What’s in a name?

So Ms Clark managed to piss me off early today by calling me “dear”, which is about the most condescending appelation I can think of shy of “Dickhead” or “Poopypants” so you can expect a few more rants out of me today, unless it burns off.

Anyway, was trolling through VetVoice to try and lighten my mood. Jonn has already discussed their meetings on the Hill and such. Frankly, from the looks of it, they completly wasted their time. The managed to only lobby folks who had already made up their mind, which isn’t lobbying, it’s just dumb. But, something stuck out to me:

Our day began with a meeting at the offices of New Security Action, a fellow member, with VoteVets.org, of the Campaign to Close Guantanamo. We were met by New Security Action co-founder and former Congressman Tom Andrews (D-ME).

Well, I never heard of New Security Action, so I figured I would go to their website. That states:

New Security Action is a 501(c)4 organization seeking to promote progressive solutions to our national security challenges. After eight long years of the failed Bush/Cheney approach, the American people want to see a safer, saner foreign policy. Founded by former Congressman Tom Andrews (ME-1) and Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard (USA ret.), New Security Action is currently working to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in a way that respects human rights.

Standard lefty boilerplate, but at least they didn’t seem to be far left wackos. But, something about Andrews and Gard set me to thinking. Gard I have read about, he’s a typical retired General cum Peace Activist. Straight out of the Ann Wright mold. Pretty much all his wheels are off the track. I’ve run across him before because he is with “Veterans For America” which according to wiki is itself an offshoot of “Veterans for Common Sense.” Now you already know how much I love those clowns and their idiot-in-chief Paul Sullivan who decided to malign returning Vets within seconds of the Ft Hood shootings. Let me refresh your memory:

“I’m very upset. I’m at the point of tears,” said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, who lives in Austin.

“We warned the military about this. We warned the military about the need to increase the number of mental health care providers. We warned the military about lowering recruiting standards, about the medical exams for soldiers coming back from the war and needing mental health care and brain injury exams.”

So anyway, you can see Gard associates himself with morons and spurious thinkers.

But the Tom Andrews was even more interesting. Andrews used to be the Congressman from Maine, my birth state. And I’ve pretty much thought he was a loser since I first met the guy. When he went on to found “Win Without War” I pretty much knew he’d jumped the shark, the boat, the ocean and the solar system. If you don’t know about WWW, they are frutier than Mexican Bat Droppings:

Win Without War is a coalition of national organizations representing broad constituencies that aim to keep America safe. The coalition advocates that international cooperation and enforceable international law provide the greatest security for the United States and the world. WWW offers a mainstream, patriotic voice for engaging opinion makers, activating concerned citizens, and communicating effectively to the media.

Now, in this coalition are all the usual suspects, Veterans for Peace, Feminist Majority, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility etc. Now, flash back to September of 2007, as the surge was starting. Liberal Democrat Brian Baird decided that he would go to Iraq to see what the “on the ground truth” was. He left as a darling of the left, and MoveOn, but when he saw that the surge was working and told his folks that, the lefties went apeshit on him. Now, here is a news article from the time:

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard presided over an anti-war rally Thursday night that sometimes took on the trappings of a spiritual revival.

No one shouted “amen,” but Gard’s criticisms of U.S. Rep. Brian Baird’s support for President Bush’s troop increase in Iraq yielded several “yeahs.” And Gard’s condemnation of the president drew a standing ovation.

Of course we know now that the surge worked, Baird was right, and the situation has stabilized to the point where we are pulling out as fast as logistics will allow because we just don’t need to be there anymore. Now, here is where it gets interesting:

About 260 people came to hear Gard, who served as an assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. Also speaking was former U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews, a Maine Democrat who once served on the House Armed Services Committee.

“Your district, like it or not, is in the national spotlight,” said Andrews, national director of Win Without War, which co-sponsored the event with MoveOn.org. “You have a huge responsibility to pay attention to this issue.”

Gard accused the U.S. military, in the past year, of altering its manner of reporting combat statistics to skew a perception of success for the troop increase.

So, in addition to discovering that Gard thinks the military lies, we also know that Gard and Allen were working together in Win Without Wars. From there it only took me a few minutes to verify that Win Without Wars just turned into New Security Action. Here is the contact page for Win Without Wars and here it is for New Security Action. Notice that both of them use the same phone number, (202) 822-2075.

I loathe these people. They make all these doom and gloom predictions about things, then when they are proven incorrect, rather than admit it, they just change the fucking name of their organization. How about a little honor or integrity? How about admitting on your website that you used to operate under the less palatable name of “Win Without Wars”? You see groups like this popping up all the time, and nary a one admits that it is just the same as the one preceeding it, only they just wanted to start over.

And VoteVets is running around with these assclowns. Go ahead, change your name all you want, it won’t change the fact that you were wrong about Iraq, and wrong now. And in 5 years Tom Andrews will be with a new organization with the same zebra stripes as this one, only telling us that this time it is black on white stripes, and the other was white on black.

New Security Action has no integrity, and any organizations like VoteVets that would affiliate with them display the same lack of honesty. Like we argued below, when you march under a banner, you better fucking read it first, because if you forget or try to disavow later, TAH will be here to call you on your bullshit.

UPDATE: More proof that they are the same. Ryan Anderson:

New Security Action
Attn: Ryan Anderson
1000 Vermont Ave., NW
2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Ryan Anderson:

All the best,
Ryan Anderson
Win Without War

So the major blogger over there is Danielle Belton. No bio over there, but you think it is the same Danielle Belton that is “The Black Snob“?

UPDATE X2: Just to make it a little more fun, and to play that “6 degrees of Separation” game with IVAW…. VoteVets works with New Security Action, which is actually Win Without Warfare, who farms out their PR to Fenton Communications, which at one point Matthis Chiroux claimed to work for, and Matthis is the de facto leader of IVAW. Actually, that is only 5, but you get the idea. There is more inbreeding in the anti-war movement than in Egyptian Royal families.

Category: Politics