The "National Security Leaders for America" Expose Themselves as Partisan Agents
The "National Security Leaders for America" Expose Themselves as Partisan Agents
With their ill-advised one-sided endorsements
The so-called “National Security Leaders for America” (NSL4A) have done it again. This time they have waded into state elections for national offices. They do so based upon the false representation that they are motivated purely by patriotism and an unblemished desire to protect the national security. They purport to be non-partisan.
Hogwash.
This article complements my article of October 6, “Fall in Line, You Proles,” which analyzed a letter from these self-proclaimed “National Security Leaders” trashing President Trump and endorsing Vice President Harris for president. In that article, I noted that although NSL4A holds itself out as non-partisan and motivated purely by nothing more than its members’ unblemished motives as American patriots, it is, in fact, a partisan organization.
Although NSL4A claims that its members are “Republicans, Democrats, and Independents,” that implication of non-partisanship is a sham. As I shall show below, their pretense to be mere “public servants” who are not loyal “to any one individual or party,” is not true. Then when they use that supposed neutral status to promote particular candidates, it is a fraud upon the American People to whom they address their letter. (All bolding is my emphasis.)
NSL4A promotes itself as a non-partisan “national security” organization.
NSL4A describes itself as
a bipartisan organization comprised of individuals who served in various senior leadership positions that include all six military branches, elected federal and state offices, and various government departments and agencies.
NSL4A was “launched in 2022.” This past September 22, it released a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for President. That letter lists over 700 “Members” who signed on to endorse Harris. Most are retirees from three overlapping groups: (1) the CIA and other intelligence organizations, (2) generals, admirals and senior enlisted military personnel, and (3) state department employees. “National Security” is their purported focus and expertise. Even the name of the organization — “National Security Leaders for America,” is intended to tell us that the members’ area of expertise is “national security.” To bolster their national security credentials, each of the members includes their military ranks or other official titles in their endorsements.
Their Harris letter begins with an attempt to portray NSL4A as a non-partisan effort to save America from “authoritarianism:”
To the American People,
We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution. Many of us risked our lives for it. We are retired generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors, and senior civilian national security leaders. We are loyal to the ideals of our nation—like freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—not to any one individual or party.
This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.
They claim that we should defer to their opinions because of their supposed expertise:
We are trained to make sober, rational decisions. That is how we know Vice President Harris would make an excellent Commander-in-Chief, while Mr. Trump has proven he is not up to the job.
Because my prior article analyzed their Harris letter, this one will look at NSL4A’s endorsements in other races. Those endorsements show that NSL4A and its members are a front for the “progressive” left and that their pretext of non-partisanship is a fraud upon the American people whose votes they are attempting to influence.
As you read this, keep in mind that, consistent with their name, the NSL4A members’ prowess supposedly is in matters of national security. That alleged expertise is what they use to try to convince us to vote for their chosen candidates. Absent that background, they are just a collection of random septuagenarians and octogenarians who are telling us how to vote.
NSL4A’s “non-partisan” endorsements all go one way.
In addition to its endorsements of Harris and Walz, NSL4A has endorsed 38 Congressional candidates in 12 states. Those states are Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Note that several of these are swing states that may be key to the election. Seven of those are endorsements for the Senate and 31 are for House races.
It is not feasible here to analyze all of these congressional endorsements. I will first provide an overview that illustrates NSL4A’s leftist leanings and bias. I will then follow with brief points about two of the races in which it seeks to defeat highly qualified military veterans.
Senate endorsements
NSL4A has endorsed candidates in seven Senate races. Take a guess as to how many of these supposedly non-partisan endorsements are for Democrats and how many are for Republicans. No peeking now. Think about it and then read on.
. . . . . . .
If you picked Democrats over Republicans by 7-0, you are right on the money. You can find them here.
House endorsements
What about the House races? NSL4A’s endorsements for the House of Representatives also are nakedly partisan. They have endorsed 31 candidates in House races. Take another guess as to the Democrat-Republican breakdown. . . .
I will not keep you in suspense. It is Democrats by a 31-0 margin.
This 38-0 partisan breakdown in endorsements for Congressional seats is what I was referring to in my earlier article when I said that “despite their disclaimer, NSL4A clearly is partisan. Their letter of recommendation is a fraudulent joke ….”
Thus, NSL4A’s exclusive endorsement of Democrats only for national offices shows that its claim to not to be loyal to any one party, simply is not true.
Now let’s take a short look at a couple of the races. This will not be an in-depth analysis, but it will provide readers with more information than that provided by NSL4A in its endorsements.
The Virginia Senate race
In the Virginia Senate race, the NSL4A worthies have endorsed Democrat Tim Kaine. They prefer Kaine over his opponent, Hung Cao. That is a bizarre choice coming from people who hold themselves out as experts in national security experts. I say it is “bizarre” because Kaine’s highest national profile was when he agreed to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016. His erstwhile running mate also is a NSL4A member and is the woman who even James Comey found was “extremely careless” in handling “very sensitive, highly classified information.” And it was she who, as Secretary of State, helped formulate the U.S. intervention that led to the collapse of Libya, a move that plunged the country into an abyss of anarchy and terror. Recall how she gleefully chortled over the death of Gaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died. Ha, ha, ha.).
Gaddafi was no saint, God knows, but how is Libya doing nowadays? Did his murder and the collapse of Libya into anarchy serve our national interest? What was our national interest in the slave markets that were then set up? And let’s not forget how Hillary and her co-conspirators perpetrated what may be the most gigantic fraud in American electoral history, — the Russia, Russia, Russia, collusion hoax. And that is the woman whom Tim Kaine regarded as such a national security authority that he wanted to be her Vice President.
NSL4A’s website contains scant information about Kaine and nothing about Cao that would explain their endorsement. It is just an “appeal to authority” by which they simply want us to accept their recommendations because of their alleged expertise in national security matters. Although Kaine makes no secret of being a “steadfast advocate for progressive policies,” the NSL4A page devoted to him consists only of two short paragraphs of platitudes without even mentioning “national security.”
The NSL4A website makes no mention of Cao, other than a one-word identification of him as Kaine’s “Challenger.” Nor does it offer any reason why Kaine would better serve U.S. national security interests than would Cao.
Cao is a retired Navy captain. He and his family came to the United States as refugees after the Communist take-over of Vietnam in 1975. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1996. After graduation he served all over the world, including combat deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. He was a Special Operations officer with specialties in Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Deep Sea Diving.
Cao has published op eds on national security issues. His website specifically addresses matters of national security, saying, in part,
The four levers of national power are Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economy (DIME). The Military is the last resort when all else fails. The Biden administration has been feckless in all aspects of DIME and now we need a strong military to keep pace with countries that could threaten our national security. That means developing new technologies in order to remain competitive.
I do not disparage Kaine when I say that NSL4A’s endorsement of him over Cao is best explained by their party affiliations: Kaine is a Democrat; Cao is a Republican. End of story.
The NSL4A’s endorsement for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District
The contest for the House seat for Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District pits Eugene Vindman against a U.S. Special Forces veteran, Derrick Anderson. Although they are in sync, Eugene Vindman should not be confused with his twin brother, Alexander, who testified as a prosecution witness against President Trump in his first impeachment trial. I have previously written the improprieties in Alexander Vindman’s impeachment testimony here and here. Eugene collaborated with his brother to get President Trump impeached.
The NSL4A’s endorsement cites Vindman’s three “key issues:” abortion, strengthening our communities and helping working families. Although he served the Army for 25 years, Vindman’s “key issues” make no mention of “national security” or anything explaining why he has such national security expertise that he is endorsed by our so-called “National Security Leaders.”
Vindman has run his campaign using the Biden and Harris campaign strategy — hiding and limiting personal appearances and interactions with the press and undecided voters. His campaign website lists four upcoming events that he apparently will attend. All are designated as “private.”
Similarly, when media and outside groups tried to sponsor debates, Vindman ducked most of them. The Culpepper, Virginia NAACP attempted to schedule a debate between the two candidates but had to cancel because Vindman would not attend. Similarly, WJLA, the local ABC affiliate for the greater Washington, DC, tried to schedule a debate, but reports that even though it “invited Republican Derrick Anderson and Democratic candidate Eugene Vindman to the debate. Anderson is the only one who accepted.” Absent Vindman, the event went forward as a give-and-take interview of Anderson. DC News Now also attempted to schedule a joint appearance with the candidates, but reports that it “offered Eugene Vindman, the Democrat against whom Anderson is running, an invitation to participate in the forum. Vindman did not accept the invitation.” Again, Anderson attended and answered questions. Vindman did manage to do the bare minimum by showing up for one debate at Mary Washington University.
The basement strategy worked for Biden in 2020, but why is NSL4A now endorsing a guy who is afraid to even to mingle with voters and let his views be known?
There appears to be another good reason why Vindman is ducking debates and other engagements with the public: He appears to have inflated and misrepresented his military record. His service in Iraq was as an Army lawyer in the JAG corps. Army lawyers typically do not engage in combat and, indeed, the Daily Mail has reported that Eugene “has not seen combat.” Vindman ducked the issue by referring questions about it to his brother’s PAC, a move that itself has drawn fire as a potential illegal campaign contribution.
Taking another page out of the Tim Walz playbook, Vindman falsely claimed that he personally had “used assault-type weapons on the battlefield.”
An experienced soldier might well ask, “What is an ‘assault-style weapon’ that soldiers carry? We carry real assault weapons.” But the chances that Vindman or any other Army lawyer “used” an M-4 or other assault weapon “on the battlefield” in Iraq are approximately zero. This appears to be a pure and simple case of Stolen Valor.
Why on earth would a group of former military officers and NCOs endorse a guy who does this? Nawh, that is a rhetorical question — Vindman is a Democrat who earned his spurs trying to bring down Trump and is now running against a Republican. That’s all you need to know.
Vindman’s opponent, Derrick Anderson, also is a veteran. He is a proud wearer of the Special Forces Green Beret. He is a combat veteran of the famous 5th Special Forces Group. He served in combat as an A-Team commander with deployments to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon. Before that he was deployed to Iraq with the 3d Infantry Division as an infantry officer for 15 months as part of the “surge.” Those are the men who really did “fight for our nation in combat” and “use assault weapons in combat.” He brings a perspective to national security and to Congress that Vindman will never have.
Unlike Vindman, he is not afraid of being questioned. He has repeatedly agreed to participate in six public debates with Vindman and showed up for the ones from which Vindman hid.
Other than pure partisanship, it is a mystery why NSL4A did not even attempt to justify their endorsement for Vindman against Anderson. But fear of debate and inflating a military resumé apparently are not roadblocks to securing NSL4A’s endorsement.
A final note
The members of NSL4A who have endorsed these candidates include many retired generals and senior non-commissioned officers. I cannot fathom their personal motives for doing so, other than rank partisanship or inattention. But I strongly suspect that they, and the other members/signers, probably never considered the backgrounds of those whom they now endorse. And make no mistake about it — an endorsement by NSL4A is an endorsement by them unless they repudiate it.
These men and women should take a close look at who they are endorsing and not allow their own reputations to be sullied by an organization that uses them just to elect Democrats, under a pretext of bipartisanship. And even if they originally thought they were acting in good faith when they allowed their names to be appended to the Harris endorsement letter, they can now see the rank partisanship that is being supported in their names. To preserve their reputations, they should publicly and loudly withdraw their endorsements and resign as NSL4A Members.