In the fourth debate between the members of the GOP clown car, Ben Carson said he knows China is involved in Syria, despite the fact that Susan Rice, our U.N. ambassador, has said that there’s no evidence at all of that. Carson is standing by those remarks and actually said he’s surprised that his sources on that are better than the White House’s sources, instead of manufacturing some other explanation that’s a little more believable.
He told reporters that his campaign would release his evidence on this alleged China-Syria connection before the weekend was over:
I have several sources that I’ve gotten material from. I’m surprised that my material is better than theirs.
That would be surprising, considering he doesn’t have access to intelligence networks like the White House has. It’s a subtle jab at the Obama administration, implying that there are intelligence failures all up and down the line when it comes to Syria. He hedged when answering the reporter’s question, though, like he didn’t know what to say and is in some type of damage control mode. Watch the video below:
Carson’s campaign made good on its promise for more material, and his campaign released documents with a statement saying:
China has had longstanding and well-documented security ties to Syria, and has provided various military weapons and equipment that Syria is using in the current conflict. Dr. Carson does not believe China is currently fighting in or deploying troops to Syria, and contrary to press reports, he has never made that assertion.
As CNN notes, lots of countries provide arms to other countries for a variety of reasons, but that’s not generally considered “involvement.” Carson has spent time talking to a former CIA and NSA director, General Michael Hayden, about this, so one would think he’d know that. So if that’s the extent of Carson’s evidence, then he’s just proven that he’s even more incompetent at foreign policy than we thought.
Watch the video below:
Featured image by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr
