In his final address to the troops as commander-in-chief, President Obama took the opportunity to cap off his eight-year presidency by blaming President George W. Bush, climate change and the Second Amendment as reasons why ISIS nutballs seem to keep popping out of the ground like daisies. Because, of course, the rise of a radical Islamic terrorist group can’t possibly be the fault of Obama’s failed policies.
Obama took aim at Bush pretty early on in his speech, setting the former president up to take the fall for ISIS even before the group ever existed in its current form.
“And in shaping our response, we refused to repeat some of the mistakes of the 2003 invasion that have helped to give rise to the organization that became ISIL in the first place,” Obama said of his counterattacks against the group, which appear to have worked about as well as pouring napalm on a forest fire.
But lest the never-ending crutch that is the Bush administration fail to serve as an adequate excuse for why crazy Muslims are chopping people’s heads off right and left, Obama also pointed to a changing environment to explain radical terrorism.
“Sectarian conflicts rage. A changing climate is increasing competition for food and water,” Obama declared, basically likening violent zealots to a couple of lions fighting over a watering hole. Really, it’s not their fault.
Aside from a president who hasn’t been in office for nearly a decade and a whole mess of CO2 in the atmosphere, the right of the American people to keep and bear arms also holds some responsibility for why we can’t simply eliminate ISIS.
According to Obama, “We will not achieve the kind of clearly defined victory comparable to those that we won in previous wars against nations. We won’t have a scene of the Emperor of Japan and Douglas MacArthur in a surrender. And the reason we won’t have that is because technology makes it impossible to completely shield impressionable minds from violent ideologies. And somebody who is trying to kill and willing to be killed is dangerous, particularly when we live in a country where it’s very easy for that person to buy a very powerful weapon.”
Yes. Yes, gun rights -- this must be the problem! Because terrorists never think to, you know, attack a bunch of people with a knife.
In fact, just about everything under the sun can and should be blamed for the rise of ISIS other than Obama himself and, of course, the untouchable religion of Islam. Because terrorist groups that commit atrocities in the name of Mohammed and Allah are after all, nothing more than “false prophets [who] are peddling a vision of Islam that is irreconcilable with tolerance and modernity and basic science.”
At least, thus sayeth Obama.
But of course, if none of these excuses satisfy in justifying the past, one can always just point to future failures and make excuses for those, too.
“Now, to say that we’ve made progress is not to say that the job is done,” Obama said in his speech. “We know that a deadly threat persists. We know that in some form this violent extremism will be with us for years to come.”
Basically, it’s not Obama's fault that ISIS exists and that they haven’t been put down like rabid dogs. And don’t expect it to change anytime soon, because...coal plants. Or something.
Then again, Trump did just appoint retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as his incoming Secretary of Defense. You know, the guy famous for saying stuff like this...
“Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.”
Hopefully, this recent smart move that will put an end to all these flimsy excuses – and, maybe, an end to ISIS itself.
If you've got 45 minutes and like watching people desperately point fingers, here's Obama's full speech: