'Signal Gate' Is Far Worse Than People Realize

Most of Washington is focusing on a reckless communications snafu. The real crime is far worse.

By now, most people have heard of ‘Signal Gate,’ a controversy that emerged when several high-ranking U.S. government officials used the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss a military attack on Yemen on Sunday.

It’s a bizarre and appalling story for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it all began when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was accidentally invited to the chat, where operational details of the impending airstrikes—targets, weapons, and attack sequencing—were openly discussed.

It’s bad, and critics are right that the debacle raises significant national security concerns.

So far, most of the criticism has been directed at Secretary of War Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who appears to be the person who inadvertently invited Goldberg to the chat.

The Trump administration’s response so far has been lame but predictable: attack Goldberg and The Atlantic.

Goldberg is a truly awful figure, one who dutifully reported the lies of the US intelligence apparatus for years, including during the Iraq War (see below).

But let’s be clear. Goldberg was not at fault here. Trump officials and the Pentagon were.

From what I’ve seen, intellectually honest people (those not consumed by tribal politics) recognize this.

Trump supporters in this camp tend to argue that Signal Gate is a blunder, but a forgivable one. Though some say Waltz should be fired, most are content to follow Trump’s lead and give the new NSA director “a mulligan.”

Trump critics naturally are calling for Hegseth’s head.

All of this is typical Washington politics, and GOP partisans can be thankful that Hillary Clinton got off with a slap on the wrist over her own reckless handling of classified information.

What I find far more interesting is the bombshell in the Signal chats that people are not talking: the reckless disregard of civilian lives in the Pentagon’s effort to take out a single Houthi rebel. Below is a transcript of the exchange between Waltz, Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Waltz: VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID. Pete, Kurilla, the IC, amazing job.” [IC refers to the Intelligence Community. Army General Michael "Erik" Kurilla is the head of U.S. Central Command.]

Vance: "What?"

Waltz (2 p.m.): “Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.” (emphasis added)

Vance: "Excellent."

Waltz responded to Vance with a fist emoji, an American-flag emoji, and a fire emoji.

I’m not exaggerating when I say Waltz’s use of emojis has generated more attention than the fact that the US government ordered a strike on a civilian structure to take a single Houthi rebel in a country 90 percent of Americans couldn’t find on a map.

We have no idea how many innocent civilians were killed in the attack.

Speaking on Face the Nation on Sunday before the Signal scandal broke, Waltz said that the attack had taken out “at least two” Houthi militants, a group of rebels aligned with Iran. The fate of the rebel’s girlfriend and any other occupants who may have been in the building is something we may never learn.

The vast majority of the attention on Signal Gate has focused on the communications blunder, which allowed a (hostile) journalist to observe the real-time discussion of a live military attack.

Almost none of it has focused on US officials casually discussing what would be a war crime if a country besides the US had initiated it. There’s an obvious reason for this: both sides do it.

“Obama and John Brennan drone-bombed wedding parties repeatedly, and even groups of people standing around, if they suspected that one ‘legitimate target’ was in the vicinity,” Glenn Greenwald observed on X. “It's of course a war crime, and if anyone applied this logic to the US, they'd be branded ‘terrorists.’”

Greenwald is right. But most of Washington will continue to focus on a communications snafu instead of the real crime.

For more than two decades now, the U.S. government has embraced barbaric rules of engagement, sacrificing countless civilian lives in the name of fighting ‘terror’—a justification that has conveniently served to expand its military footprint and global influence.