James Werrell: Bellicose talk from GOP should make us wary

I have watched all the Republican presidential debates so far, and I have concluded that most of these candidates would have us mired in another war in the Middle East in no time.

This isn’t something we have to pry from the candidates. They’re all too willing to tell us that President Barack Obama isn’t doing nearly enough to eradicate the Islamic State, to reassure our Middle East allies or to dissuade Iran from pursuing hegemony in the region.

And, they say, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t do enough either.

While only U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has specifically advocated putting U.S. “boots on the ground,” most of the others have sworn to do just about everything else – with sending in U.S. troops as an option down the road. The only exceptions during Tuesday’s debate were Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and billionaire Donald Trump.

Paul, who has been accused of being an isolationist, is reluctant to engage in foreign adventures. Trump has called the invasion of Iraq a disastrous mistake.

But even these two candidates talked tough Tuesday night in regard to battling ISIS terrorists. Trump even vowed to kill the family members of expected terrorists.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he would establish no-fly zones in Syria and pledged to shoot down Russian planes if they dared to enter the zone. He seems to be contemplating not only a war against ISIS, but also, potentially, against Russia.

Here was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday: “America is at war. Our enemy is not violent extremism. It is not some unnamed malevolent force. It is radical Islamic terrorists ... If I am elected president, we will hunt down and kill the terrorists. We will utterly destroy ISIS.”

Among the strategies he proposes is “carpet bombing” ISIS fighters and making the “sand glow.” While that sounds ominous, experts assure us that carpet bombing has never been and never will be a tactic of the U.S. military.

We don’t do indiscriminate, mass bombing of large areas, especially when civilians might be harmed. Instead, we use the most advanced weapons technology in the world to narrow our targets as much as possible to what we want to blow up.

The closest the U.S. came to carpet bombing was the use of incendiary bombs to destroy large areas of jungle in Vietnam. But that was a calculated effort to destroy supply lines and deny cover to the North Vietnamese.

And, by the way, it didn’t work very well.

Just a few weeks ago, in both Democratic and Republican debates, it was the economy, stupid. Foreign policy was far down the list of topics.

But apparently the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have significantly changed voters’ focus. A recent poll found that the No. 1 concern of most Americans is “terrorism.”

Terrorism certainly warrants our attention. But I don’t think it ranks as our top concern, maybe not even in the top three. We still have an eroding middle class, a shaky global economy and, dare I say it, climate change to worry about.

There is risk in over-reacting to the threat of terrorism. It can claim too much of our attention.

If Americans had been asked two months ago if they thought it would be worth America’s blood and treasure to go to war in Syria, I suspect the collective reply would have been something like: “Are you kidding?!”

And if a President Cruz or President Trump were to commit U.S. troops to a ground war against ISIS, will we, two years from now – with American troops dying again in the Middle East – think that was the right decision?

I doubt it.

Talking tough is one thing. It might appeal to voters now.

But let’s be very careful about slipping into another war in a part of the world from which it has taken more than a decade to begin extricating ourselves.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "James Werrell: Bellicose talk from GOP should make us wary."