On March 15, 2025, the United States launched a retaliatory strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen, killing at least 53 people, including five children and two women. The operation, targeting Houthi military sites and leadership, came just hours after National Security Advisor Michael Waltz—former Green Beret, ex-congressman, and key Trump strategist—accidentally leaked the strike plans by mistakenly including The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group chat meant for senior officials. The attack followed a Houthi hypersonic missile strike on U.S. warships on March 13, part of the group’s ongoing effort to block the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Waltz’s mistake is alarming, but his reaction to it is even more telling. In the leaked chat, he responded to the unfolding crisis with emojis—simple, trivial symbols to express his feelings about a strike that had just killed five children in the poorest country in the world. The sheer detachment of it is staggering. This wasn’t just an operational failure; it was a moment that laid bare the cold, casual indifference of those in power.
How easy it is, from the safety of Washington, to reduce war and death to something that can be reacted to with a tap on a screen. If there is a higher power watching, what would it make of this? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it’s only humans who must reckon with the weight of our own cruelty, the ways in which suffering becomes background noise in the corridors of power.
