KEENE, N.H. -- Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate, thinks it's "ridiculous" that President Barack Obama is trying to prevent certain civilian deaths in the war against the Islamic State. Specifically, he scoffs at the administration for being hesitant to take out fuel truck drivers in ISIS-held territories out of concern that those drivers are civilians and not actually members of the militant group.
But Ben Carson wants you to know he is not a monster. He also doesn’t believe in indiscriminately bombing the people driving those trucks because he’s a “very humanitarian person.”
"Believe me, I don't want to just bomb people," he told a crowd in Keene, New Hampshire, this weekend.
Instead, Carson has found a better way: You just tell those people driving those trucks that they’re going to get bombed if they drive those trucks.
“I would just say, ‘Hey, guys, any truck coming out of there is getting bombed. So if you don’t want your people to die, don’t put them in the truck.’ You know, that makes a lot more sense to me,” Carson explained.
So, to wit, Carson doesn't agree with how the Obama administration is dealing with ISIS oil truck drivers. But he also doesn't believe that these truck drivers should be capriciously bombed. So, he's going to give them a friendly heads up.
All of which raises the question: What happens if the people driving those trucks ignore that warning? Would President Carson follow the “ridiculous” Obama strategy of declining to bomb the trucks and allowing the drivers on their merry way? Or would he take the path he describes as inhumane and bomb them anyway?
Alas, the discussion didn't get to that critical juncture. But you can watch Carson explain this policy, as well as his interpretation of the history of Islam, in the video above. The truck driver riff comes around 3:40.
It is also worth noting that the U.S. already has a policy of dropping leaflets before bombing, warning the drivers that they're at risk. As The New York Times reported in November, "To reduce the risk of harming civilians, two F-15 warplanes dropped leaflets about an hour before the attack warning drivers to abandon their vehicles, and strafing runs were conducted to reinforce the message."
This story has been updated to note the U.S. policy of dropping leaflets before bombing trucks.