full history. What is clear
is that we quickly drove al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but then shifted
our focus and began a new war in Iraq. And this carried significant
consequences for our fight against al Qaeda, our standing in the world,
and -- to this day -- our interests in a vital region.
Meanwhile, we strengthened our defenses -- hardening
targets, tightening transportation security, giving law enforcement new
tools to prevent terror. Most of these changes were sound. Some caused
inconvenience. But some, like expanded surveillance, raised difficult
questions about the balance that we strike between our interests in
security and our values of privacy. And in some cases, I believe we
compromised our basic values -- by using torture to interrogate our
enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule
of law.
So after I took office, we stepped up the war against al
Qaeda but we also sought to change its course. We relentlessly targeted
al Qaeda’s leadership. We ended the war in Iraq, and brought nearly
150,000 troops home. We pursued a new strategy in Afghanistan, and
increased our training of Afghan forces. We unequivocally banned
torture, affirmed our commitment to civilian courts, worked to align our
policies with the rule of law, and expanded our consultations with
Congress.
Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top
lieutenants. There have been no large-scale attacks on the United
States, and our homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in
harm’s way, and over the next 19 months they will continue to come
home. Our alliances are strong, and so is our standing in the world.
In sum, we are safer because of our efforts.
Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by
terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded
of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and
evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of
experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard
questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should
confront them.
And these questions matter to every American.
For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over a
trillion dollars on war, helping to explode our deficits and
constraining our ability to nation-build here at home. Our
servicemembers and their families have sacrificed far more on our
behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many
more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the
shadows of battle back home. From our use of drones to the detention of
terrorist suspects, the decisions that we are making now will define
the type of nation -- and world -- that we leave to our children.
So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature
and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be
mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its
freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any
President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase
the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out
every danger to our open society. But what we can do -- what we must do
-- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it
less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining
the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy,
we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom.
That begins with understanding the current threat that we face.
Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is
on the path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time
thinking about their own safety than plotting against us. They did not
direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston. They’ve not carried out a
successful attack on our homeland since 9/11.
Instead, what we’ve seen is the emergence of various al
Qaeda affiliates. From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North Africa, the
threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the Arabian
Peninsula -- AQAP -- the most active in plotting against our homeland.
And while none of AQAP’s efforts approach the scale of 9/11, they have
continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an
airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.
Unrest in the Arab world has also allowed extremists to
gain a foothold in countries like Libya and Syria. But here, too, there
are differences from 9/11. In some cases, we continue to confront
state-sponsored networks like Hezbollah that engage in acts of terror to
achieve political goals. Other of these groups are simply collections
of local militias or extremists interested in seizing territory. And
while we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a
transnational threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and
regions where they are based. And that means we'll face more localized
threats like what we saw in Benghazi, or the BP oil facility in
Algeria, in which local operatives -- perhaps in loose affiliation with
regional networks -- launch periodic attacks against Western diplomats,
companies, and other soft targets, or resort to kidnapping and other
criminal enterprises to fund their operations.
And finally, we face a real threat from radicalized
individuals here in the United States.
Whether it’s a shooter at a Sikh
Temple in Wisconsin, a plane flying into a building in Texas, or the
extremists who killed 168 people at the Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, America has confronted many forms of violent extremism in our
history. Deranged or alienated individuals -- often U.S. citizens or
legal residents -- can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by
larger notions of violent jihad. And that pull towards extremism
appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the
Boston Marathon.
So that’s the current threat -- lethal yet less capable al
Qaeda affiliates; threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses
abroad; homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We have
to take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront
them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale
of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before
9/11.
In the 1980s, we lost Americans to terrorism at our
Embassy in Beirut; at our Marine Barracks in Lebanon; on a cruise ship
at sea; at a disco in Berlin; and on a Pan Am flight -- Flight 103 --
over Lockerbie. In the 1990s, we lost Americans to terrorism at the
World Trade Center; at our military facilities in Saudi Arabia; and at
our Embassy in Kenya. These attacks were all brutal; they were all
deadly; and we learned that left unchecked, these threats can grow. But
if dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise
to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.
