While Ben Carson ended his column at the conservative Washington Times after he announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, the Tea Party icon remains a columnist at WorldNetDaily, the conspiracy theorist’s outlet of choice.
Carson uses his WND platform today to declare that the U.S. should use “every military apparatus we have: banking facilities, sanctions, you name it,” against ISIS, adding that he “would not hesitate to put boots on the ground, because nothing should be off the table.”
Carson, who once said that he would allow U.S. troops to commit war crimes, suggested that President Obama should launch an anti-ISIS coalition: “We need to be the leader and take serious action. I am extraordinarily concerned about the fact that we are not responding to the barbaric acts that are taking place, as there is a tremendous leadership void. A coalition will form if it has a leader.”
Carson joins a growing right-wing chorus that seems completely unaware that Obama has already created a multinational anti-ISIS coalition which has pounded the group with thousands of airstrikes. If he cared to, he could easily find a daily list of U.S.-led airstrikes and news reports about U.S. support for the effort that has blunted the terrorist group’s momentum.
As the United States works to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, we are also dealing with ISIS as a formidable enemy that threatens our way of life. Every resource available should be used to eradicate the threat of ISIS while it is still in its adolescent stage. That means using every military apparatus we have: banking facilities, sanctions, you name it. And I would not hesitate to put boots on the ground, because nothing should be off the table.
This whole concept of “no boots on the ground because of what happened in Iraq” is silly. The threat Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida posed at that time was on a completely different level from what we are looking at now. It is immature to equate the two in terms of reactions. ISIS wants to destroy our way of life and us. We have two choices: We can sit back and wait for them, or we can use the resources we have to destroy them.
We need to be the leader and take serious action. I am extraordinarily concerned about the fact that we are not responding to the barbaric acts that are taking place, as there is a tremendous leadership void. A coalition will form if it has a leader.
I would commit everything to eliminating ISIS right now. We have to make sure that our military, which is extremely talented and maintains very good leadership, is not put into a compromised position where we are trying to micromanage things. Otherwise, we will be exposing many people to a state of grave danger.
