Chinese Spy Balloon

[mark]

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

[jon-nyc]

2 questions about the spy balloon…

Was it really too dangerous to shoot it down over fucking Montana? There’s like half a person per square parsec in that state. Makes me think they were worried about dangerous materials on board. (Rank speculation)

The DoD said it didn’t provide any capability the CCP didn’t already have through satellites. Oh really? How do they know? And if that’s true, why did the CCP bother?

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Chinese Spy Balloon:

2 questions about the spy balloon…

Was it really too dangerous to shoot it down over fucking Montana? There’s like half a person per square parsec in that state. Makes me think they were worried about dangerous materials on board. (Rank speculation)

Here's a suggestion, how about shooting it down over the Aleutian islands, when it was first spotted? It's even more sparsely populated there than Montana.

The DoD said it didn’t provide any capability the CCP didn’t already have through satellites. Oh really? How do they know? And if that’s true, why did the CCP bother?

Excellent points.

Now, what about the OTHER balloon going over Latin America right now?

[George K]

[Mik]

@George-K said in Chinese Spy Balloon:

@jon-nyc said in Chinese Spy Balloon:

2 questions about the spy balloon…

Here's a suggestion, how about shooting it down over the Aleutian islands, when it was first spotted? It's even more sparsely populated there than Montana.

Yeah, I was thinking that too.

[George K]

[89th]

[89th]

[89th]

You can see the missile and jet in this one

[mark]

[Rainman]

Poor widdle balloon. Never hurt anyone.
I hope that pilot can live with himself.
I need a moment.
sigh

[Copper]

F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base downs Chinese balloon

I see, and hear, those F-22s flying over my house.

I'll have to get out my binoculars and see if they painted a balloon on the side.

[LuFins Dad]

[George K]

The WH knew about the balloon on Jan 28, and went public on Feb 2.

As it turns out, US authorities were well aware of the unidentified object that had entered American airspace on Jan. 28, that had then left and re-entered over North Idaho on Tuesday. But with such a high-profile trip at stake, keeping it on the down-low was key.
By the time the thing became visible in Montana, President Joe Biden had already been briefed and the White House was scrambling to decide whether to blast it from the sky.
The gravity of the situation was only exacerbated by Montana being home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses a large portion of the US’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Biden administration knew it had to exercise extreme caution especially in what was a heated political environment ahead of 2024 elections, with Republicans agitating on which party could strike a harder or tougher line on China.

I can see all kinds of reasons to not release it, but when the local paper in Billings MT reveals it, well...

[George K]

And, what the actual fuck happened to Bill Kristol?

[George K]

And of course, the Lincoln Project:

"...after it was entirely too late, just like inflation. Joe did that.

[George K]

[George K]

Chinese Spy Balloons Flew Over The U.S. When President Trump Was In Office

“The balloon spotted this week over Montana was not the first time the U.S. has detected Chinese balloons over their territory—with previous incursions occurring during the Trump Administration,” Bloomberg reported.

But an unnamed source from the Trump administration insisted to Bloomberg in that same article that it wasn’t a big deal.

“One top national security official from the administration of former President Donald Trump said none of the Chinese spy balloons were near sensitive sites or had payloads as large as this one appears to carry,” Bloomberg continued.

And if you can’t trust an unnamed official who worked for Trump, who can you trust, right?

The Associated Press also has a new report that quotes a defense expert who said that Chinese spy balloons have been detected near sensitive sites in Hawaii, home to a large U.S. military presence, during the past five years.

“Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said Chinese surveillance balloons have been sighted on numerous occasions over the past five years in different parts of the Pacific, including near sensitive U.S. military installations in Hawaii,” the Associated Press reported on Saturday.

President Biden has been in office for two years, leaving three years of Trump’s presidency in that window of five years.

The Wall Street Journal also independently reported that Chinese spy balloons have flown over the U.S. before, though didn’t specify the era.

“China has sent surveillance balloons over the continental U.S. on at least a handful of occasions, U.S. officials said,” the Journal reported on Friday.