The Quark In The Road

Senator Tom Cotton’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests

“Iraq War veteran Cotton, however, appears to get a thrill out of envisioning combat soldiers like him beating up civilians. Following up on Twitter, he called for ‘No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.’ Or as Trump himself has put it, ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts.’ In military parlance, ‘no quarter’ means killing. On Twitter, fellow Iraq War veteran David French cites the U.S. Army’s ‘Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare,’ to the effect that such orders constitute a war crime. Cotton may have used the phrase purely for its political shock value. Also, however, maybe not. Times staffers also objected to his assertion that ‘cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa [were] infiltrating protest marches … for their own anarchic purposes.’ The newspaper’s [New York Times’] own reporting, citing FBI and police sources, says there’s no evidence of that.” [Gene Lyons in today’s Chicago Sun-Times]

The protesters, he says, too violent have gotten.

They threaten our nation like once did bin Laden.

To deal with these groups

He would send in the troops

And call for “no quarter” says Senator Tom Cotton.

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Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas