Ben, I really think that you would make a good president. Sometimes.
I understand that you were ill during the Third Republican Presidential Debates so you may be forgiven for not being on your “A” game … but you have to pick the pace up if you want to be at the head of the list next November … just, at this point, a little over 10 months away.
During the debate your opponents painted themselves as rabid hawks … and that is going to let Hillary clean their clocks. It’s okay to go a little retard … but they went full retard and she is going to kick their asses for it.
The US has been involved in active war in the Middle East for roughly 17 years now and, let’s face it, if we haven’t been able to achieve a military victory in that time … no matter whose fault it was … we need to admit that this course of action hasn’t worked.
That’s all … it just isn’t working. Plunging us into WW3 by tackling the Russians won’t make things any better.
Here’s my suggestion … lay off the war talk and lay the diplomatic sauce on extra thick. Despite what she might think, diplomacy is Hillary’s weak spot … she sucks at it and has proven that she sucks at it. Hell, Teo Leoni is better at it than Hillary ever was even in her late night fantasies.
So get off the predictable “war wagon” and take the battle to Hillary on the diplomatic front.
Suggest GOOD ways to keep the Muslim fanatics contained in the Middle East. Suggest “just enough” military involvement to box ISIS into the two or three stronghold cities.
Suggest deploying our National Guard troops to protect our borders with the same battle-ready stance as they have been deployed in the Middle East. Treat the border incursions as what they are … invasions. Draw a line in the sand that reaches upwards 100 miles and defend that line with force and conviction. (To do otherwise is to surrender our sovereignty.) Send a similar number of the National Guard to the northern border states with the same mission. Use troops from within a state to guard that state … let the troops defend their own backyards and there will be no lack of dedication to the task. Apply that principle to the coastal states, as well, and rotate the troops from the interior states through the other states so that no state will bear an inordinate burden. Beef up the Coast Guard, too. The single goal for all forces should be to interdict human trafficking and turn it around and to interdict drug trafficking and unequivocally stop it from reaching its customers.
Give the people in those cities still held by ISIS time to evacuate … maybe as much as 6 months … and a place to evacuate to within their own country … and then level those cities — make them look like Nineveh or The Temple in Jerusalem after the Romans took it apart for the gold used as mortar. Not one stone standing on another … just mortar dust and silence.
Go through those refugee camps with a fine-toothed comb and weed out the ISIS loyalists. Execute them.
Let the silence of the would-be caliphate be heard around the world.
ONCE THE BORDERS ARE CLOSED TO FURTHER INFILTRATION we can deal with remaining radical terrorists on a case by case basis.
Mr. Carson … stop following Mr. Trump. You’ve allowed yourself to become a “me too” candidate and Trump cannot beat Hillary Clinton. (Nor, because of his bombast and arrogance, is he an improvement over her or Obama … hubris got us into this mess, hubris will NOT get us out of it!)
Strike out on your own (speak plainly and use simple words!) and let it be known that, while you agree with him on some things, the US has fought a war with no victor for too many years already and taking a drained military into a third world war would be suicide for us. Picking a fight with either Russia or China at this time would be a disaster for us. Bring us a period of (relative) peace during which to lick our wounds, heal and rebuild both our military might and our economic might. Put an end to the open-ended military misadventures and rebuild our people. If we can convert to solar, wind and wave power to any appreciable degree, then we can sell our oil stocks and pay our debts. I sincerely think, based on the words actually said at the most recent debate, that you and Carly Fiorina … especially if you begin to campaign as a duo NOW … can prevail. “Carson / Carly 2016” has a nice ting to it … why not give her a call and see if she’s interested?
"A republic, if you can keep it" 