Following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium earlier this week, presidential primary candidates shared their views on how to combat the Islamic State (ISIS), which took credit for the attacks. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton criticized Republican candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for his comments calling for increased surveillance of American Muslim neighborhoods. She said such statements are wrong, counter-productive and dangerous. Clinton opponent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called ISIS a “barbaric organization” and said it must be destroyed, but that the United States should not engage troops in a ground war. “We do not destroy it by doing what we did in Iraq and getting into perpetual warfare,” Sanders said. He also pointed out that he voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 while Clinton voted in favor. Instead, Sanders called for establishing a Muslim coalition of nations in the Middle East to fight ISIS on the ground while nations like the U.S. and France provide them with air support and training. “It is not a question of going to war against a religion, as some of my Republican colleagues would have us do. We’re taking on terrorism and ISIS, not Islam as a religion,” Sanders said.

coalition – an alliance for combined action, sometimes made up of different countries or members of opposing political parties