There Should Be Consequences for the Signal Blunder – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

“Signal” is an encrypted, and believed secure, telephone app that deletes conversations conducted on it automatically. Let’s set aside the legal requirements that all or most government records need to be preserved and tackle the massive screwup that ensued.

Apparently, Signal was adopted by the “best practices” of the Biden administration. Why were those idiots’ lead followed?

The group was called the “Houthi PC small group.” National Security Adviser Michael Waltz took full responsibility for setting up the group.

Among the people linked in were Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, her deputy Steve Miller, and several lower-level staff.

Also included in the group — perhaps inadvertently — was The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg reportedly received a connection request on Signal from Waltz on March 11. None of the group except Waltz was apparently aware that Goldberg had been added, nor did they inquire.

On or about March 13th, a conversation on Signal was held with the “Houthi PC small group” including Goldberg. As Goldberg first reported on March 24th, “I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The only reason he knew that was that Waltz had, inadvertently or not, added him to the “Houthi PC small group.”

Goldberg’s story overly-hyped the conversation saying that war plans were discussed, including bomb loads for aircraft. He wrote, “The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.”

To be overly fair to Goldberg, he — like almost every journalist — wouldn’t know a war plan from a picture on a milk carton. There were no war plans disclosed, no strategies or tactics, no targets specified. The kind of aircraft — F-18s, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and MQ-9 Reaper drones — were disclosed. I asked a friend of mine, a former Navy admiral who flew F-18s and commanded an aircraft carrier, about the weapons packages. He assured me that this information was not secret, only “confidential,” the lowest form of classification. It’s probably available on the internet.

I can’t tell from the messages whether the targets’ locations were disclosed. If they were, they were probably classified. What was disclosed, and this is what is troubling, was the timing of the strikes.

During the March 13 online meeting, Hegseth stated the times at which U.S. air and drone strikes were being launched against Houthi targets. While the Trump administration claimed that no classified information was discussed, the times at which the strikes would be made was clearly classified at least “secret” and possibly “top secret.” Targets and timing are nothing to be disclosed to anyone who doesn’t have a need to know and Goldberg clearly had none.

Fortunately, the strikes were successful. The Houthis hadn’t learned of them before they hit.

There are significant problems with what people said in the Signal conversation, especially Vice President Vance, whose isolationist views were on display.

Vance told the group that the strikes were not timed correctly and said, “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now … There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices … I just hate bailing Europe out again.” He also said that he’d try to tax Europe for the cost of the strikes.

Since the conversations were revealed, Vance has tried to reprove his loyalty to Trump. In Greenland last week, he said that Greenland would be better off under the U.S.’s protection than Europe’s. The NATO nations aren’t at all pleased with Trump about his efforts to take Greenland from Denmark.

On one hand, it’s good to see that there is debate among Trump’s advisers rather than the groupthink that sank the Biden administration. On the other, there’s too much isolationism among them.

As I wrote here three and a half years ago, isolationists aren’t conservatives. America has to be involved with our allies — NATO, Israel, Taiwan, Australia and others — to be a global power. We may not like what some allies do, but as Churchill once said it’s better to fight with allies than without them.

Trump’s ad hoc foreign policy has brought a lot of confusion to our allies. Does he have guiding principles other than deal making? It appears not.

Trump’s vacillation on Ukraine has caused the NATO nations to try to rearm. They won’t because their social welfare states need the money to spend on benefits. Even the UK can’t do more than shuffle the cards. They used creative accounting — shifting pensions for the war widows and the military and some costs of intelligence gathering — to their defense budget. It’s a sham and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer knows it.

Russia is backing away, to no one’s surprise, from the deals Russian President Putin made with Trump only a week ago. Trump is trying to get a new nuclear weapons deal with Iran. How can either be trusted? In short, they can’t.

Signal Injurious to Deterrence

If the president is interested in deal-making, he needs to revive our deterrence strategy. That includes, as I’ve written elsewhere, reconstituting our Air Force over and above other needs such as the Navy’s desperate requirement for new ships. Nothing can be done — no significant operation nor even aid to a humanitarian disaster — without the participation of major parts of the Air Force. It is the nation’s indispensable force.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand this. It’s essential that he does. If our deterrent strategy fails – as it is gradually doing — so does our national security.

Now let’s come back to the issue of how this information, both valueless and valuable, was disclosed. NSA Mike Waltz has accepted responsibility for adding Goldberg to the conversation. Whether he did it personally or one of his staffers did doesn’t matter.

Waltz’s days as National Security Adviser should be numbered and the number should be in single digits. Anyone whose judgment is so lacking as to add a reporter — even a Trump ally, which Goldberg certainly isn’t — to what is supposed to be a secure conversation should not hold a position of responsibility.

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