Rick Perry’s ISIS plan: Special ops forces and “Amazon-type drones”

The Texas governor fans baseless fears that the militant group plans to infiltrate the U.S.

Published September 30, 2014 1:55PM (EDT)

Rick Perry                            (NBC News)
Rick Perry (NBC News)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who’s weighing a 2016 presidential bid even as he fights criminal charges back home, waded into the debate over the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group on Tuesday, advocating for special operations forces to be deployed in Iraq and Syria and urging the use of “Amazon-type drones” – along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Appearing on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," Perry repeated his call for ground forces to be sent to the region to fight militants there. Asked by host Joe Scarborough whether he meant “like the 82nd airborne or special ops,” Perry said that he was “talking about special ops.”

“You’re not going to put tens of thousands of troops in there,” Perry said. “I think we have the special ops, whether it's Delta Force or Navy SEALs, they're all quite capable of taking care of them.”

Prompted by MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle, who noted that Perry has warned of terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Perry went on to fan fears that ISIS could attempt to infiltrate the country via its southern border.

“I think most Americans understand that border is insecure,” Perry told Barnicle, “that individuals who not necessarily just ISIS, but countries that harbor terrorists, we know that Pakistan, Syria, individuals from those countries have been apprehended crossing the Texas border coming into the United States, those are the ones we know about.”

Perry went on to marvel that “we’ll let Amazon-type drones drop packages but we won't do it to protect the border? Why not?”

In the year that ended last September, a grand total of two Syrians were apprehended at the southern border, while three Pakistanis attempted to cross the border in 2013, according to figures compiled by PolitiFact in response to what it called Perry’s “ridiculous claim” that hordes of terror-linked migrants were trying to cross the border.

Despite widespread fears that ISIS plans to launch attacks in the U.S., most experts believe the group does not have designs to carry out such attacks.

Watch Perry's interview here, courtesy of MSNBC:


By Luke Brinker

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