Superior in telling us that AQ is defeated because of his "great" foreign policy, yes. Which, is absolute bullshit.

"On the way to defeat." Seeing how you can't quantify what's "on the way to defeat" and how vague that statement really is, and how it was said during a political campaign, I'm going to say it was a politician being a politician and you're making up your own remarks to slog the president. Let's at least go off what's actually said. Is al-Qaeda actually defeated? Depends how you look at it. There is no one al-Qaeda. There is no central body for these groups. So if defeat means these groups all have to be gone then they've by no means been defeated. If we're talking about the al-Qaeda group Osama bin Laden was part of then that group has been pretty much wiped out.

No. Not really. From what I posted in a group about this very topic: "While the current administration likes to say that al-Qaeda has been beaten, or that the Taliban momentum has been "broken"; this could not be further from the truth. Al-Qaeda, which it has suffered losses, continues to be a large threat on the international scale. We are currently seeing a trend of resurgence in Iraq, a country where we pulled out our entire force after the war-leaving nothing to seriously handle the existential counter-terrorism threats. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been reemerging in various parts of the country, especially in places like Al-Anbar province (source). It should be noted that while AQI is reemerging in al-Anbar, they will never likely achieve the same amount of popularity they had there pre-Sunni Awakening (Sunni villages in al-Anbar, who opposed AQI, were given money, training, and support to fight off insurgents in their towns) period. However, al-Anbar is Iraq's largest province and it shares a very lengthy border with Syria. As a result of this convenience, AQI is using Anbar as a staging ground to wage their fighting in Syria. Syria is complicated issue when it comes to al-Qaeda. They cannot explicitly say that they are in Syria. If they were to come out and explicitly saying that they are committing terrorist acts in Syria, this gives Bashar al-Assad (leader of Syria-considered a dictator) a legitimate reason to say his opposition are terrorists. However, al-Qaeda is smarter than this; they know that they cannot possibly do this. So what do they do? They make an offshoot. The Al-Nusra Front, while they have never explicitly said so, they are Al-Qaeda in Syria (source). As I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, they cannot openly associate themselves with AQ do to obvious political pressure from the person they are fighting, but there is more. Not only will Bashar al-Assad legitimatize his crackdown, but also the Al-Nusra Front will lose its funding from the countries of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Their ranks are full of experienced AQ fighters from various conflicts ranging from Bosnia to Afghanistan, but the majority is either Syrian jihadists or members of AQI. Al-Qaeda is an adaptive group; they are able to feed off chaos, better themselves, and come back stronger. This is exactly what they are doing in Syria, and they will continue to do so, for so long as this conflict occurs. When and if the conflict spills over into neighboring Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, they will be there to reap the benefits of that chaos. Afghanistan is also a very tricky situation. The administration likes to say their surge of 2009 has pushed back the Taliban, and that al-Qaeda is non-existent in this country. This is also not factually correct. The upcoming withdraw of US troops in 2014 is bringing in al-Qaeda fighters from everywhere, eager to recapture towns and provinces they lost (source). They are coming, of course, from Pakistan (their tribal areas-Federally Administered Tribal Areas) and are calling the eastern provinces of Afghanistan home. Sadly, they are also coming from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who is an ally of both the Taliban and AQ, is the largest enemy force in northern Afghanistan, after the Taliban. These forces would not have been able to come back to Afghanistan so easily, if the surge that the administration authorized in 2009 would have done its job correctly. They were supposed to apply the counter-insurgency doctrine (COIN) we abide by to various eastern provinces; instead, they focused on the southern provinces. This mistake has caused the comeback of AQ to happen. The Taliban, much like AQ, is not on its last leg, nor is it dead. Days before the Secretary of Defense made a speech saying that the Taliban's momentum is gone (back in September of 2012), the Taliban launched an attack on a Marine base in Helmand province. The attack destroyed six Harrier jets and killed two US troops, including the commander of the Harrier squadron. In 2011, IED attacks were at an all-time high. Data released by the UN shows that the Taliban (and their allies) are responsible for over 75% of all civilian casualties (source). Sadly, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are just the tip of the iceberg in this serious problem. The most dangerous direct off-shoot of al-Qaeda is in Yemen; this cell is rather axiomatic by the name of "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula". Anwar al-Awlaki, who had U.S citizenship as he was born in New Mexico, is to blame for making this branch of AQ the most active branch. They have surpassed the core group's threat of an attack on the US mainland and are now the biggest threat to us when it comes to terrorism. This group is to blame for the 2000 USS Cole bombing, the failed underwear bomb plot, the failed cargo plane bomb plot in 2010, and numerous other bombings and assassinations. They have recently taken over portions of southern Yemen and are fighting the Yemeni government for control of these areas. The United States is also involved in this fight, offering military advisors and drone support to the Yemeni government. We are all probably aware that Somalia has been in a constant state of civil war since the early 90's. However, in 2008, the war took a turn for the worse. A group splintered off from the Islamic Courts Union, (a rival faction to the then official government of Somalia, the Transitional Federal Government) this group was called "al-Shabaab" or "The Youth". They were originally comprised of veteran fighters in the civil war and when Ethiopia withdrew in 2009, they went on the offensive. They quickly gained ground and eventually controlled almost half of Somalia, imposing their strict interpretation of Sharia. In 2012, the al-Shabaab leaders pledged their allegiance to the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Since then, al-Shabaab has become a global threat as their ranks no longer just have veteran Somalia fighters; they now have thousands of foreign fighters, including an Alabama born US citizen. They also might have possible links with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, and quite possibly the state of Eritrea. In recent months, a campaign spear-headed by the African Union, with assistance from the United States, they have been gradually losing ground. I mentioned al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in the last paragraph and I feel I should elaborate on them as well. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week, you probably know the France has sent troops to Mali. This is because AQIM and an allied group Ansar Dine, along with Tuareg rebels, have literally taken over the northern half of Mali (roughly the size of Texas) and were mounting an offensive to take more ground in the southern half. AQIM, along with their allies, took advantage of a coup in Mali last year, and quickly started taking ground in the northern half. Mali quickly became the next "Afghanistan" as AQ finally had another large safe-haven where they can safely train, facilitate, and even use as a base for one of their jihad "missions". The Benghazi attack last September is widely believed to have been undertaken by al-Qaeda, and it is quite possible the safe-haven in Mali is where those fighters received training. If France, and soon to be the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) do not take back the northern half, it will be interesting, to say the least, what will happen next with this branch of al-Qaeda. I could go on and on about where al-Qaeda and their allies are active in, like Africa, Pakistan, the South Pacific, Europe, etcetera, but I think I have made my point. Despite what the current administration will claim, AQ is just a threat as ever; not only to us, but the majority of the world. The War on Terrorism has been, and will be, a long war; but, it can be "won". No, it will not be won in the traditional sense of one faction basically quitting; instead, it will be won when the terrorists are rendered combat ineffective. To make matters tougher, it is a two-front war. One front on the battlegrounds; the other in the hearts and minds of average, everyday citizens, who sadly fall victim to this war. More drone strikes will have to take place, but so will more education to people who live in areas like the tribal regions of Pakistan. More raids undertaken by Special Operations Forces (SOF) will have to happen, but so will more humanitarian missions to areas like Iraq. More countries will have to step up their involvements in this war, for two reasons. One, the cost of operations against these militants will be much cheaper if multilateral operations take place. Two, if local forces are able to drive out a threat this makes the local populace more confident in their own military. As a result, they see that they, themselves, can rid their country of this problem, and hopefully they take to it. It is better for a counter-insurgency mission to be won by local troops than won by foreign, especially in today's war when part of the reason these militants fight is because of foreign involvement. More funding and training will have to go to countries and groups in the War on Terror, especially in places like al-Anbar province in Iraq, where the Sunni Awakening actively fights AQI. To reiterate, al-Qaeda and their allies, are not defeated nor are they "no longer a threat"."

And I'm to say what to this article you copy and pasted? There are multiple al-Qaeda groups out there so al-Qaeda, if that's every group calling themselves that, is not defeated. If it's the al-Qaeda responsible for 9/11,which is typically what people mean when they say al-Qaeda it seems, is pretty much wiped out. And what the hell is "on the road to defeat" even mean? How do you quantify that? So I don't get the uproar or mischaracterizing Obama's remarks. Maybe it can come off as out of touch? I suppose. Ultimately it's meaningless jargon intended to fire up the old patriotic spirit during a political campaign. No one said "al-Qaeda is defeated" or "al-Qaeda is no longer a threat".