Moreover, we have to recognize that these threats don’t
arise in a vacuum. Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is
fueled by a common ideology -- a belief by some extremists that Islam is
in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence
against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of
a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the
United States is not at war with Islam. And this ideology is rejected
by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of
terrorist attacks.
Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age when
ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to
terrorism can’t depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all
elements of national power to win a battle of wills, a battle of
ideas. So what I want to discuss here today is the components of such a
comprehensive counterterrorism strategy.
First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.
In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan
responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home.
Our combat mission will come to an end. And we will work with the
Afghan government to train security forces, and sustain a
counterterrorism force, which ensures that al Qaeda can never again
establish a safe haven to launch attacks against us or our allies.
Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a
boundless “global war on terror,” but rather as a series of persistent,
targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists
that threaten America. In many cases, this will involve partnerships
with other countries. Already, thousands of Pakistani soldiers have
lost their lives fighting extremists. In Yemen, we are supporting
security forces that have reclaimed territory from AQAP. In Somalia, we
helped a coalition of African nations push al-Shabaab out of its
strongholds. In Mali, we’re providing military aid to French-led
intervention to push back al Qaeda in the Maghreb, and help the people
of Mali reclaim their future.
Much of our best counterterrorism cooperation results in
the gathering and sharing of intelligence, the arrest and prosecution of
terrorists. And that’s how a Somali terrorist apprehended off the
coast of Yemen is now in a prison in New York. That’s how we worked
with European allies to disrupt plots from Denmark to Germany to the
United Kingdom. That’s how intelligence collected with Saudi Arabia
helped us stop a cargo plane from being blown up over the Atlantic.
These partnerships work.
But despite our strong preference for the detention and
prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed. Al
Qaeda and its affiliates try to gain foothold in some of the most
distant and unforgiving places on Earth. They take refuge in remote
tribal regions. They hide in caves and walled compounds. They train in
empty deserts and rugged mountains.
In some of these places -- such as parts of Somalia and
Yemen -- the state only has the most tenuous reach into the territory.
In other cases, the state lacks the capacity or will to take action.
And it’s also not possible for America to simply deploy a team of
Special Forces to capture every terrorist. Even when such an approach
may be possible, there are places where it would pose profound risks to
our troops and local civilians -- where a terrorist compound cannot be
breached without triggering a firefight with surrounding tribal
communities, for example, that pose no threat to us; times when putting
U.S. boots on the ground may trigger a major international crisis.
To put it another way, our operation in Pakistan against
Osama bin Laden cannot be the norm. The risks in that case were
immense. The likelihood of capture, although that was our preference,
was remote given the certainty that our folks would confront
resistance. The fact that we did not find ourselves confronted with
civilian casualties, or embroiled in an extended firefight, was a
testament to the meticulous planning and professionalism of our Special
Forces, but it also depended on some luck. And it was supported by
massive infrastructure in Afghanistan.
And even then, the cost to our relationship with Pakistan
-- and the backlash among the Pakistani public over encroachment on
their territory -- was so severe that we are just now beginning to
rebuild this important partnership.
So it is in this context that the United States has taken
lethal, targeted action against al Qaeda and its associated forces,
including with remotely piloted aircraft commonly referred to as
drones.
As was true in previous armed conflicts, this new
technology raises profound questions -- about who is targeted, and why;
about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies; about
the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about
accountability and morality. So let me address these questions.
To begin with, our actions are effective. Don’t take my
word for it. In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we
found that he wrote, “We could lose the reserves to enemy’s air
strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.” Other
communications from al Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. Dozens of
highly skilled al Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers and
operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been
disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, U.S. transit
systems, European cities and our troops in Afghanistan. Simply put,
these strikes have saved lives.
Moreover, America’s actions are legal. We were attacked
on 9/11. Within a week, Congress overwhelmingly authorized the use of
force. Under domestic law, and international law, the United States is
at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces. We are
at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans
as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war -- a
war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense.
And yet, as our fight enters a new phase, America’s
legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion.
