Ben Carson says aversion to killing 'innocent women and children' is just 'political correctness'

Ben Carson talks to the media at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach, FL.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

last updated 10 November 2015

Ben Carson doesn't know too much about foreign policy, but he's sure about one thing: There's no room for political correctness in war. When it comes to defeating America's enemies, the Republican presidential candidate thinks that the only way to go, as Politico puts it, is "brutal, overwhelming force."

"There is no question that unpleasantries brought about by our own forces will be necessary to accomplish our goals and defeat terrorism, but you cannot win a politically correct war," the retired neurosurgeon wrote in a column last year entitled "Resisting the Islamic State's Demand for Submission." In particular, Carson rues the facts that particular U.S. military tactics have "unwisely been criminalized or demonized" and that "political correctness dictates we cannot kill innocent women and children in the process of destroying the enemy."

Because as long as the enemy is destroyed, nothing — and no one — else really matters.