Ben Carson Has No Clue About Foreign Policy…NONE!

I do not doubt for a single moment that potential 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson is a brilliant man. He’s a freaking neurosurgeon, after all! But is he Presidential material? A recent interview he gave on the topic of foreign policy would suggest he isn’t.

Dr. Carson was appearing on conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt’s show Wednesday evening, and he not only flubbed some softball questions he was asked about American international policy, he also managed to completely conflate the true origins of the Islamic faith.

Let’s start with foreign policy. Discussing the current aggression by Russia in Ukraine and whether or not NATO should go to war if Russia threatens the Baltic states, Carson said:

“We need to convince them to get involved in NATO and strengthen NATO.”

Uh, excuse me, Doctor, but the Baltic states–Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania–are already members of NATO. Hewitt also pointed this out to Carson, who tried to cover his tracks by saying he misunderstood the question:

“Well, when you were saying Baltic state, I thought you were continuing our conversation about the former components of the Soviet Union. Obviously, there’s only three Baltic states.”

If it’s so darn obvious, then why didn’t you know the answer to the question?! But Carson just tried to play off the whole episode with a complaint that there was so much information to learn when you decide to run for the post of Most Powerful Man in the World that it gets to be a bit much and he wasn’t going to get bogged down in all the minutiae:

“I have to go back to something that I feel is a fundamental problem, and that is we spend too much time trying to get into these little details that are easily within the purview of the experts that you have available to you. And I think where we get lost is not being able to define what our real mission is, and not being able to strategize in terms of how do we defeat our enemies, how do we support our allies?”

You mean like the allies in the Baltic states we need to get involved in NATO even though they already are?

Hewitt then brought to Carson’s attention a remark the doctor had recently made about the disputes in Islam going back as far as the biblical story of Jacob and Esau. Hewitt wanted to know how that could be possible when the Prophet Mohammed lived in 632 A.D. and the biblical story of Jacob and Esau took place in the era Before Christ (B.C). Carson replied with this bit of nonsense:

“I’m just saying that the conflict has been ongoing for thousands of years. It is not anything new, is what I’m saying.”

One thing I know with certainty: If this guy happens, by some freak or accident of history, to be elected President, we are all so screwed!

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.

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