Fall In Line, You Proles!

Your betters have spoken: True patriots must vote for Kamala.

A previously little-known group of supposedly “elite” political activists calling themselves the National Security Leaders for America or “NSL4A” has come out with a letter trashing President Trump and endorsing the candidacy of Vice President Harris. The great majority of the letter’s 700+ signatories are retirees from three overlapping groups: (1) the CIA and other intelligence organizations, (2) generals, admirals and senior enlisted military personnel, and (3) ambassadors and state department employees. There is a smattering of signers¹ with other backgrounds such as health care, agriculture and various relatively low-level government jobs.

They tell us that we should support Harris because unlike Trump, she is a “serious leader” who will save us from Trump’s “authoritarianism,” and has “proven” that she will “make an excellent Commander-in-Chief.” If we are patriots, we must accept their advice to vote for Harris because they have national security credentials and supposedly are non-partisan “experts” who are “not loyal to any one individual or party.”

In fact, despite their disclaimer, NSL4A clearly is partisan. Their letter of recommendation is a fraudulent joke and their supposed expert rationale in the letter does not withstand any serious analysis. This article will demonstrate that with an analysis of their letter.

The logical fallacy of “appeals to authority” and a framework for analyzing the NSL4A letter

The signers of the letter attempt to use their titles and former positions to persuade us that they are authorities on both national security and selecting a President. We should, therefore, defer to their judgment as expert authorities. To do so however, would be to fall prey to the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. Dr. Fauci gave us a classic example of the foolishness of merely accepting someone’s presumed authority, when he encouraged censorship of doctors who disagreed with him and told us that we must all accept his expertise by wearing masks, engaging in “social distancing, avoiding family gatherings and the like because, “I represent science.”

Purported authorities may be right, and they may be wrong. Sometimes it is wise to give their opinions great weight. But as we all know, even our trusted family physicians can be wrong. The same is true of generals, admirals, ambassadors, high-level spies and run-of-the-mill government bureaucrats, even if some are honest and well-meaning. And not all are. Especially some of these.

Like any other witness, before accepting their recommendations, we should consider not just their titles, but (1) their qualifications, competence and judgment, (2) their bias and motives, (3) their truthfulness, and (4) whether their opinions comport with the known facts.

Let’s give that a shot, shall we?

1. Qualifications, competence and judgment?

The signers claim that we should defer to their opinion because of their supposed expertise. So, what is their expertise? They don’t give us much to go on other than the job titles included with their signatures.

Assessing the qualification and competence of over 700 signers would be a mammoth task. But there are a variety of facts that impeach the ability of many to offer opinions on matter of national security.

Qualifications?

First, there are some signers whose titles and public biographies give no indication that they are the “senior civilian national security leaders” that the NSL4A and the letter itself tout. We can’t go through all of them, but let’s take a look at one selected at random.

Dan Berman, describes himself as “Minister Counselor (Ret), Dept of Agriculture.” I was able to find that he has authored short articles on the importance of supporting Iraq’s agricultural economy and promoting U.S. beef imports to Japan. But there is no discernable reason why he might have some special expertise to support, for example, his claim that, “where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, [Trump] is impulsive and ill-informed.”

There are other examples, but let’s move on.

Competence? A hypothetical voir dire of some of these “elites.”

Let’s not just pick on the small fry. There are some big names who have lent their reputations and prestige to the letter. We can’t scrutinize all 700+ here, but we can look at some. Let’s imagine that we can question them in person. I will do this with a hypothetical lawyer’s voir dire of expert witnesses to help decide whether they should be permitted to testify or whether they cannot testify because they are unqualified or lack a valid basis for their opinions.

Imagine that we have all the signers together in a large room for questioning about their claimed expertise and the opinions in their letter. I first ask all the generals and admirals who signed the letter to take one step forward to separate themselves from the rest of the group. Then:

“OK, gentlemen, you are holding yourselves out as military experts. Your organization has emphasized that we have here over 230 general and flag officers, including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals. Now, I want everyone who has won a war to raise your hand and then stay in the room. The rest of you, get out of the room. What, no hands? Then leave. Go home. Now.

The crowd just shrunk by about almost one-third.

How about all the CIA veterans and intelligence types? Let’s try the same approach:

OK, all you CIA spooks. I am going to be a little more generous with you that I was with the generals and admirals — you get two questions, not one. And if you can answer “yes” to either one of them, you can stay.

So, tell me, did any of you write an intelligence analysis that predicted either 9-11 or the precipitous collapse of the Afghan government in just a few days, prior to the debacle at the Kabul airport in August 2021? Raise your hands if you did.

Again, I see no hands. All of you — Get out now. Go tend your garden or do something else you’re good at.

Now the crowd has really thinned out. Let’s question some of those who are left.

Good judgment?

Again, probing the good (or bad) judgment of 700 people could take days. But let’s consider just one prominent example, Susan Rice. She is another so-called “National Security Leader” whose good judgment we are supposed to respect by voting for Harris.

Rice was Obama’s UN ambassador in 2012, when our ambassador, special operators and others were killed by a terrorist-led mob who stormed and burned our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. After the killings she went on all the Sunday morning TV news shows to excuse the mob by falsely claiming that it was really just a peaceful demonstration of folks protesting a goofy video starring a fictional Mohammed. In fact, it was part of a pre-planned attack by a radical Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia. Rice was later rewarded for her performance with a key position on the Biden-Harris transition team, followed by being chosen to lead the Biden-Harris Domestic Policy Council.

To assess her judgment and credibility, take a look at her assessment of the risk in Libya she gave on a CNN interview in after the attack:

The mobs we've seen on the outside of these embassies are small minority. They're the ones who have largely lost in these emerging democratic processes, and just as the people of these countries are not going to allow their lives to be hijacked by a dictator, they're not going to allow an extremist mob to hijack their future and their freedom,

=Thus, according to Rice, Libya was just an emerging democracy, and its good people were not going allow anyone to hijack their budding Jeffersonian democracy. Has Rice taken a look at Libya since then? What a dolt! And now the dolt is telling the rest of us how to vote?

2. Bias and Motives

It would be impossible to thoroughly analyze the biases and motives of 700+ signers before election day. There are a number of signers who are politicians who made a career of partisanship, and nothing in their letter dispels the idea that they are continuing that lifelong passion now. Do they harbor any bias against President Trump, and are they are telling the truth when they promise us that they are “loyal to the ideals of our nation — like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law — not to any one individual or party”?

To answer that, I give you one signer who joined in spouting these platitudes: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She would have us believe that her endorsement of Harris is a non-partisan, unbiased “act of patriotism.” Make your own judgment about that.

3. Truthfulness

There is another fact that should disqualify some of the most prominent NSL4A members who signed the Harris endorsement letter. It also tells us something about the other 700 who have collaborated with them. Nine of the signers were part of the Gang of 51 who perpetrated the infamous 2020 election hoax when they signed another letter.² That was the letter that falsely portrayed the Hunter Biden laptop as “Russian disinformation.” Any serious look at the laptop would have confirmed that it was not part of a Russian plot. A couple of New York Post writers figured it out, but none of these self-professed national security and intelligence experts will admit that they did. And, at the time, neither Joe nor Hunter Biden even denied its authenticity. And as The Wall Street Journal reported,

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been in possession of the Hunter laptop since 2019, while Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, on the same day as the statement, said that the laptop was ‘not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.’

These self-professed patriots and experts never took any meaningful steps to investigate whether what they were telling the American people was true. They knew or should have known then that their letter was unfounded, but they went ahead with it because they figured that it could sway the election.

The NSL4A signers now assure us in their Harris endorsement letter that they “are trained to make sober, rational decisions. If any of these “sober, rational” people were the honest “public servants,” and patriots as they now claim, they would have refused to participate in such an unpatriotic plot.

Multiple analyses now reveal that that the Gang of 51’s letter likely turned the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in Biden’s favor. There is more than one way to steal an election.

We also know the something about the other signers’ credibility when they all are willing to join with these shameful actors by writing that it is President Trump who “threatens our democratic system.” As Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, “Tell me your company, and I will tell you what you are.”

4. How do their opinions stack up against the facts?

The signers of the NSL4A letter stake their names and reputations on their assurance that Harris will be “a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief.” Unlike Trump she “defends America’s democratic ideals.” Let’s take a look at some of their arguments to see if, as My Cousin Vinny says, they “will hold water.”

• These worthies tell us that “Vice President Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests.”

  Although it is a tough choice, that may be one of their most indefensible misrepresentations. To keep it simple, I offer just one example of her failure “to advance American national security interests:” Our open border.

  Harris’ abdication of her duties as Border Czar and the resulting invasion of our country by millions of God-knows-who, have created a massive national security risk. We have no idea who or how many they are. We do know that they include over 13,000 convicted murderers and more than 15,000 convicted rapists who are now free to roam about the country doing whatever murders and rapists do. It also is certain that they include an unknown number of trained terrorists and other foreign actors who will be planning attacks here. The signers ignore this overriding issue (just like Harris) precisely because they cannot make the case that her disinterest in border security was “advancing American national security interests.”

• They say that “Vice President Harris follows the democratic norms we expect of any political leader.”

  Oh? How about her promise that “Even if you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home,” she and her thugs will violate your 2d Amendment rights by forcing their way into your home, “to check to see if you are being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs”? Take a look:

Democratic norms? Does anyone think that they have a Constitutional right to do what she threatened? Anyone?

• Speaking of following “democratic norms,” are the signers even aware of Harris’ support for the Antifa/BLM rioters and her promotion of the idea that the riots “should not stop”? Here is what she said:

  They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop. And that’s, they’re not, this is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware because they’re not going to stop. It is … They’re not going to stop before election day in November and they’re not going to stop after election day. And that should be, and everyone should take notice of that on both levels. They’re not going to let up and they should not.

• They tell us Harris has effective leadership which requires “empathy” and “listening to those with expertise and not firing them when they disagree.”

  Before writing that, did any of these highly trained “public servants” perform any due diligence by talking to any of the 92% of her staff who quit or were fired and who described her office as “dysfunctional”?

• They signers claim that “in contrast with Mr. Trump,” Harris is “prepared and strategic.”

  Huh? Harris claims to have been the last person in the room when Biden was making his disastrous decision to defy all military advice and withdraw all forces from Afghanistan to meet an arbitrary political deadline of his own choosing. We all know the result — a cataclysmic strategic defeat that will poison our efforts to have an effective foreign policy for generations.

  

  Panic at the Kabul airport and people falling from planes. Credit: AP/Asvaka News

• Did Harris pick Tim Walz as her running mate after the “careful deliberation” that they say marks her leadership expertise? Their letter makes no mention of him. Perhaps they knew that Walz identified as a “knucklehead”?

• Finally, they close with this: “We believe, as President Ronald Reagan said, that “America is a shining city on a hill.” Yet in this election, one of President Reagan’s more ominous warnings is equally relevant. ‘Freedom,’ he said, ‘is never more than one generation away from extinction.’”

They are right about that — freedom is indeed close to extinction. Look, for example, at the above video about forceable entry into private homes without probable cause and look at the ongoing efforts under the Biden-Harris administration to censor political speech and even imprison political opponents.

Reflect on these things when you cast your ballot.

1. The NSL4A letter does not contain script signatures but has typed names of the 700+ people who joined in the letter to endorse Harris and Walz. I refer to them as the “signers” for ease of reference.

2. The double dirty nine are former DNI Jim Clapper; three former CIA Directors: Michael V. Hayden; Leon Panetta; John Brennan; former Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin; former CIA chief of staff Laurence Pfeiffer; former DoD chief of staff Jeremy Bash; CIA chief of station John Sipher; and former National Intelligence Council Chair Gregory Treverton. Notably, since then these scoundrels have either refused to respond to media inquires about what they did or have doubled down on their shenanigans.