February 7, 2023

"As NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America, I will tell you that we did not detect those threats."

"And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out."

Said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, quoted in "U.S. military failed to detect prior Chinese incursions, general says/The Pentagon’s disclosure that previous balloon flights over the U.S. occurred during Trump’s time in office was met with surprise by the former president and his advisers" (WaPo).

Does that mean Trump could not have known? 

John Kirby, the National Security Council strategic communications coordinator, said, "I can’t speak to what awareness there was in the previous administration. I can tell you that we discovered these flights after we came into office." He said those other flights were "brief" and "nothing like we saw last week."

If VanHerck and Kirby are telling the truth, then any discussion of what Trump did should be about why his administration did not do a better job of threat detection and not about how he dealt with the balloon and only Biden is on the hook for how he handled the balloon after it was detected.

Have all the Trump-did-the-same-thing and only-Biden-shot-it-down tweets been deleted?

82 comments:

baghdadbob said...

This Business Insider piece is still up on Yahoo.com, describing how ABCs Johnathan Karl "schools" Marco Rubio.

The article's bullet points follow...

ABC's Jonathan Karl called out Sen. Marco Rubio during a tense exchange about the Chinese spy balloon.

Rubio said Biden should not have "waited so long" to tell people about the balloon.

But Karl said Trump did not disclose three balloon sightings that happened during his term.

...I'm sure Karl will issue a public apology to Rubio.

Humperdink said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Humperdink said...

Adam Schiff (D-Hot Air) was quoted as saying he's seen the evidence that not only have Chi-Com balloons traversed the US during the previous administration, Trump profited by it. 51 media executives have confirmed it. Wikipedia has been edited to reflect the new information.
Politifact has classified this revelation as "Mostly True".

Mary Beth said...

those other flights were "brief" and "nothing like we saw last week.

I think we need a more precise description. How brief? Over what area? The Marianas or Aleutians? Or was it also the continental US?

If non-government people hadn't seen the last one, would we have been told about it?

Breezy said...

NORAD’s assignment does not depend on who the President is. Kirby’s “discovered when we came into office” comment is true insofar as last week is technically after they came into office.

BillieBob Thorton said...

"If VanHerck and Kirby are telling the truth"
That's a mighty big "if" coming from an administration that is continually lying about just about everything.
They lied to me before why should I believe them now?

paminwi said...

So….4 officials BESIDES TRUMP say THEY never heard about any other balloons. Are they all lying?


John Bolton (who despises Trump): “John Bolton, who previously served as a national security adviser to the Trump administration, similarly told Fox News Digital on Sunday that he could "say with 100% certainty" that no balloons were spotted while he served in the White House. He added that he had not heard of such incidents after leaving the position.”

Mike Esper Sec of Defense: “ “Yesterday we heard from the Pentagon and they say that this has happened before, during the last administration when you were defense secretary during that time period,” Collins said. “Were you aware of this? How was it resolved? What can you tell us about that?”

“I read that,” said Esper, who served as defense secretary from July 2019 through Nov. 2020. “I was surprised. I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States.”

DNI John Radcliffe: “ "I can refute it. It didn't happen," Ratcliffe said on Fox Business's Sunday Morning Futures, before adding that "the damage is incalculable. He continued, "Every time something goes wrong in the Biden administration, there's one of two responses. They either find a way to blame the Trump administration, or they try and find a way to say the Trump administration did it too."

Mike Pompeo: “ I can speak for myself: I certainly never became aware that there was a three-bus-sized floating device coming across our country for five days, either as CIA director or secretary of state [and] I've talked to others who are on my teams – They don't know anything about it either," he said.”

tim in vermont said...

The Media and the top brass of the US Military are in the tank for Biden and are happy to lie to the American people; alert the media! Oh wait, the media already knows.

lgv said...

I would like to know how they "discovered" these after they entered the administration. How do you discover something that was undetected years later?

The best logical answer is through intelligence gathering of Chinese communications, not "Oh, look, what are these blips in 5 year old radar images?"

Other question not being asked: Why did we not shoot it down just after it crossed the Canadian border in a sparsely populated area? The odds of damage and death would be almost zero. The odds of hitting someone at sea is greater than zero. The difference is how much data is captured before the balloons demise.

