Chinese spy balloon

[twocoach]

me too. But I'd also like to believe we wouldn't have waited until it cruised across the entire country to make a decision of any sort....

No guarantees what is inside it. How'd you like to shoot it down only to find out there was some sort of harmful chemicals purposefully put inside it and you just rained it down over US citizens?

id like to believe our counterintelligence has a better idea of what's in it than you or I. And If it was indeed something chemically hazardous, then that....would be, essentially a declaration of war by China no?

I don't know what capabilities China has to do such things and I do not know what capability we have to detect it while it is still in flight. I just can understand why there was a level of seriousness given to the need to not take the thing down over populated US soil. The US seems to have taken the appropriate steps to take this thing down and I assume they have gathered up what they can find and are doing some analysis of what they find. China can huff and puff all they want but they aren't going to war over some stupid spy balloon.

I saw an interview with a former CIA analyst and he ranked this as about a 2 out of 10 in seriousness as he stated that Chinese satellites are by far the greater threat from an espionage standpoint and that this is just more political noise over nonsense.

[MICHHAWK]

china is a horrible citizen of this world.

[twocoach]

china is a horrible citizen of this world.

In this we agree.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

china is a horrible citizen of this world.

I agree but I have zero doubt you have benefitted from their existence.

[twocoach]

china is a horrible citizen of this world.

I agree but I have zero doubt you have benefitted from their existence.

We all have, that doesn't make it any better.

[twocoach]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/06/politics ... index.html

Interesting details shared by the commander of NORAD.

"“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command said when asked about the three other balloons."

Sounds like they spent the time between when they first identified this balloon and when they finally brought it down to study what the capabilities of it were as a means to help them be able to better identify them in the future.

He flat out admitted that they had no clue that the balloons that happened during the Trump administration happened at that time. It is always refreshing when someone in a high level of authority admits to knowing how to do something. I hope the intelligence community is able to learn from this and can better handle these in the future.

[Deleted User 863]

No guarantees what is inside it. How'd you like to shoot it down only to find out there was some sort of harmful chemicals purposefully put inside it and you just rained it down over US citizens?

id like to believe our counterintelligence has a better idea of what's in it than you or I. And If it was indeed something chemically hazardous, then that....would be, essentially a declaration of war by China no?

I don't know what capabilities China has to do such things and I do not know what capability we have to detect it while it is still in flight. I just can understand why there was a level of seriousness given to the need to not take the thing down over populated US soil. The US seems to have taken the appropriate steps to take this thing down and I assume they have gathered up what they can find and are doing some analysis of what they find. China can huff and puff all they want but they aren't going to war over some stupid spy balloon.

I saw an interview with a former CIA analyst and he ranked this as about a 2 out of 10 in seriousness as he stated that Chinese satellites are by far the greater threat from an espionage standpoint and that this is just more political noise over nonsense.

I agree this is not that serious.

I also agree with your assumptions about us taking appropriate steps to determine the best course of action.


Although, I do assume, that many people's assumptions would be far different if it were the other team as president.

[twocoach]

id like to believe our counterintelligence has a better idea of what's in it than you or I. And If it was indeed something chemically hazardous, then that....would be, essentially a declaration of war by China no?

I don't know what capabilities China has to do such things and I do not know what capability we have to detect it while it is still in flight. I just can understand why there was a level of seriousness given to the need to not take the thing down over populated US soil. The US seems to have taken the appropriate steps to take this thing down and I assume they have gathered up what they can find and are doing some analysis of what they find. China can huff and puff all they want but they aren't going to war over some stupid spy balloon.

I saw an interview with a former CIA analyst and he ranked this as about a 2 out of 10 in seriousness as he stated that Chinese satellites are by far the greater threat from an espionage standpoint and that this is just more political noise over nonsense.

I agree this is not that serious.

I also agree with your assumptions about us taking appropriate steps to determine the best course of action.


Although, I do assume, that many people's assumptions would be far different if it were the other team as president.

I feel this way because of the statements by qualified NORAD people involved in the actual process who have made what appear to be candid, honest statements, not because of the party of our current President.

