"What he meant to say, actually, was the opposite of what you heard ..."
Posted on 11/15/2015 3:22:19 PM PST by rickmichaels
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was forced several times today to clarify a comment made by President Obama that aired Friday morning hours before ISIS terrorists murdered more than 125 in Paris.
'I don't think they're gaining strength,' Obama had said of the terrorist organization on Good Morning America. 'What is true is that from the start our goal has been first to contain them and we have contained them.'
Contained, said Rhodes, was simply meant in terms of geography.
'The president was responding very specifically to the geographic expansion of ISIL in Iraq and Syria,' Rhodes told ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace also brought up Obama's comments, asking Rhodes if the administration had 'profoundly misjudged' the ISIS threat in light of the violent Parisian attacks. Rhodes noted that taking out ISIS would be a 'longterm challenge.' 'What the president was referring to very specifically was we had to stop their geographic advance in Iraq and Syria, where they were gaining more territory,' Rhodes said. 'We had done that.' Rhodes pointed out that ISIS had been rolled back in Northern Iraq and Northern and Eastern Syria.
'That's necessary to shrink the space they operate in,' he said, noting that the fighters 'very much depend on their safe havens' in the two war-torn countries.
'But that does not eliminate the threat as you saw so tragically in Paris,' Rhodes said.
CNN's Jake Tapper, host of State of the Union, acted even more incredulous when posing questions to Rhodes.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thanks to Obama, Islam is not reverenced on the Moon yet.
Everywhere else, yes.
That is a really stupid argument to make that ISIS has been contained geographically.
It implies ISIS has operatives throughout the world.
Obama needs to stop digging when he is in the hole.
And by saying something stupid like this, the story remains in the news that much longer.
Everything Obama utters ... has an expiration date.
that recent collegegate JIHADIST..in the USA.......had an isis flag in his apartment..
so much for containing and IDEA.
Obies such a troublesome twit
Obama's in luck - butt kissers in the American Press have already accepted the lame excuse...
"What he meant to say, actually, was the opposite of what you heard ..."
The analysts pretty much said his administration was out of touch and a day late and a dollar short in taking the fight to the enemy's current strategies.
the term contain in conjunction with ISIS .... refer to the thousands of syrian “refugees” imported into Noirleans
we do in fact ..CONTAIN a good number of ISIS jihadists within our very own borders.... Id be willing to bet
Contained them to Louisiana, he did.
“Cleanup on aisle forty four”...
Why are they called what they want to be called? Why not call them RIT, Renegade Islamist Terrorists?????
I guess he considers France ISIS territory.
A pox on his village!
Ben Rhodes: JV waterboy.
*****************************
Understudy to Josh Earnest.
If they are contained in shrinking areas of Iraq and Syria, could someone please explain how they attacked Paris and why so many who were plotting attacks were arrested across Europe?
Contained geographically. As if that really means anything when ISIS is reaching out geographically to attack the West everywhere.
Rhodes is a typical Obama admin lightweight. MFA in creative writing and making foreign policy for the US.
Understudy to Josh Earnest.
Worse. Rhodes is an NSC guy. Makes policy.
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