To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it
is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that
gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the
discipline to constrain that power -- or risk abusing it. And that’s
why, over the last four years, my administration has worked vigorously
to establish a framework that governs our use of force against
terrorists –- insisting upon clear guidelines, oversight and
accountability that is now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that
I signed yesterday.
In the Afghan war theater, we must -- and will -- continue
to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of
2014. And that means we will continue to take strikes against high
value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to
support attacks on coalition forces. But by the end of 2014, we will no
longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve
made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.
Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its
associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily
constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to
capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain,
interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we
choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and
respect for state sovereignty.
America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we
act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the
American people, and when there are no other governments capable of
effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken,
there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured
-- the highest standard we can set.
Now, this last point is critical, because much of the
criticism about drone strikes -- both here at home and abroad --
understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a
wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental
reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have
resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And
for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can
justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those
deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the
civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these
heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the
face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties -- not
just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the
very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a
foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians,
and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs
any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing
nothing is not an option.
Where foreign governments cannot or will not effectively
stop terrorism in their territory, the primary alternative to targeted
lethal action would be the use of conventional military options. As
I’ve already said, even small special operations carry enormous risks.
Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and
are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage.
And invasions of these territories lead us to be viewed as occupying
armies, unleash a torrent of unintended consequences, are difficult to
contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately
empower those who thrive on violent conflict.
So it is false to assert that putting boots on the ground
is less likely to result in civilian deaths or less likely to create
enemies in the Muslim world. The results would be more U.S. deaths,
more Black Hawks down, more confrontations with local populations, and
an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily
escalate into new wars.
Yes, the conflict with al Qaeda, like all armed conflict,
invites tragedy. But by narrowly targeting our action against those who
want to kill us and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the
course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life.
Our efforts must be measured against the history of
putting American troops in dist
ant lands among hostile populations. In
Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of civilians died in a war where the
boundaries of battle were blurred. In Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the
extraordinary courage and discipline of our troops, thousands of
civilians have been killed. So neither conventional military action nor
waiting for attacks to occur offers moral safe harbor, and neither does
a sole reliance on law enforcement in territories that have no
functioning police or security services -- and indeed, have no
functioning law.
Now, this is not to say that the risks are not real. Any
U.S. military action in foreign lands risks creating more enemies and
impacts public opinion overseas. Moreover, our laws constrain the power
of the President even during wartime, and I have taken an oath to
defend the Constitution of the United States. The very precision of
drone strikes and the necessary secrecy often involved in such actions
can end up shielding our government from the public scrutiny that a
troop deployment invites. It can also lead a President and his team to
view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism.
And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of
all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began
briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate
committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress
authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America
takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted
an American citizen -- Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations
for AQAP.
This week, I authorized the declassification of this
action, and the deaths of three other Americans in drone strikes, to
facilitate transparency and debate on this issue and to dismiss some of
the more outlandish claims that have been made. For the record, I do
not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and
kill any U.S. citizen -- with a drone, or with a shotgun -- without due
process, nor should any President deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.
But when a U.S. citizen goes abroad to wage war against
America and is actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens, and when neither
the United States, nor our partners are in a position to capture him
before he carries out a plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a
shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be
protected from a SWAT team.
That’s who Anwar Awlaki was -- he was continuously trying
to kill people. He helped oversee the 2010 plot to detonate explosive
devices on two U.S.-bound cargo planes. He was involved in planning to
blow up an airliner in 2009. When Farouk Abdulmutallab -- the Christmas
Day bomber -- went to Yemen in 2009, Awlaki hosted him, approved his
suicide operation, helped him tape a martyrdom video to be shown after
the attack, and his last instructions were to blow up the airplane when
it was over American soil. I would have detained and prosecuted Awlaki
if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we couldn’t. And
as President, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized
the strike that took him out.
Of course, the targeting of any American raises
constitutional issues that are not present in other strikes -- which is
why my administration submitted information about Awlaki to the
Department of Justice months before Awlaki was killed, and briefed the
Congress before this strike as well. But the high threshold that we’ve
set for taking lethal action applies to all potential terrorist targets,
regardless of whether or not they are American citizens. This
threshold respects the inherent dignity of every human life. Alongside
the decision to put our men and women in uniform in harm’s way, the
decision to use force against individuals or groups -- even against a
sworn enemy of the United States -- is the hardest thing I do as
President. But these decisions must be made, given my responsibility to
protect the American people.
Going forward, I’ve asked my administration to review
proposals to extend oversight of lethal actions outside of warzones that
go beyond our reporting to Congress. Each option has virtues in
theory, but poses difficulties in practice. For example, the
establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorize lethal action
has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the
process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and
judicial authority. Another idea that’s been suggested -- the
establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch
-- avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into
national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public
confidence in the process. But despite these challenges, I look forward
to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for
increased oversight.
I believe, however, that the use of force must be seen as
part of a larger discussion we need to have about a comprehensive
counterterrorism strategy -- because for all the focus on the use of
force, force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere
that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy
that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war -- through
drones or Special Forces or troop deployments -- will prove
self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.
So the next element of our strategy involves addressing
the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism -- from
North Africa to South Asia. As we’ve learned this past decade, this is a
vast and complex undertaking. We must be humble in our expectation
that we can quickly resolve deep-rooted problems like poverty and
sectarian hatred. Moreover, no two countries are alike, and some will
undergo chaotic change before things get better. But our security and
our values demand that we make the effort.
This means patiently supporting transitions to democracy
in places like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya -- because the peaceful
realization of individual aspirations will serve as a rebuke to violent
extremists. We must strengthen the opposition in Syria, while isolating
extremist elements -- because the end of a tyrant must not give way to
the tyranny of terrorism. We are actively working to promote peace
between Israelis and Palestinians -- because it is right and because
such a peace could help reshape attitudes in the region. And we must
help countries modernize economies, upgrade education, and encourage
entrepreneurship -- because American leadership has always been elevated
by our ability to connect with people’s hopes, and not simply their
fears.
And success on all these fronts requires sustained
engagement, but it will also require resources. I know that foreign aid
is one of the least popular expenditures that there is. That’s true
for Democrats and Republicans -- I’ve seen the polling -- even though it
amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget. In fact, a lot
of folks think it’s 25 percent, if you ask people on the streets. Less
than one percent -- still wildly unpopular. But foreign assistance
cannot be viewed as charity. It is fundamental to our national
security. And it’s fundamental to any sensible long-term strategy to
battle extremism.
Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we
spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent. For
what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be
training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between
Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools
in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize
extremists. That has to be part of our strategy.
Moreover, America cannot carry out this work if we don’t
have diplomats serving in some very dangerous places. Over the past
decade, we have strengthened security at our embassies, and I am
implementing every recommendation of the Accountability Review Board,
which found unacceptable failures in Benghazi. I’ve called on Congress
to fully fund these efforts to bolster security and harden facilities,
improve intelligence, and facilitate a quicker response time from our
military if a crisis emerges.
But even after we take these steps, some irreducible risks
to our diplomats will remain. This is the price of being the world’s
most powerful nation, particularly as a wave of change washes over the
Arab World. And in balancing the trade4offs between security and active
diplomacy, I firmly believe that any retreat from challenging regions
will only increase the dangers that we face in the long run. And that's
why we should be grateful to those diplomats who are willing to serve.
Targeted action against terrorists, effective
partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance -- through such a
comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of
large-scale attacks on the homeland and mitigate threats to Americans
overseas. But as we guard against dangers from abroad, we cannot
neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders.
As I said earlier, this threat is not new. But technology
and the Internet increase its frequency and in some cases its
lethality. Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit
themselves to a violent agenda, and learn how to kill without leaving
their home. To address this threat, two years ago my administration did
a comprehensive review and engaged with law enforcement.
And the best way to prevent violent extremism inspired by
violent jihadists is to work with the Muslim American community --
which has consistently rejected terrorism -- to identify signs of
radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is
drifting towards violence. And these partnerships can only work when we
recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family.
In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard
against any encroachments on their civil liberties is the ultimate
rebuke to those who say that we’re at war with Islam.
