Tom Cotton on the Guantanamo Terrorists Who Can 'Rot in Hell'

The political career of Tom Cotton began when he tried to publish a letter in the New York Times. It was 2006, and the newspaper had just run an exclusive story on a government program that tracked terrorist financing. Cotton, not yet 30, was serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. He started with a wry apology for "not writing sooner," then lit the blowtorch.

"You may think you have done a public service," Cotton railed at the Times, "but you have gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis here. Next time I hear that familiar explosion—or next time I feel it—I will wonder whether we could have stopped that bomb had you not instructed terrorists how to evade our financial surveillance.