Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson participated in an interview with the New York Times yesterday in which he was unable to name the leader of North Korea.
In the Times interview on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson conspicuously sought to avoid another misstep. Asked if he knew the name of North Korea’s leader, Mr. Johnson replied, “I do.”
“You want me to name” the person, he said, then paused, before adding dryly, “Really.” But he declined to supply the name.
He also reiterated his belief that ignorance is an asset because you can't invade countries if you don't know where they're physically located.
“Because Hillary Clinton can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on geographic leaders, of the names of foreign leaders,” he said, “the underlying fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died in Syria goes by the wayside.”
I know it's easy and popular to blame Hillary Clinton for every bad thing that has ever happened, but that's not how the world works and Clinton has not been the secretary of state for nearly four years. Moreover, the secretary of state does not make policy, they carry out the policy of the president. People frequently attribute our foreign interventions in ways that would have you believe the secretary of state is directly responsible for issuing the orders rather than the Commander in Chief.
It's curious that Johnson says Hillary Clinton is responsible for thousands of deaths in Syria, and yet Johnson also says we should not be involved in Syria. Johnson seemingly believes that the United States and Hillary Clinton specifically are responsible for Bashar al-Assad waging a civil war against his own people with full, material support of the Russian military.
It's as if Johnson believes American leaders have mind-controlled Vladimir Putin and Assad and commanded them to massacre Syrian civilians. It's not clear how that's suppose to work and it's also not clear how Johnson believes we're suppose to stop it without getting involved.
Some critics would say more Syrians have been killed because the Obama administration has done very little, but Gary Johnson believes very little is still too much.
American intervention and diplomacy forced Bashar al-Assad to give up his stockpile of chemical weapons in 2014. If Gary Johnson had his way, many times more people could be dead today.