(ThyBlackMan.com) Incompetence is bad enough on its own; however, when married to arrogance, the pair seems predestined to give birth to unmitigated disaster.
That is precisely what happened when National Security Adviser Mike Waltz haphazardly included the editor of “The Atlantic” magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a sensitive discussion of military operations on Signal. (Signal is a secure-enough-for-civilians-but-not-the-government messaging app.)
As we all now know, several high-ranking members of the Trump Administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were discussing plans to attack Houthi terrorists in Yemen. (Incidentally, Republicans have increasingly vocalized their displeasure with Vance, who appears to have wanted to countermand President Trump’s order to attack.)
Security breaches of this nature can compromise operational security, which could lead to injuries or deaths of our military personnel. Further, our enemies who had nothing to do with this mission could have also been monitoring the chat. Russia and China, for example, are constantly attempting to surveil senior American military, political, and intelligence leaders. If they had access to their phones, they certainly had access to this discussion.
Of course, our leaders are merely human. Mistakes, including very serious ones, do happen. When they do, we expect our senior military and governmental leaders to respond with humility, transparency, and integrity. Unfortunately, those who were involved in this incident have not done so.
Far from issuing mea culpas regarding this unacceptable (and utterly preventable) security lapse, President Trump’s national security team has been on the offensive — and has acted offensively. This includes not only attacking those who have sought to hold them to account; it also includes lying to Congress about whether they shared any classified information during this exchange.
What has been the president’s response? For his part, Trump has been defiant, saying that he will not fire anyone in the aftermath of this debacle. On Sunday, he told Kristen Welker of “Meet the Press:” “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.”
His obsequious proxies, such as Senator Josh Hawley, have similarly downplayed the incident. Further, Hegseth has made it clear that he would rather talk about literally anything else.
In considering this unfortunate event, I can’t help but to think of the relentless attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs that Trump and his acolytes have levied. For example, Hegseth wrote a book titled “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.” In it, he questioned the bona fides of former Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown:
“Was (he promoted) because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter.”
Brown, who is a four-star general, is universally praised by those who are qualified to assess his accomplishments. This highlights the irony and hypocrisy of Hegseth, who self-evidently was chosen for his current role based upon his race, his gender, and his unflinching fealty to Donald Trump. (His alleged ties to the white nationalist movement were not a hindrance, as it likely would have been just a few years ago.)
DEI programs came into existence for a reason. It is unbelievably hypocritical and perverse not to recognize that they were created specifically to address the invidious discrimination that has always been visited upon the marginalized. Further, I shudder to think of how opponents of DEI would have attacked our national security leaders had they been people of color.
The real problem with DEI is that it provides opportunities for members of marginalized groups — primarily people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community — to overcome historic barriers to their advancement. This has never been about “unqualified” people taking away roles from those who “deserve” them. Obviously, “diversity” isn’t what caused the largest national security blunder in recent memory. Thus, this incident should serve as a catalyst to reinstate such programs.
I am not optimistic.
Written by Larry Smith
