January 4 is my last day at NBC News and I’d like to say goodbye to my friends, hopefully not for good. This isn’t the first time I’ve left NBC, but this time the parting is more bittersweet, the world and the state of journalism in tandem crisis. My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus.

I first started my association with NBC 30 years ago, feeding Cold War stories to Bob Windrem and Fred Francis at the Pentagon. I became an on-air analyst during the 1999 Kosovo War, continuing to work thereafter with Nightly News, delighting and oftentimes annoying in my peculiar position of being a mere civilian amongst THE GENERALS and former government officials. A scholar at heart, I also found myself an often lone voice that was anti-nuclear and even anti-military, anti-military for me meaning opinionated but also highly knowledgeable, somewhat akin to a movie critic, loving my subject but also not shy about making judgements regarding the flops and the losers.

When the attacks of 9/11 came, I was called back to NBC. I spent weeks on and off the air talking about al Qaeda and the various wars we were rushing into, arguing that airpower and drones would be the centerpiece not troops. In the new martial environment where only one war cry was sanctioned I was out of sync then as well. I retreated somewhat to writing a column for the Los Angeles Times, but even there I had to fight editors who couldn’t believe that there would be a war in Iraq. And I spoke up about the absence of any sort of strategy for actually defeating terrorism, annoying the increasing gaggles of those who seemed to accept that a state of perpetual war was a necessity.

I thought then that there was great danger in the embrace of process and officialdom over values and public longing, and I wrote about the increasing power of the national security community. Long before Trump and “deep state” became an expression, I produced one ginormous investigation — Top Secret America — for the Washington Post and I wrote a nasty book — American Coup — about the creeping fascism of homeland security.

Looking back now they were both harbingers for what President Obama (and then Trump) faced in terms of largely failing to make enduring change.

Somewhere in all of that, and particularly as the social media wave began, it was clear that NBC (like the rest of the news media) could no longer keep up with the world. Added to that was the intellectual challenge of how to report our new kind of wars when there were no real fronts and no actual measures of success. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at “war,” no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus’ and Wes Clarks’, or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we’ve had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as “analysts”. We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

As perpetual war has become accepted as a given in our lives, I’m proud to say that I’ve never deviated in my argument at NBC (or at my newspaper gigs) that terrorists will never bedefeated until we better understand why they are driven to fighting. And I have maintained my central view that airpower (in its broadest sense including space and cyber) is not just the future but the enabler and the tool of war today.

Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn’t close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world national security into this sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders. I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum reporting.

I’m a difficult guy, not prone to either protocol or procedure and I give NBC credit that it tolerated me through my various incarnations. I hope people will say in the early days that I made Brokaw and company smarter about nuclear weapons, about airpower, and even about al Qaeda. And I’m proud to say that I also was one of the few to report that there weren’t any WMD in Iraq and remember fondly presenting that conclusion to an incredulous NBC editorial board. I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus, but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I’ve failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system.

Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself — busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.

I’d argue that under Trump, the national security establishmentnot only hasn’t missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I’d also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtlethreat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there’s a lot to report here, but I’m more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America’s wars.

I know it is characteristic of our overexcited moment to blast away at former employers and mainstream institutions, but all I can say is that despite many frustrations, my time at NBC has been gratifying. Working with Cynthia McFadden has been the experience of a lifetime. I’ve learned a ton about television from her and Kevin Monahan, the secret insider tricks of the trade and the very big picture of what makes for original stories (and how powerful they can be). The young reporters at NBC are also universally excellent. Thanks to Noah Oppenheim for hissupport of my contrarian and disruptive presence. And to Janelle Rodriguez, who supported deep expertise. The Nightly crew has also been a constant fan of my too long stories and a great team. I continue to marvel as Phil Griffin carries out his diabolical plan for the cable network to take over the world.

I’m proud of the work I’ve done with my team and know that there’s more to do. But for now it’s time to take a break. I’m ever so happy to return to writing and thinking without the officiousness of editorial tyrants or corporate standards. And of course I yearn to go back to my first love, which is writing boring reports about secret programs, grateful that the American government so graciously obliges in its constant supply. And I particularly feel like the world is moving so quickly that even in just the little national security world I inhabit, I need more time to sit back and think. And to replenish.

In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think — like everyone else does — that we miss so much. People who don’t understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it’s corporate control or even worse, that it’s partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump’s various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn’t get out Syria? We shouldn’t go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don’t even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?

Even without Trump, our biggest challenge as we move forward is that we have become exhausted parents of our infant (and infantile) social media children. And because of the “cycle,” we at NBC (and all others in the field of journalism) suffer from a really bad case of not being able to ever take a breath. We are a long way from resolving the rules of the road in this age, whether it be with regard to our personal conduct or anything related to hard news. I also don’t think that we are on a straight line towards digital nirvana, that is, that all of this information will democratize and improve society. I sense that there is already smartphone and social media fatigue creeping across the land, and my guess is that nothing we currently see — nothing that is snappy or chatty — will solve our horrific challenges of information overload or the role (and nature) of journalism. AndI am sure that once Trump leaves center stage, society will have a gigantic media hangover. Thus for NBC — and for everyone else — there is challenge and opportunity ahead. I’d particularly like to think and write more about that.

There’s a saying about consultants, that organizations hire them to hear exactly what they want to hear. I’m proud to say that NBC didn’t do that when it came to me. Similarly I can say that I’m proud that I’m not guilty of giving my employers what they wanted. Still, the things this and most organizations fear most — variability, disturbance, difference — those things that are also the primary drivers of creativity — are not really the things that I see valued in the reporting ranks.

I’m happy to go back to writing and commentary. This winter, I’m proud to say that I’ve put the finishing touches on a 9/11 conspiracy novel that I’ve been toiling on for over a decade. It’s a novel, but it meditates on the question of how to understand terrorists in a different way. And I’m undertaking two new book-writing projects, one fiction about a lone reporter and his magical source that hopes to delve into secrecy and the nature of television. And, If you read this far, I am writing a non-fiction book, an extended essay about national security and why we never seem to end our now perpetual state of war. There is lots of media critique out there, tons of analysis of leadership and the Presidency. But on the state of our national security? Not so much. Hopefully I will find myself thinking beyond the current fire and fury and actually suggest a viable alternative. Wish me luck.

Sitting next to me on the panel was Alexei Venediktov, famous in Russia as a fierce critic of the Putin government in his position as editor-in-chief of “Ekcho Moskvy” radio station, along with Giovanni Zagni, the head of an Italian website dedicated to checking politicians’ statements who is working with Facebook to determine “Fake News.” The panel was moderated by RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan.

• Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 9/27/2107 — speech excerpt on Trump:

My actual statements — from the start — about the Trump/Russia controversy, in contrast to the false claims constantly made about what I said and believed:

The Intercept, March 16, 2017:

We are currently in the process of selecting where our permanent location will be. We expect to have the lease closed on the new property by the end of July. Construction of the shelter should take an additional 10–12 weeks.

In the meantime, we have decided, for several reasons, to build a temporary shelter. To do that, we are using, and significantly expanding and improving, the makeshift shelter currently run by Karollyne. She is the trans woman who heads a homeless family that for years has squatted in an abandoned property in the forest of Rio de Janeiro, where they take care of dozens of abandoned dogs and cats.

Last year, along with Field of Vision, the filmmaking division run by Laura Poitras, I produced a short film about Karollyne and her devotion to caring for abandoned animals. We are thrilled that she has agreed to become one of our first homeless employees to work at our shelter. We also will take roughly half of the dogs she is currently caring for that she believes would be better off in a shelter and placed for adoption.

Despite how much she loves her animals, and how well she cares for them, there are some unsafe and otherwise less-than-ideal conditions there. We created a building plan that will resolve the worst of those problems and create safe, clean, professionalized conditions for the animals.

We are working with the two dozen volunteers we already have for our project, as well as with the two homeless employees we have hired thus far for the shelter (Karollyne and Lucas, who appears in our original video). Our Executive Director, Francisco David, previously worked overseeing similar construction projects and is doing the same here.

Yesterday, we broke ground on this work. Francisco worked with engineers to develop the blueprints. The materials began arriving today, and work began, all while the couple dozen dogs and cats who live there energetically played.

Moreover, Karollyne was, in many ways, the inspiration for this project; it was seeing her example of devotion to animals in need that inspired us to want to create a new type of shelter that taps into the powerful and beautiful bond between homeless people and their pets. And since Karollyne will work at our shelter, and will continue to rescue animals on her own, improving the conditions there for these animals is completely in the spirit of our mission.

Finally, and most critically, professionalizing the shelter at Karollyne’s will enable us to study and better understand exactly how we need to best manage the permanent (and much larger) shelter once it’s built. This will be a microcosm for what we’re building, and we have roughly 3 months to study it.

After spending two months organizing ourselves and doing research, our staff and volunteers yesterday were extremely excited yesterday to get to work in earnest in bringing this project to fruition. That we were able to work surrounded by so many amazing dogs and cats, and the extraordinary homeless family that cares for them with such compassion, sacrifice, and devotion, made it even more rewarding.

Anyone who wishes to support our project — which we believe and hope can inspire similar projects to help both homeless and animal populations around the world — can do so here.

My March, 2016 Intercept article calling on the US media to shed fake-neutrality and instead sound the alarm about Trump’s dangerous extremism:

As Donald Trump’s campaign predictably moves from toxic rhetoric targeting the most marginalized minorities to threats and use of violence, there is a growing sense that American institutions have been too lax about resisting it. . . . Imagine calling yourself a journalist, and then — as you watch an authoritarian politician get closer to power by threatening and unleashing violence and stoking the ugliest impulses — denouncing not that politician, but rather other journalists who warn of the dangers. That is the embodiment of the ethos of corporate journalism in America, and a potent illustration of why its fetishized reverence for “objectivity” is so rotted and even dangerous. . . .

As a result, nobody should be looking to our nation’s largest media outlets to serve as a bulwark against Trumpism or any other serious menace. The rules they have imposed on themselves, by design, ensure their own neutrality even in the face of the most extreme evils.

Democracy Now interview, August 29, 2016:

Democracy Now, August 29, 2016:

My August, 2015 Intercept article defending Jorge Ramos for interrupting Trump’s press conference:

The Republican presidential candidate leading every poll, Donald Trump, recently unveiled his plan to forcibly deport all 11 million human beings residing in the U.S. without proper documentation, roughly half of whom have children born in the U.S. (and who are thus American citizens). As George Will noted last week, “Trump’s roundup would be about 94 times larger than the wartime internment of 117,000 persons of Japanese descent.” It would require a massive expansion of the most tyrannical police state powers far beyond their already immense post-9/11 explosion. And that’s to say nothing of the incomparably ugly sentiments that Trump’s advocacy of this plan, far before its implementation, is predictably unleashing. . . .

What is more noble for a journalist to do: confront a dangerous, powerful billionaire-demagogue spouting hatemongering nonsense about mass deportation, or sit by quietly and pretend to have no opinions on any of it and that “both sides” are equally deserving of respect and have equal claims to validity? As Ramos put it simply, in what should not even need to be said: “I’m a reporter. My job is to ask questions. What’s ‘totally out of line’ is to eject a reporter from a press conference for asking questions.”

What Ramos did here was pure journalism in its classic and most noble expression: He aggressively confronted a politician wielding a significant amount of power over some pretty horrible things that the politician is doing and saying.

VARIOUS TWEETS SINCE HIS NOMINATION:

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

All of Trump's horrible personal attributes - though more relevant now - were well-known as he was fully embraced by every US elite circle.

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Every country has their Trump-esque factions. It's often driven by masculinity insecurity, lost status, etc. https://t.co/jkSKtvwvmP

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Many often claim Trump has no real beliefs but there is a consistent core over decades: "authoritarian nationalism" https://t.co/InxR68ImNA

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's Muslim ban "offensive and unconstitutional" - Mike Pence, 12/8/15 https://t.co/QpDTk6JeWx https://t.co/3hniGcUjLk

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's dark authoritarianism is a US phenomenon driven by US circumstances: just as was true of Brexit/UK. It's not a Putin plot.

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Pence blamed an overzealous volunteer but Trump campaign has used police repeatedly for this https://t.co/zVXiLosF5W https://t.co/ZthVeHJjGd

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

You have sacrificed nothing" - perhaps most enduringly scathing line ever at a convention. Imagine being those parents having to hear Trump

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

He is promising to be a one-man ruler" - CATO's @David_Boaz, endorsing Dems' depiction of Trump as an authoritarian https://t.co/xdGprNeggo

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump suggests resurrecting one of the worst Bush/Cheney WoT abuses: trying US terror suspects in military tribunals https://t.co/fPrnQQWVn1

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump is vile and dangerous for all sorts of reasons. This is not one of them. https://t.co/A9cGNRJgct