Robert Marshall said...

If there were balloon flights over the US two or more years ago, which weren't known about at the time, how does NORAD know about them, now (when it's convenient to know)? Picked up something from stored data they have?

And if that's it, doesn't that exercise tell them what they need to do to close the awareness gap?

They failed to pick something up that was bigger than Santa's sleigh, which they track every Christmas! More reason for declining trust in government. We can only rely on gawkers in Billings MT to find these things.

BillieBob Thorton said...

I'm so old I can remember when NORAD bragged on how they could track a bird in flight now they can't detect and track an object reported to be the size of three buses. Sure, I'll buy that.

Humperdink said...

When I took karate from a South Korean black belt, he always stressed "saving face". It was readily apparently that saving face was a big deal to the Korean culture. China is no different. You never want to "lose face", a sign of significant weakness. The Biden administration has a Ph'D in losing face (see: Afghanistan pull out, among others). The amusing part is they claim it as a victory, when the US populace and the world sees it for what it is. Well some of the US populace anyway.

Another old lawyer said...

I see what you did there - asked a question you already know the answer to.

Mr. Forward said...

Video or it didn't happen.

iowan2 said...

NORAD had no idea.
Sec DEF had no idea
DNI had no idea
STATE DEPT had no idea
PRESIDENT had no idea

BUT some unnamed source at DoD makes a "but Trump" claim

The claim get shot down by all the luminaries listed above...OOPS!

Enter the IC... cia.White knighting their hapless partners in propaganda, the media. They say its true. Nobody knew because the IC figured it out after it happened. After all the named sources said it was all a lie. It seems IC were informed by a Voodoo High Priestes, when she discovered the events while scrolling through her Ouija board. Followed up by confirmation of the Omniscient Magic 8 Ball.

The CIA is unwilling to explain how events that never registered on any of the $billions of equipment, operated by the above agencies, was able to be reconstructed by the IC, using data/information no other government agency knows exists.

Fandor said...

tim in Vermont..."The Media and the top brass of the US Military are in the tank for Biden..." not to exclude many members of Congress, in the House and Senate and possibly throughout state governments, from governors on down,and institutions of higher education, are in the pocket of CHINA by way of the present regime headed by the puppet Biden.
It looks like the door President Nixon opened to China, in the early 1970s, unleashed unintended consequences like a Pandora's Box of Chinese communist cockroaches. They are everywhere.

michaele said...

And yet we're supposed to believe that NORAD successfully tracks Santa and his sleigh across the country. Come this Dec 24th 25th, parents are going to have some "splaining" to do to their kids.

Fredrick said...

Sounds like another general officer who was derelict in his duties but thinks he should be excused because Trump was president.

Terry di Tufo said...

Maybe the whole point of the exercise is to determine how visible a balloon has to be before the US can detect it. This one was 3 Bus Large and white. Maybe the next one would have been a stadium-sized disco ball.

gilbar said...

but! But!! But TRUMP MAN BAD!!
Inflation........... Happened on Trump's watch, Biden 'just inherited it'
Afghanistan........ The Disastrous pullout, Was ALL Trump's Idea!
Oil pipelines...... It was TRUMP, that cancelled the XL pipeline
Laptops............ That was TRUMP'S laptop!!!
81 million voters.. Those people All voted for Trump!

Temujin said...

These are the worst level of people, these Biden people. Every conceivable fuck up they do is followed by a 'Trump did it, too!' moment.

Just one thing. If this happened during Trump's time, someone- just one of those working in his administration- would have been told about it. People from John Bolton, who hated Trump, to Mike Pompeo, former CIA and Secy of State, both say it's ridiculous and they would have known. Someone on their teams would have been told.

As former DNI, John Ratcliffe pointed out, surely a US citizen somewhere would have seen one of these 3 balloons up in the sky, like a person did in Montana shortly after it entered US airspace. Surely someone, somewhere would have seen something? Surely a pilot or two would have called it in as a potential flight risk- as they did with this one? Surely there would have been some sighting, somewhere?

But it's like the truth to the Biden team: missing and never existed.

Gusty Winds said...

Every word that comes out of John Kirby's mouth is a bullshit lie.

tim in vermont said...

