Ok, de minimis air defenses, per the nauseating HN pedantry. The Yemenis have been bombed by drones since at least Obama's extrajudicial citizen murder. How many have they shot down, less than one a year on average?

>, wasting tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars and dozens of civilian lives on an unsuccessful attack,

A mistake would be to think this isn't success. The point is to spend lots of money to justify and enrich the bloated defense sector.

Now just imagine an entire cabinet filled with this type of motivated reasoning! Frightening indeed.

It's been filled with this kind of reasoning since at least the Iraq War and probably longer. That half of trillion has to be spent somewhere and the cabinets always need to manufacture a reason. That the campaign fails and more 'need' done is not even necessarily a drawback.

It's not true. But if it is, it doesn't matter. And if it matters, what about [my unrelated gripes]!

None of this is relevant to whether it was proper, legal, or risky to plan an attack via Signal.

From your initial comment:

> [the Houthis] have no air defense - False

> [there is] no risk of meaningful counter attack — False

> Understand they literally don't care about opsec — False, the Signal chat referred to some files being transmitted highside (i.e. properly), so clearly they literally do care

> nor is there much reason why they should — False, unless you regard "mitigating the risk of American equipment and potentially pilots getting shot down" as "not much reason," in which case we just disagree on axioms

> [the Houthis] have no air defense - False

True. They have since Obama shot down less than what, one drone a year? This is no air defense and your own evidence confirms it. At best it serves as a rare annoyance but is strategically defenseless. You are simply wrong.

>there is] no risk of meaningful counter attack — False

True. They have not once strategically gained a victory on the US nor do they have means to do so.

>Understand they literally don't care about opsec — False, the Signal chat referred to some files being transmitted highside (i.e. properly), so clearly they literally do care

True. They invite journalists and use poorly vetted signal channels.

>nor is there much reason why they should — False, unless you regard "mitigating the risk of American equipment and potentially pilots getting shot down" as "not much reason," in which case we just disagree on axioms

True, even with leaks the best they can do is extraordinarily rarely shoot down non piloted drones.

>None of this is relevant to whether it was proper, legal, or risky to plan an attack via Signal.

I did not claim that it was....

My thesis is the Houthis are the next easy way to unload massive defense funds with little strategic risk. Their lack of air defenses and no need for opsec informs the cabinet's laxadasical treatment.

I rest my case

Your case is predicated on the assumption that national security is a goal, and therefore highly flawed, as that is only the idealized goal of our military sector. Soldiers are largely brainwashed and lied to about this, which often perpetuates this thinking, as there may be some feeling somehow these indictments strike their core rather than where the real blame belongs which is in the high level orchestrators.

No, my case is predicated on it being bad to share information about an upcoming military operation with the Editor in Chief of The Atlantic and that doing so is the result is of a series of objectively illegal and incompetent actions.

The lack of investigation is an exemplar mechanism by which incompetence is allowed to rise to the top of regimes like this one.

There's no 5D chess. These people are just incompetent. Your gripes about the military-industrial complex are irrelevant.

>No, my case is predicated on it being bad to share information about an upcoming military operation with the Editor in Chief of The Atlantic and that doing so is the result is of a series of objectively illegal and incompetent actions.

We are in 99% agreement depending on framing. By my or your standard what they did was bad and incompetent. I'm judging by the standards for which they are selected -- burning budget to keep the right people paid. At that they are quite competent and agilely shift from Ukraine to further incursion in the ME. In this endeavor, bad opsec is competence as evacuating the target creates further opportunity for operations. The odd drone getting shot down would even be desirable from this view.

>Your gripes about the military-industrial complex are irrelevant.

They are relevant because they help you understand the criteria of competence and understand the one for which they were selected. You or I hypothetically may be better at opsec but we would be incompetent since we would not diligently work to achieve my gripes.

Lol, they were selected for absolute loyalty to Dear Leader, and now they reap the rewards of that loyalty (zero accountability) while we reap the downsides (incompetent leadership).

Have a good day!