Two news headlines during the first week of the year made my blood run cold. The first, on January 5, declared: “Trump says he tipped off oil companies on Venezuela attack.” So, even though he refused to tell anyone in Congress that he was going to launch a risky attack on a foreign country, he was blabbing about it to oil company executives before it took place. It is doubtful that any of the oil execs had a security clearance.
The next day’s headline said: “Trump administration thanks the media for keeping quiet before the strike that captured Maduro.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed that “a number of media outlets had gotten leaks” about the impending operation, including the New York Times and Washington Post. It sounds more like a torrent than a leak. The outlets had held off reporting to protect service personnel. Rubio thanked the news outlets, saying American “lives could have been lost” had the attack been reported. The media need not have been thanked if those in the know had kept their yaps shut.
The security of this mission was dangerously deficient. One might reasonably conclude that the Commander in Chief was the source of the leaks. He does seem to get tickled about announcing boat strike killings, air strikes on foreign nations–Iran, Yemen and Nigeria–and threats to use “his” military against nations like Columbia, Mexico and Greenland. We have apparently morphed into a warmongering nation under Trump.
Even a warrior nation owes it to their dedicated service personnel to maintain operational security so as not to put American lives at risk. However, Trump failed to make heads roll for the inexcusable leak of details about impending airstrikes in Yemen in the Signalgate scandal. His national security team was chattering about the operation on unsecure media, which endangered the lives of the pilots. There are unfriendly electronic ears all over Washington, D.C. and the time and location of the Yemen strikes could well have become known to some of those eavesdroppers.
As one who served in the Vietnam War, I am acutely aware of the absolute need to maintain operational security. As the World War II poster warned, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” Most of my Vietnam service was spent living and working with South Vietnamese soldiers, getting clearance from them to conduct every artillery and air strike throughout the province where I served. This was highly confidential information. For instance, we needed to provide the exact location and time of every B-52 bombing strike in order to get a clearance. That information would have been invaluable to the enemy.
My Vietnamese counterparts were absolutely trustworthy. Most of them came from a nearby Catholic village and they were fiercely anti-communist. I had a personal stake in our security because I spent hundreds of hours as an artillery spotter in a small airplane, known as a bird dog. Security was a continual concern, but at least we did not have to worry about a commander in chief disclosing secret information about our targeting.
Trump has a sorry track record when it comes to protecting the nation’s secrets. During his first term, he was chronically careless in his handling of the nation’s secrets.
Stephanie Grisham, who served as press secretary in the white House during Trump’s first term, said, “I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio. So, he has no respect for classified information, never did.”
Trump was indicted in June of 2023 for storing, showing off and refusing to return his cache of classified documents. Trump faced 37 felony counts for his mishandling of the nation’s secrets but lucked out by getting the case assigned to a federal judge who he had appointed. The case was delayed by his lawyers’ scorched earth tactics, assisted mightily by the thankful Trump-appointed judge. The case had to be dismissed when he retook office. The prosecutor, Jack Smith, issued a detailed report showing that there was sufficient evidence to support Trump’s conviction.
The Venezuela security breach put the lives of our service personnel in serious jeopardy. The operation had so many moving parts that it was already dangerous. A leak of even general elements of the strike could have had disastrous effects for the Americans charged with carrying it out. It is beyond comprehension that Trump leaked any information about it to the oil big shots before it happened.
While Trump has displayed little regard for maintaining security, he has shown even less concern about protecting the lives of our warfighters who put their lives at risk for their country. Unless he can learn to control his loose lips, we can expect to needlessly lose some of America’s finest.
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