Ben Carson argued Sunday that “there is no such thing a political correctness when you’re fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you.”
Asked by George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” if he would consider reinstating Bush-era “enhanced interrogation techniques” when questioning terrorism suspects, Carson cited state secrecy and the importance of the element of surprise in warfare.
“I’m not one who’s real big on telling the enemy … what we’re going to do,” Carson said.
He was pressed by Stephanopoulos further who asked, “But you would do that even though many consider waterboarding torture?”
Carson reiterated, “Like I said, I’m not real big on telling them what we would or would not do.”
The American political conversation is still dominated by discussion of how to grapple with the threat of international terrorism, a week after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130.
Carson doubled down on previous suggestions that he would be open to monitoring mosques, but cast that as part of a broader surveillance strategy that would be pursued by his administration.
“I said in a large capacity, we should monitor anything, mosques, [a] church, school, shopping center, where there’s a lot of radicalization going on,” Carson said.
