The leak

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If you open the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, it would seem that the American defense has faced a major setback due to a mistake made by the US defense secretary by leaking war plans in a Signal group chat. The story is that Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Waltz mistakenly added to a group chat the editor of The Atlantic named Jeffrey Goldberg. In that group chat, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared war plans against the Houthis of Yemen. And those war plans and target information were also read by the journalist.

The mainstream publications and broadcast noisemakers such as CNN and others have found their topic to run with for pretty much the entire year. Truth be told, I don't believe anyone knew about these leaks until the US media started making noise about it. I am not sure how that news story is going to help the American citizens' participation in American democracy. I do know for a fact that this story will help sell a lot of newspapers though. T

he same media have comfortably sat on crucial information in the past justifying that disservice to the American democracy in the name of national security. If this chat leak was such a massive deal as they're trying to turn it into, then why didn't they sit on it too? It's not like they haven't done it before. They've comfortably lied to the American people about Iraq war plans.

So, they do have practice for this kind of stuff. And I highly doubt the intention of leaking this leak to be anything related to creating an informed citizenry for the sake of a healthy American democracy. Truth be told, it's a topic they want to use as a weapon against Trump.

I mean, it's not like the war plans were leaked and it compromised the American weapons system. It's not like invasion plans were leaked right before the American tanks were rolling onto the borderline of

Yemen. It's not like the Houthis in Yemen are capable of thwarting an American attack if they were told which direction the American missiles were coming from or which drone was going to unleash the hellfire missile at which target inside Yemen. It's not like the American defense was compromised in the face of Russia or China who would penetrate deep into the vulnerabilities of the American defense systems. A bunch of tribes, whose most sophisticated weapons can't even defend against the lowest of the American arsenal let alone offend the US military, isn't going to hurt American hegemony anytime in our lifetime.

American democracy and American journalism are a sophisticated game of lies and deceit. These lies and deceits are packaged in a totally different and nice sounding cause and presented to the American people. It's just a matter of suspense and surprise as to whose packaged good would become acceptable and popular and bought by the masses. Because truth be told, Americans like a good whiff of lies and deceit while going about their lives.

The consumption of those goods is embedded in the language. Because how else can one explain, for instance, why Americans use the phrase 'person with hearing impairment' instead of deaf. One word and on target. But no, they have to deviate from the truth and come up with a long phrase. Soldiers who developed mental problems after returning from war were called shell-shocked. But that direct and simple way of speaking the truth wasn't acceptable so now we say 'soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder'. Anything in the service of deception is welcomed in American society.

And that precisely is why such cartels made up of morally bankrupt politicians and dishonest media conglomerates thrive. They've figured out the Americans' addiction to consumerism and their need for taking down a notch the harsh realities. The media make money. Americans go to malls and bars. The arrangement works. The math checks out.