Forget the Signal Chat, What About the Yemen War Crimes Revealed in It?
Much of our media is missing the biggest story of all: US officials are not just breaking US and international law but confessing to it in writing.
I get it. It is a big deal. It is a huge story. And I said so myself the day after the stunning revelations from Jeffrey Goldberg broke in The Atlantic.
The fact that the most senior members of the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and national security adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing classified war plans for Yemen on a publicly available messaging app – Signal! – is a massive breach of national security, a clear violation of federal records laws, and all of those involved – per Hegseth himself in another life – should be “fired on the spot” and “criminally prosecuted.”
So, I completely understand why it continues to dominate news headlines in the US and around the world.
But… what about the contents of that Signal chat? Why does the mainstream media continue to focus only on the rights and wrongs of using a messaging app for sharing war plans, while burying any real discussion about the rights and wrongs of those war plans themselves?
We now know, thanks to a second scoopy Atlantic piece from Goldberg, who bizarrely found himself invited into that Signal group (and, even more bizarrely, then voluntarily exited that group!), that a blatant war crime was committed by the Trump administration in Yemen on March 15.
The principals said so themselves. In the Signal chat. With glee.
Got that? The US government ordered the “collapse” of a residential building because their Houthi target, the “top missile guy,” walked into it to visit his girlfriend. Vance called the bombing “excellent,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said it was “a good start,” while Waltz reacted with a trio of giddy if childish emojis.
How is it legal, under international humanitarian law, for the US to destroy an entire building filled with civilians to kill one man?