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Cotton graduated from Harvard Law School and served bravely and honorably downrange as an infantry officer. He knows "no quarter" is a defined term in military ops, and that term is not defined by Webster's. A thread /1: https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1267517275583676422
Here's a prohibition against "no quarter orders" in the 2019 edition of the Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare, FM 6-27 /2: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN19354_FM%206-27%20_C1_FINAL_WEB_v2.pdf
Here's Convention IV respecting the laws and customs of war on land, note that no quarter orders are "especially forbidden." /3 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/195-200033?OpenDocument
Here's the beginning of the discussion of "no quarter" orders in the context of customary international human rights law: /4 https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/customary-international-humanitarian-law-i-icrc-eng.pdf
And once again here's the Lieber Code of 1863, signed by Lincoln, involving a true insurrection: /5 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp
The conclusion? In the military context -- the very context Cotton used the term -- "no quarter" has a specific meaning. That makes his tweet particularly inflammatory. When called on it he falls back to a different, colloquial use. But . . . /6
If you mean "prosecuted to the full extent of the law," say that. If you mean "we should arrest looters," say that. Words have meaning. Use the words you mean in the right context. That's not a big ask. Especially for a Harvard-trained lawyer in a time of crisis. Instead . . . /7
Cotton sent out an inflammatory statement in the aftermath of Trump's "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" tweet. It's irresponsible, and the fallback to a definition of "no quarter" the military doesn't use is a misdirection. /8
He messed up. It's that simple. Cotton does many good things (he was way out ahead on China and the pandemic, for example), but this wasn't right. He should apologize, amplify, and clarify. /end