My GF works with Ozzies a lot over the phone, and boy were they reading to ambush with the ribbing about this balloon. Ridicule is a potent weapon, and our president is ridiculous.

tim in vermont said...

"The CIA is unwilling to explain how events that never registered on any of the $billions of equipment, operated by the above agencies, was able to be reconstructed by the IC, using data/information no other government agency knows exists."

This story would have been a lot more believable if it had come out complete at the beginning, instead of carefully edited to smear Trump and protect Biden. Now it just sounds like another pack of lies.

tommyesq said...

Does that mean Trump could not have known?

It might mean that it did not happen - everyone from Trump's time, including some who vehemently oppose Trump, have denied that it previously happened, and only now, after getting caught allowing one to float over half the country, does John Kirby (who during the Trump administration was a CNN analyst) "discover" that balloons had previously overflown (albeit only "briefly") the United States.

Question - given that these alleged overflights were not detected, how could Kirby, or anyone else presently in the White House, know that they took place - were they told this by the Chinese?

rwnutjob said...

Bovine scatology

Amadeus 48 said...

"If VanHerck and Kirby are telling the truth..."

That is a big "if", and how would we know? How can we know? After all, Kirby says "we discovered these flights after we came into office". That is the oldest trick in the book. I remember when Bill Clinton's income tax program was a top rate of 35% on those making a million dollars a year. That turned into a top rate of 39.5% on couple making more than $250,000 per year because "we discovered things were much worse than we thought."

This is a stupid attempt to shift blame for obvious incompetence on the part of Biden and his team. Of course the media lap it up like cream.

Bob Boyd said...

I feel...violated.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh. Does this mean democrats will vote to impeach Trump again?

Michael said...

I think "Trump did the same thing" is a macro on every journo's keyboard and is hit every time there is criticism of Biden. Like "without evidence."

Creola Soul said...

If you didn’t detect the balloons during the Trump Administration, how do you know it happened? Out ahead of your headlights…..again.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

If there was a “domain awareness gap”, how would NORAD know the previous incursions were only brief ones?

dbp said...

From Byron York:

"A slightly different story emerged in the Washington Post, which reported that the Pentagon knew of “past Chinese surveillance balloons near Florida and Texas.” Wait a minute:

Near Florida and Texas? What does near mean? Were the balloons over those states? Were they offshore but over U.S. territorial waters? The Washington Post suggested the Pentagon was not being entirely clear. “The Defense Department was not specific about where in each state the previous incursions occurred,” the paper reported, citing Rep. Michael Waltz, a Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “[Waltz] added that officials did not say whether the balloons made it into U.S. airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from the shore, or over U.S. territory, too.” That’s an important distinction, isn’t it? Were the previously undiscovered balloons over U.S. territory or not?

BIII Zhang said...

NORAD is incapable of performing its function. That is a threat to national security.

What happened is that our satellite imagery was searched specifically for these sorts of shapes long after the fact and we found five balloons in the photos that could not be otherwise accounted for or were exactly similar to the most recent one. Those were only searched when Joe Biden needed an excuse for his inaction.

The next Republican President needs to add to his Day One ToDo List: Fire the head of NORAD and get Dr. Stephen Falken back in there.

holdfast said...

Deep State free pass to lie with impunity.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/pentagon-wont-name-official-who-divulged-misleading-info-about-chinese-spy-balloons-during-trump-admin/

rcocean said...

THe MSM and liberal/leftist know that just putting out the "Trump was just as bad" is enough. Truth doesn't matter. The key is keep hating and attacking Trump 24/7/365 and NEVER allow any Trump praise to go unchallenged.

Lots of stupid people out there. And they vote.

hombre said...

Any discussion of Biden or Trump is a political discussion. The issue is military and the incompetence of the high command.

Despite China's current problems, it seems that they own us on many fronts. Perhaps their benevolence toward us can be explained by the fact that we have not yet fully paid for their military expansion.



Yancey Ward said...

These people in charge right now will lie about anything, no matter how utterly ridiculous the lie is, like detecting previous incursions of this kind using super-secret methods of forensics that are better at detecting such incursions retrospectively than NORAD had 2.1 years ago in real time.

There is a word for a lie like this- horseshit.

Static Ping said...

