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Here goes Ben Carson, trying to sound knowledgeable about foreign policy and national security and just coming off as a multi-level ignoramus: Carson: al Qaeda was not a threat in 2003.

“A lot of Americans really think back to 2003, and they remember Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda,” Carson explained at a Nevada rally. “They say, ‘we never should have gone in there and destabilized it.’ And they may be right about that.”

“But here’s the problem, Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda at that time was not an existential threat to us. The global jihad movement is an existential threat. They want to destroy us and everything that has to do with us,” Carson concluded after criticizing President Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

[…]

On ISIS, Carson said the “global jihad movement,” gives Americans just two choices. “We can sit around and act like they are the jayvee, and that they aren’t going to do anything and that they’re only significant over there. Or we can use every resource available to us to destroy them first.”

“I would go with the latter,” he added.

Ouch. Maybe someone should remind Ben Carson that Al Qaeda actually carried out the most deadly terrorist attacks on America in history on September 11, 2001. He seems to have forgotten.

Carson can probably try to slide out of this one by saying he qualified his statement as “an existential threat,” but in what sense is ISIS an “existential threat” to the United States? Carson can’t seriously believe ISIS represents a threat to the very existence of America; he’s using words like this because he knows they scare propagandized Republican voters, and fear is pretty much the entire Republican message in this election season.

Just to refresh our memory, here are some of the terror attacks carried out by al Qaeda in 2003:

• The 2003 Riyadh compound bombings occurred on 12 May 2003, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 39 people were killed, and over 160 wounded.
• On 8 November 2003, on the day the US State Department warned of further attacks in Saudi Arabia, a suicide truck bomb detonated outside the Al-Mohaya housing compound in Laban Valley, West of Riyadh, killing 18 people and wounding 122.
• The 2003 Casablanca bombings occurred on May 16, 2003 in Casablanca, Morocco. 45 people were killed as a result of these attacks (12 suicide-bombers and 33 victims).
• The 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing occurred on August 5, 2003 in Jakarta, Indonesia. A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel, killing twelve people and injuring 150. Those killed were mostly Indonesian, with the exception of one Dutch.
• The 2003 Istanbul bombings were four truck bomb attacks carried out on November 15, 2003 and November 20, 2003, in Istanbul, Turkey, leaving 57 people dead, and 700 wounded. Several men have been convicted for their involvement.