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's new campaign chair Steve Bannon & hatemonger Pam Geller have great mutual regard https://t.co/EB96hml5Xc

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump has huge debt held by Chinese banks and Goldman Sachs https://t.co/7spBrDK3J5 https://t.co/zUP0m0E4NE

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

One year ago, many journalists attacked @jorgeramosnews for refusing to feign neutrality over Trump. He was right https://t.co/nEbUT5gplJ

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Scariest aspect of Trump campaign is who & what he's normalizing. This ad is largely fair: https://t.co/ZzRyqBTRBY

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

The biggest and most effective con artist in US politics before Trump has always been Rush Limbaugh https://t.co/BKtjRJ3ZZS

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump spent the primary season mocking GOP opponents for begging big donors for money. Now doing his own begging. https://t.co/IuPnCgJKlH

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump makes illegal $25K donation at request of FL AG when she was investigating him -> She decides not to prosecute https://t.co/EsLGkl2IO8

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's refusal to release any tax returns, and this idiotic "audit" excuse, is a massive affront to transparency https://t.co/q4mec55N2q

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

This NYT article shows how media has changed methods (for the better) to report on Trump https://t.co/JkqiV5uvS1

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Clinton's full remarks: some of Trump's supporters are bigots, others truly screwed by status quo. It's just true: https://t.co/JclOUbhjFU

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

And, of course, he's lying when he denies Trump advocated stealing the oil ("to the victor belongs the spoils") https://t.co/hIZNgYdL99

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump Foundation claims to have made 5 donations: none seem actually to exist but 1: which hid an illegal donation https://t.co/EeFMGgythM

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump spouted some early heresy on Israel/Palestine but since then has loyally spouted the AIPAC script - & worse... https://t.co/6oThGzsQHX

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Yes: that's may be the scariest thing about a Trump presidency: how people use violence to compensate for insecurity https://t.co/q7vp5cLTbq

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

These are among world's biggest cowards: Republican elites petrified Trump will win, too afraid to oppose him https://t.co/HNuNrAPanE

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

NYT & WP have often described Trump's lies explicitly. That's great & I hope practice continues beyond Trump & 2016: https://t.co/QAubdgWnry

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's insanity has obscured how far to the right Mike Pence is: "I frankly hold Dick Cheney in really high regard" https://t.co/AaNyjh2ZwN

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump's anti-terror platform is explicitly 1) more bombing; 2) Israel-style police profiling; 3) say "radical Islam" https://t.co/NyivdkUanp

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Trump often says his dad "only" gave him $1 million as a "loan", but it was actually $14 million https://t.co/5Bny1Y4jmD #Meritocracy

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

2 consecutive Trump generations inheriting massive wealth they didn't earn, then using it solely for their own benefit. Unsurprising outcome

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

This is political journalism: documenting 31 lies told by Trump just this week: "depicting him as a heroic savior" https://t.co/GfWDdrju53

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Like most of what Trump says and does, it all stems from extreme personal feelings of inadequacy and weakness. https://t.co/OzOtiXwh6j

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

I wonder how a certain segment of Trump's supporters - for whom Strength is central - will react to seeing him wilt like that.

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

Donald Trump has left a long trail of people who personally interacted with him and now completely despise him https://t.co/Cb4Q5PsAOR

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter

As appalling as some of Trump's "policies" are, his personal instability & psychological issues are probably even more dangerous... https://t.co/fohW9yG498

VARIOUS TRUMP SUPPORTERS WEIGH IN:

The alt-right/Neo-Nazi’s Daily Stormer, September 23, 2016:

Ricky Vaughn on Twitter

two Jewish cosmopolitans -- one a homosexual who puts Brazilian penises in his rectum -- triggered by red-blooded White American https://t.co/dsEBpM3Xtz

And immediately in response to this post:

Trump Card on Twitter

@ggreenwald Don't worry Glenn, we all know you've been up Hillary's ass from day one.

As a Jewish LGBT journalist in an inter-racial, same-sex marriage, the claim that I’m aligned with the alt-right or will thrive in a Trump presidency is not just self-evidently offensive but every bit as dishonest as the claim that I’ve been pro-Trump during the campaign. But, needless to say, no evidence in the world can deter Democratic Party apparatchiks from pursuing their smear campaigns against critics.