Atlantic Council Senior Adviser Harlan Ullman writes for United Press International on the lack of foreign policy knowledge from the Republican Candidates in the most recent presidential debate:
How aspirants for the nation’s highest office can be so ill-informed on basic issues is a non-trivial question. For example, how can anyone advocate “carpet bombing” and killing family members of Islamic State members without understanding the meaning or implications of what is being proposed? How could each of the candidates implicitly argue for the absolute necessity of “destroying” IS without asking why our allies in the region clearly regard the terror group as less of a threat than we do? And how can anyone argue for banning all Muslims from entry into America on a temporary basis — even with exceptions — and without understanding the Constitution and basic U.S. law despite FDR’s incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II?