Signalgate
On 11 March, Jeffrey Goldberg, ex-IOF1 soldier and Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Goldberg shared the space with various senior US government officials where they discussed the attack plans of the US-led bombing of Yemen on 15 March, killing 61 people, including 2 children, and wounding 98 people in total. All the while, no one from the Trump administration knew Goldberg eavesdropped on their messages.
Since the initial attack, the US has kept bombing Yemen for five straight weeks, every single day, including the day I’m publishing this. The bombing campaign has claimed the lives of over a hundred martyrs.
US media is covering this scandal as a failure of national security from the Trump administration. I agree in principle that this was indeed a failure in basic security practices. In principle, using the ephemeral features Signal has to evade record-keeping requirements is not correct. However, a failure of national security? The United Staes is the world’s superpower. I don’t think I care as much about the effect these things as the US media and Usonians2 do.
The responses I have seen about this “scandal” have revolved around the “but her emails!” gotcha Liberals love, referring to Trump’s 2016 obsession with Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as US Secretary of State. In a normal world, I’m all for calling out hypocrisy (I do believe in accountability, after all) but what is pointing out the inherent hypocrisy the first Trump administration had shown before going to do about the fact that he is in power, again? That the US is bombing Yemen? That the US is arming “Israel” to murder Palestinians until every single one is gone?
Goldberg was in the group chat for four days before the US started bombing Yemen. From his own account, when the first bombs dropped at 2 PM Eastern Time, Goldberg was aware of it since 11:44 AM. That’s 2 hours and 16 minutes and four days where Goldberg knew the US was planning to bomb Yemen and yet he did… nothing. He did not come forward with the information to warn the the Houthis in Yemen or the public.
He let the United States murder 61 people on that first day because it suited his personal beliefs. After all, Goldberg served in the IOF during the First Intifada3. The entire reason the US is bombing Yemen again is because the Houthis are supportive of Palestinians’ fight for resistance in occupied Palestine. Yemen has been in a bloody civil war for over a decade at this point from a Saudi-led intervention with weapons the US has sold them.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been taught that the United States protects the world from the “bad guys”. The reason it needs to have military bases in over 100 different countries is because it needs to deter the “bad guys” from attacking the US and its allies in NATO. I’ve been taught the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It upholds international law. It upholds human rights. It upholds democracy.
The US has a term for when they do assassinations: targeted killings. A noxious euphemism to describe murdering people in a given area of their drone strike. It’s the moral and indiscriminate way to assassinate someone. Whatever that means.
I haven’t felt that these have been true for a while, if I ever truly did. For the longest time, I had doubts about the reasons for the US having military bases in the most random countries around the world. It has historically had over a dozen bases in Puerto Rico alone and I haven’t felt anything good about them. Vieques was bombed for years over and over until Boricuas expelled the Navy from the lands in the early 2000s, with the closure of the Vieques base in 2003 and yet, the US Navy is detonating bombs in the cleanup efforts they’re doing. Stemming from the incessant bombing of Vieques it has caused the residents of the island to have a 27% higher chance to get cancer than the main island of Puerto Rico.
Stop for a second and think and ask yourself, though, why the United States is even in the South West Asia and North Africa region? Oh, right, it’s oil and control.
Do not look at the genocide of Palestinians carried out by “Israel” and funded by the US that will claim at least 186,000 martyrs in the Gaza Strip. Don’t look at what their greatest ally is doing in the West Bank. And don’t look at what the US is doing in Yemen, either.
I’m tired. I’m not concerned about the fact these idiots shared classified information inside a Signal group chat. Signalgate is a distraction from the fact that the US is funding genocide and bombing foreign countries with whom they are not at war with. Say what you will about international law, but in order to commit to war you need approval from the local government to do so. The United States has not done that. Goldberg didn’t warn the public that the US was planning to bomb Yemen because he supports genocide. He doesn’t care for the lives in Yemen, nor does he care for the lives in occupied Palestine.
I’m concerned by the fact that US media continues to be complicit normalizing genocide, apartheid, fascism, and everything about the US that it criticizes other countries in doing (read: the non-white countries). US media like The New York Times, AP, NPR, and The Atlantic are all describing the actions the US government is doing in a passive voice. Minimizing abductions with no due process for people within the United States. It’s like they’re against it, but not. They will condemn the administration but give it a voice at face value without asking questions. I’m sick of not them not standing up for the truth, but then again, I saw their true colors when it came to covering the genocide in Palestine.
Liberals are caught up in finding “gotchas” in the Trump administration and saying “See? This is illegal”. Trump doesn’t care what’s illegal. The United States doesn’t care what’s illegal. It cares about the things it can do to further its power and everything else be damned.
Please stop reading these outlets. They’re normalizing every crime that the United States is committing. Every crime “Israel” is committing. And reducing everything to numbers and abstract definitions for Palestinians and non-white people being forced into disappearance. Any other country US media would be calling the actions of the current administration as fascist, dictatorial, but they won’t. They will never tell the truth.
I’m tired, but not giving up. I’ll keep trying to share the truth until my heart gives out.