President Obama's missed opportunity on terrorism

Terrorism is bad even when it's committed by white men. Obama should say so.

President Obama announced no significant shift in U.S. strategy and offered no new policy prescriptions for defeating the Islamic State.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)

In May 1998, three anti-government extremists — Robert Mason, Alan Pilon, and Jason McVean — stole a water truck in Ignacio, a town in southwest Colorado. They drove it to nearby Cortez, where it was spotted by a local city policeman named Dale Claxton. He pulled up behind the truck on the side of the road, but before he could even get out of his patrol car, McVean jumped out of the truck, holding a full-auto SKS rifle, and opened fire. Claxton was hit in the head before he could even unholster his gun, and was instantly killed.

The three terrorists ran for it. They stole a flatbed pickup truck from a local at gunpoint, and wounded two more policemen on their way toward Utah. Near Hovenweep National Monument, they abandoned the truck and headed out into the canyon country on foot. Their weaponry had so overmatched the local law enforcement that it was some time before an effective pursuit could be mounted, but within a few hours, federal and state agencies began a massive manhunt.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.