Washington: President Barack Obama has said the United States is the only country to galvanize the world community for any major crisis, referring to the formation of two broad international coalition against ISIL and Ebola.
"The United States is the only country that can galvanize the world community to help do something about it," Obama said at a Democratic Party fund raiser event in Chicago. Obama said a few recent events have raised the anxiety level of the people.
"One, internationally, we're seeing a tumultuous time in the Middle East. And although the direct threats against us are not imminent, what is true is, is that what's happening with Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant(ISIL), what's happening with respect to Iraq, with Syria, has a destabilizing effect that we have to pay attention to," he said.
The Ebola crisis, which has been the only story here in the United States for the last couple of weeks, is not an outbreak and epidemic here, he said.
"We've had one case of a person dying from Ebola that brought it in from outside; two nurses who, thankfully, seem to be doing better. To give you some sense of perspective, around 20,000 to 30,000 people die of flu every year. So far we've got one person dying of Ebola. But people are understandably concerned, in part because they've seen what's happened in Africa," he said.
"And this is a virulent disease and it is up to us, once again, to mobilize the world's community to do something about it, to make sure that not only we're helping on a humanitarian basis those countries but we're not seeing a continued epidemic and outbreak that can ultimately have a serious impact here," he added.
"The situation in Ukraine and Russia's aggression has concerned people. So you have this sense of uncertainty overseas," he further said.
“Those are things that we can get done, and we'll chip away at these problems and eventually they'll get resolved," he opined.