Thwarting homegrown plots presents particular challenges
in part because of our proud commitment to civil liberties for all who
call America home. That’s why, in the years to come, we will have to
keep working hard to strike the appropriate balance between our need for
security and preserving those freedoms that make us who we are. That
means reviewing the authorities of law enforcement, so we can intercept
new types of communication, but also build in privacy protections to
prevent abuse.
That means that -- even after Boston -- we do not deport
someone or throw somebody in prison in the absence of evidence. That
means putting careful constraints on the tools the government uses to
protect sensitive information, such as the state secrets doctrine. And
that means finally having a strong Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to
review those issues where our counterterrorism efforts and our values
may come into tension.
The Justice Department’s investigation of national
security leaks offers a recent example of the challenges involved in
striking the right balance between our security and our open society.
As Commander-in-Chief, I believe we must keep information secret that
protects our operations and our people in the field. To do so, we must
enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their
commitment to protect classified information. But a free press is also
essential for our democracy. That’s who we are. And I’m troubled by
the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative
journalism that holds government accountable.
Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their
jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. And that’s why
I’ve called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against
government overreach. And I’ve raised these issues with the Attorney
General, who shares my concerns. So he has agreed to review existing
Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve
reporters, and he’ll convene a group of media organizations to hear
their concerns as part of that review. And I’ve directed the Attorney
General to report back to me by July 12th.
Now, all these issues remind us that the choices we make
about war can impact -- in sometimes unintended ways -- the openness and
freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to
engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force,
or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without
keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.
The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old. The Afghan war is
coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups
like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every
collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible
threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking, our
definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need
to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for
traditional armed conflicts between nation states.
So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American
people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate.
And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our
systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue.
But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises.
That’s what our democracy demands.
And that brings me to my final topic: the detention of
terrorist suspects. I’m going to repeat one more time: As a matter of
policy, the preference of the United States is to capture terrorist
suspects. When we do detain a suspect, we interrogate them. And if the
suspect can be prosecuted, we decide whether to try him in a civilian
court or a military commission.
During the past decade, the vast majority of those
detained by our military were captured on the battlefield. In Iraq, we
turned over thousands of prisoners as we ended the war. In Afghanistan,
we have transitioned detention facilities to the Afghans, as part of
the process of restoring Afghan sovereignty. So we bring law of war
detention to an end, and we are committed to prosecuting terrorists
wherever we can.
The glaring exception to this time-tested approach is the
detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The original premise for opening
GTMO -- that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention --
was found unconstitutional five years ago. In the meantime, GTMO has
become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of
law. Our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will
end up at GTMO.
During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150 million each
year to imprison 166 people -- almost $1 million per prisoner. And the
Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million
to keep GTMO open at a time when we’re cutting investments in education
and research here at home, and when the Pentagon is struggling with
sequester and budget cuts.
As President, I have tried to close GTMO. I transferred
67 detainees to other countries before Congress imposed restrictions to
effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other
countries or imprisoning them here in the United States.
These restrictions make no sense. After all, under
President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from GTMO with
Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John
McCain supported closing GTMO -- this was a bipartisan issue. No person
has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here in the
United States -- ever. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for
terrorism or terrorism-related offenses, including some folks who are
more dangerous than most GTMO detainees. They're in our prisons.
And given my administration’s relentless pursuit of al
Qaeda’s leadership, there is no justification beyond politics for
Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never
have been opened. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Excuse me, President Obama --
THE PRESIDENT: So -- let me finish, ma'am. So today, once again --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are 102 people on a hunger strike. These are desperate people.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm about to address it, ma'am, but you've got to let me speak. I'm about to address it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You're our Commander-In-Chief --
THE PRESIDENT: Let me address it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- you an close Guantanamo Bay.
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you let me address it, ma'am.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: There’s still prisoners --
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I'm going to do.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That includes 57 Yemenis.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. (Applause.) Ma'am, thank you. You should let me finish my sentence.
Today, I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. (Applause.)
I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site
in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I’m
appointing a new senior envoy at the State Department and Defense
Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of
detainees to third countries.
I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen
so we can review them on a case-by-case basis. To the greatest extent
possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to
other countries.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- prisoners already. Release them today.
