Glenn Greenwald
March 31, 2025
March 31, 2025
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Most of Washington is focusing on a reckless communications snafu. The real crime is far worse. Jon Miltimore March 28, 2025 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. Continue reading on Substack.  Listen to a reading of this article by Tim Foley. I envy the Palestinians. Not for what they’re going through, obviously, but for what they have. Their supremely authentic culture, with its deep roots and ancient connection to the land.
One of the very, very few good things that the Gaza holocaust has brought into this world is a deluge of footage of Palestinians living their lives, interacting with each other and relating to their loved ones as they find ways to get by in this nightmare. Westerners like me have been quietly watching these video clips on our little screens in our homes, and watching the various films, documentaries and shows that have been made about Palestinian life over the years, and taking it all in. And it’s just so very moving. Palestinians are such amazingly beautiful people. How tender they are with each other. How real and organic their spirituality is. How deeply they love their culture in all its unique expressions. How profoundly intimate their connections with each other are, both between individuals and with their community as a whole. Read complete article on Substack.  With momentum for a strike on Iran building within the Trump White House, Goldberg was apparently summoned to move the neocon message. And he wound up with more access than he could handle. Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg has won the admiration of his Beltway peers for the conduct he displayed after being accidentally invited into a smoke-filled “bomb Yemen” Signal chat with Trump’s national security honchos and top advisors. “Props to Jeffrey Goldberg for his high standards as a professional journalist,” declared Ian Bremmer, the trans-Atlanticist foreign policy pundit on his Bank of America-sponsored GZero podcast. “When he realized the conversation was authentic he immediately left, informed the relevant senior official, and made the public aware without disclosing intelligence that could damage the United States.” But what exactly did Goldberg do to deserve such high praise? With a once in a lifetime opportunity to view and report on high level discussions on the US launching an illegal war on Yemen, Goldberg chose to avert his gaze and leave the scene as soon as he could, apparently because maintaining such unparalleled access would have compelled him to report on discussions that might have complicated a war being waged on behalf of the Israeli apartheid state to which he emigrated as a young man. Instead of exploiting his front row seat to the Trump admin’s war planning – a vantage point that would have yielded countless scoops and a bestselling book for any adversarial journalist – Goldberg bolted and dutifully informed the White House about the unfortunate situation.
From there, the story became a palace intrigue over an embarrassing failure of “opsec,” or operational security, and not one about the policy itself, which entails a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In the fourth paragraph of Goldberg’s Atlantic article about the principals’ Signal group, he strongly implied that he supports the war’s objectives, describing Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, as an “Iran-backed terrorist organization” which upholds a belief system that is (what else?) antisemitic. Given Goldberg’s admission that Waltz first reached out to him at least two days prior to mistakenly adding him to the Signal group, it appears the NSC director had been leaking to the Atlantic editor on behalf of the neocon faction in the Trump White House. And it seems clear why Waltz would have sought to cultivate Goldberg. Continue reading on thegrayzone.com.  The Middle East So the US is sending Carrier Strike Group One (CVN-70 USS Carl Vinson) to the Middle East, leaving CSG-5 (CVN-73 USS George Washington) to "hold the fort" in the western Pacific from the semi-safe environs of its quasi-permanent berth in Yokosuka, Japan. All the Washington does is sail back and forth between San Diego and Yokosuka every so often to give the impression it's doing something meaningful. Otherwise I've seen no indication for several years that it is anything more than a training and parade vessel. In any case, the Vinson is headed to the Arabian Sea, and perhaps points beyond. (That remains to be seen.) Meanwhile the deployment of CSG-8 (CVN-75 USS Trembling Puppy) has been extended, even as it remains bottled up in the northern reaches of the Red Sea, launching air strikes on Yemen from ~1000 km away, with USAF refueling tankers at the ready as needed. The Yemeni have launched a few modest packages of antiquated drones and antiship cruise missiles in the general direction of the Trembling Puppy – all of which have been relatively easy pickings for the cruiser and destroyers and combat air patrol. But, keep in mind, even though these old and slow Yemeni drones and missiles have little chance of scoring a hit from 1000 km away, the carrier strike group ships and planes still have to shoot at every one of them! So every Yemeni strike package of a couple dozen missiles will deplete CSG-8's munitions magazines by AT LEAST a corresponding number of air defense missiles, and quite possibly TWICE as many, according to standard practice of firing two interceptors at each threat. CSG-8’s magazine depth has already been substantially depleted over the course of the past two weeks — and remember, the US Navy cannot replenish its vertical launch systems at sea. And, of course, if military operations against Iran are the ultimate objective, then at some point the Trembling Puppy and its entourage are going to have to leave the cozy waters between Jeddah and the Gulf of Suez, and run the gauntlet of the Gate of Lamentation (Bab el-Mandeb).  The Gate of Lamentation (Bab el-Mandeb) Finish article on Substack.
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