When asked if American soldiers should be sent to fight in Syria, Carson said, “The fact of the matter is we broke it. We broke it, we own it. We can’t run away from it”. “The point being there are people who are radical jihadists and they want to destroy us”.
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Between filing for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary and a celebratory vanilla milkshake from Burger King, Ben Carson was quizzed by reporters Friday over what to do with Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, proposing the United States should have a “database” of every person entering the United States and suggesting Muslim mosques should be subject to increased scrutiny.
Carson’s campaign said they had about 400 supporters show up at the State House for his filing.
Carson said that to “protect my children”, he would “call the humane society and hopefully they can come take this dog away and create a safe environment once again”. The heads of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Department and the director of national intelligence would have to certify to Congress that each refugee “is not a threat to the security of the United States”.
In Mobile, Carson said, “Islam itself is not necessarily our adversary”. “& should you keep stagnant and moreover you allege, ‘Well, I am up on it, & now I am going to go chill out, ‘ you are not going to be very competent”.
“American citizens are already in a database”, he said.
“I don’t sit there with a tally sheet and say, “Oh he’s been here three more times than I have so I gotta get there, ‘” Carson said. You’re going to have to be a lot more sophisticated than that now”. But he continues to surround himself with people and engage people that can enhance his foreign policy.
“He is not flawless”, Carson adviser Armstrong Williams told Bloomberg News last week.
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“Yes, we should have in place protocols to deal with that 2 a.m. call in the morning, but we also need to have the ability to think quickly and to be flexible”, Carson said, noting that he likely has more early morning calls than anyone else running for president, and greater experience making life or death decisions. The chief critic, former Central Intelligence Agency agent Duane Clarridge, told The NY Times that Carson struggles with Middle Eastern affairs.