[Deleted User 863]

We know you're never biased, but others are.

Would fox news cover it the same if Trump were the president? Absolutely not.

Would many dems who say it's a nothing burger still feel the same if Trump were president? Personally, i doubt it.

[jhawks99]

It was this guy

[twocoach]

We know you're never biased, but others are.

Would fox news cover it the same if Trump were the president? Absolutely not.

Would many dems who say it's a nothing burger still feel the same if Trump were president? Personally, i doubt it.

If someone from NORAD made the same comment about an identical incident if it happened during the Trump Presidency, I would feel the same way about the comment. You're trying really hard to spin this in the direction you want it to be so you can claim bias and hypocrisy. What's the point?

[MICHHAWK]

china is a horrible citizen of this world. i thought that would be the one thing we all could agree on. that china is a bag of crap.

[Deleted User 863]

We know you're never biased, but others are.

Would fox news cover it the same if Trump were the president? Absolutely not.

Would many dems who say it's a nothing burger still feel the same if Trump were president? Personally, i doubt it.

If someone from NORAD made the same comment about an identical incident if it happened during the Trump Presidency, I would feel the same way about the comment. You're trying really hard to spin this in the direction you want it to be so you can claim bias and hypocrisy. What's the point?

I just said you're never biased.

You don't think the right wing media made a bigger deal out of this than they would have with a republican president? I do.

[japhy]

china is a horrible citizen of this world. i thought that would be the one thing we all could agree on. that china is a bag of crap.

You seriously underestimate the degree to which the "reasonable" man from IL needs to disagree with something....anything....even to the extent of our agreement and whether or not we agree for the right reasons.

[twocoach]

We know you're never biased, but others are.

Would fox news cover it the same if Trump were the president? Absolutely not.

Would many dems who say it's a nothing burger still feel the same if Trump were president? Personally, i doubt it.

If someone from NORAD made the same comment about an identical incident if it happened during the Trump Presidency, I would feel the same way about the comment. You're trying really hard to spin this in the direction you want it to be so you can claim bias and hypocrisy. What's the point?

I just said you're never biased.

You don't think the right wing media made a bigger deal out of this than they would have with a republican president? I do.

1) I readily admit that I am biased about some things sometimes. We all are.
2) I agree

[japhy]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Monday called for a probe into why former President Trump was apparently not informed of previous Chinese surveillance balloons that Biden officials are saying crossed over the U.S. at least three times during the previous administration.

“If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin,” Greene said on Twitter.

“The POTUS is the Commander in Chief. We must investigate and hold accountable those who broke rank,” the longtime Trump ally said.

[jfish26]

I haven't caught up to the thread, but, two things stand out to me:

1 - With regard to the "durrr, SHOOT IT DOWN, this is MURRICA, shoot it down" crowd: I'd imagine it's very very very much not in our best interests to set a precedent that physical presence demands a physical response.

2 - Just wait until that same crowd learns about spy satellites.

[digitalkookie]

2 - Just wait until that same crowd learns about spy satellites.

Those will be shot down as well...with Jewish space lasers of course.

[japhy]

2 - Just wait until that same crowd learns about spy satellites.

Those will be shot down as well...with Jewish space lasers of course.

It's a good thing no one told trump about those either.

[ousdahl]

Yea, go figure the only response was physical Shoot it down!

And yea spy satellites…but, speaking of technology and such, I wonder if we have any sort of anything we coulda used to just sorta retrieve it instead of just shooting it down.

I think this story was a big nothing…but I also think that begs the question of why the Merican media machine overwhelmingly reported it as “spy balloon” anyway. Does every single everything involving China have to result in an another chance to foster anti-China sentiment?

In some bizarro world, the story coulda been, “oh some other inhabitants of this rock we all share apparently misplaced their balloon. Let’s shoot them a friendly email or something to see the best way to get it back.”

Or, for that matter, if it was pretty much any other country’s balloon (besides Russia EEEEK!), would it have still received the “spy” billing?