THE PRESIDENT: Where appropriate, we will bring
terrorists to justice in our courts and our military justice system.
And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: It needs to be --
THE PRESIDENT: Now, ma'am, let me finish. Let me finish,
ma'am. Part of free speech is you being able to speak, but also, you
listening and me being able to speak. (Applause.)
Now, even after we take these steps one issue will remain
-- just how to deal with those GTMO detainees who we know have
participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted,
for example, because the evidence against them has been compromised or
is inadmissible in a court of law. But once we commit to a process of
closing GTMO, I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved,
consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.
I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a
harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism and those
of us who fail to end it. Imagine a future -- 10 years from now or 20
years from now -- when the United States of America is still holding
people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is
not part of our country. Look at the current situation, where we are
force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. I'm
willing to cut the young lady who interrupted me some slack because it's
worth being passionate about. Is this who we are? Is that something
our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our
children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.
We have prosecuted scores of terrorists in our courts.
That includes Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up an
airplane over Detroit; and Faisal Shahzad, who put a car bomb in Times
Square. It's in a court of law that we will try Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who
is accused of bombing the Boston Marathon. Richard Reid, the shoe
bomber, is, as we speak, serving a life sentence in a maximum security
prison here in the United States. In sentencing Reid, Judge William
Young told him, “The way we treat you…is the measure of our own
liberties.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How about Abdulmutallab -- locking up a
16-year-old -- is that the way we treat a 16-year old? (Inaudible) --
can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA?
Can you stop the
signature strikes killing people on the basis of suspicious activities?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re addressing that, ma’am.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- thousands of Muslims that got killed
-- will you compensate the innocent families -- that will make us safer
here at home. I love my country. I love (inaudible) --
THE PRESIDENT: I think that -- and I’m going off script,
as you might expect here. (Laughter and applause.) The voice of that
woman is worth paying attention to. (Applause.) Obviously, I do not
agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn’t listening to
me in much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the
suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.
When that judge sentenced Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, he
went on to point to the American flag that flew in the courtroom. “That
flag,” he said, “will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That
flag still stands for freedom.”
So, America, we’ve faced down dangers far greater than al
Qaeda. By staying true to the values of our founding, and by using our
constitutional compass, we have overcome slavery and Civil War and
fascism and communism. In just these last few years as President, I’ve
watched the American people bounce back from painful recession, mass
shootings, natural disasters like the recent tornados that devastated
Oklahoma. These events were heartbreaking; they shook our communities
to the core. But because of the resilience of the American people,
these events could not come close to breaking us.
I think of Lauren Manning, the 9/11 survivor who had
severe burns over 80 percent of her body, who said, “That’s my reality. I
put a Band-Aid on it, literally, and I move on.”
I think of the New Yorkers who filled Times Square the day after an attempted car bomb as if nothing had happened.
I think of the proud Pakistani parents who, after their
daughter was invited to the White House, wrote to us, “We have raised an
American Muslim daughter to dream big and never give up because it does
pay off.”
I think of all the wounded warriors rebuilding their lives, and helping other vets to find jobs.
I think of the runner planning to do the 2014 Boston
Marathon, who said, “Next year, you’re going to have more people than
ever. Determination is not something to be messed with.”
That’s who the American people are -- determined, and not
to be messed with. And now we need a strategy and a politics that
reflects this resilient spirit.
Our victory against terrorism won’t be measured in a
surrender ceremony at a battleship, or a statue being pulled to the
ground. Victory will be measured in parents taking their kids to
school; immigrants coming to our shores; fans taking in a ballgame; a
veteran starting a business; a bustling city street; a citizen shouting
her concerns at a President.
The quiet determination; that strength of character and
bond of fellowship; that refutation of fear -- that is both our sword
and our shield. And long after the current messengers of hate have
faded from the world’s memory, alongside the brutal despots, and
deranged madmen, and ruthless demagogues who litter history -- the flag
of the United States will still wave from small-town cemeteries to
national monuments, to distant outposts abroad. And that flag will
still stand for freedom.
Thank you very, everybody. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)