ORLANDO, Florida — As deadly attacks rocked Paris Friday night, Dr. Ben Carson said if he were president, he’d “probably” deploy U.S. forces in the Middle East to fight terrorism.
“Boots on the ground would probably be important,” Carson told reporters after speaking at the Sunshine Summit here, a gathering organized by the Republican Party of Florida. Carson argued that he’d use “every resource known to man” in his fight “not to contain them but to eliminate them before they eliminate us.”
“I would be working with our allies and working with every resources known to man, in terms of economic resources, in terms of covert resources, overt resources, military resources, things-they-don’t-know-about resources,” Carson added.
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Carson, a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination who has struggled on foreign policy issues. spoke about the Paris attacks, Syrian refugees and Israel.
He argued that the U.S. needed to be a better friend to Israel and even incorrectly said that the Star of David is on the $1 bill. (While the stars above the eagle on the backside of the dollar bill do make up a hexagram, the theory that this is a Jewish symbol has been debunked.)
Carson also told reporters that it would be wrong to let refugees fleeing war-torn Middle Eastern nations enter the U.S.
“To bring them here when he we have tons of our own people who are suffering economically doesn’t make any sense,” he said, arguing that there would be terrorists among the refugees. Carson said that that it would be “malpractice” on the part of jihadists if they didn’t infiltrate the refugees groups.
Jane Timm