Tom Cotton's 'Send in the troops' op-ed is just wrong

Peter Bergen wrote for CNN on Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed in the New York Times regarding the protests following the death of George Floyd.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a military veteran who is close to President Trump and who is sometimes mentioned as a future US defense secretary, wrote an op-ed Wednesday in the New York Times under the headline, "Send in the Troops' in which he made the case that federal troops are needed to stamp out "anarchy" caused by the protests sweeping the United States that Cotton claimed recalls "the widespread violence of the 1960s."

But this comparison is off base. The riots that racked US cities in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. were of a far deadlier and more destructive nature than the occasionally violent protests we have seen during the past week. In 1968, more more than 40 were killed, according to the Atlantic.