WASHINGTON, March 24, 2009 – The threat of terrorist attacks from al-Qaida and their affiliates “is not a threat that’s going away,” President Barack Obama said today at the White House. “We have to take it seriously.”

Speaking at a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Obama said he believes the American and Australian people understand this brutal fact and the need to continue standing up to terrorists.

For Americans, “What’s been burned into our memory is the events of 9/11,” the president said.

“But I think the Australian people remember what happened in Bali,” he said, referring to the 2002 bombings in Indonesia that killed 202 people, including many Australians.

“That’s not something that we will forget,” Obama said. “And as a consequence, it’s important for us to stay on the offensive and to dismantle these terrorist organizations, wherever they are.”

That’s a difficult task, he conceded. “It’s one that requires us to stay focused. It requires effective, coordinated action. It requires a recognition that we will not just solve these problems militarily.” The United States must become “much more effective diplomatically” and “much more effective on the development front,” he said. “And my expectation would be that over the next several years, you are going to see a more comprehensive strategy, a more focused strategy, a more disciplined strategy to achieve our common goals.”
Source: US Central Command, by Donna Miles, AFPS 

The ” The United States must become “much more effective diplomatically” is the part I worry about. Diplomats has their place and are useful in the broad context of recognition. But a diplomat who relies on diplomacy for diploymacy’s sake, unwilling to use the military or recognize the fact that in some situations the military must be used, is very bad thing for the USA.