Welcome to 1984. We have always been at war with Eastasia. Watch the gaslighting in real time.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

As if we needed more reasons to doubt the effectiveness of our effeminate defense department this “oops my bad!” approach is hideous. He didn’t THINK it was dangerous or he MISSED it. That’s not even clear. We absolutely no longer have civilian control of the military if they are whiffing decisions, keeping relevant info from POTUS and refusing Biden’s orders to down it immediately, which even in his diminished capacity he’s insisting was his position “all along.”

Winnie the Xi is laughing his ass off at the excellent results, like the apparent confusion and obvious inaction. Yikes.

lamech said...

Regarding the "prior Chinese incursions" that were undetected "by the Pentagon" -- were they detected by others in government, and when?
I am reminded of Gen. Mark Milley's calls to Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng on October 30, 2020 and in January 8, 2021.
Gen. Milley said he made the calls to the Chinese General to "de-escalate" and to "convey presidential orders and intent" in response to “concerning intelligence, which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States."

Did the prior spy balloons coincide with the calls to Chinese General, or contribute to the “concerning intelligence” that China was worried about a U.S. attack?


https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037454733/milley-defends-call-to-chinese-general-about-trump

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-gen-milley-explains-his-calls-with-china-over-concerns-about-president-trump

Big Mike said...

Does that mean Trump could not have known?

Yup. People infected with TDS need to wait another day to drool and slobber.

Sebastian said...

"And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out."

This does not inspire confidence.

"why his administration did not do a better job of threat detection"

In what sense was Trump's "administration," including the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, and DoJ, "his"?

"only Biden is on the hook for how he handled the balloon after it was detected"

In what sense is any Dem ever on any "hook"? What is the "hook" here? The Afghanistan debacle had no political consequences. The president's son engages in rampant bribery, illegal drug use, and prostitution without repercussions. What's an effing balloon to a Dem?

robother said...

So in the course of 24 hours, DOD briefings quoted by the MSM say that "Trump allowed 3 Chinese balloons to transit the continental US and did nothing," which changes to "Three balloons may have passed near Texas and Florida, but no one told Trump or any of his appointees," which changes to "NORAD never detected the three Chinese balloons."

Why is DOD certain it was only three? How were these detected after the fact? Were no Chinese balloons transits similarly detected prior to Trump's presidency?

Why believe anything the DOD says at this point?

BillieBob Thorton said...


"Lots of stupid people out there. And they vote."

Vote? Democrats don't need votes or voters. It's all about the ballots, who prints them and who counts them.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

About the “three buses wide” bullshit, unless you rode a school bus 75-feet wide then there’s no way the math adds up to a 200-foot tall sphere. Everything reported so far is steeped in bullshit.

LakeLevel said...

The payload on the balloon was the size of 3 busses with some sort of huge antenna underneath. Maybe it was a high tech ground penetrating radar that can detect all the things we have underground in North America. They didn't want to shoot it down over land because it might have been powered by a nuclear reactor.

wendybar said...

Tom Cotton
@SenTomCotton
What they did over the weekend was the opposite of good faith: deceptively leaking classified information on background to point the finger at the last administration to excuse their own failures. Caught, they now ‘fess up and plead honest mistake. Give me a break.

Michael K said...

Kirby is an example of what you get when a PR guy can become an admiral.

Breezy said...

Also, Biden et al claim they increased surveillance efforts when they came into office and so they can now detect incursions better than earlier admins. That is completely opposite to opening the southern border!

Joe Smith said...

And yet, this man will not be fired nor demoted.

Were he a Chinese general, his entire family would be in a gulag and on the short-list to have their organs harvested.

We are not a serious county.

We are fucked.

My community college offers Mandarin classes...will have to take a look.

Duty of Inquiry said...

Were I in attendance (God forbid) I would wear a tie with a balloon pattern.

It will never happen, but the speaker could make balloon animals while the President is speaking.

Or perhaps a balloon drop at the end of the speech.

This really is a perfect opportunity to ridicule the administration and it will be difficult for them to fight back.

Chuck said...

Fascinating discussion about how fascist devotees use the combination of weakness, humiliation, and nostalgic strength as the foundation for propaganda:

https://twitter.com/jenmercieca/status/1622935644258328576"

Trump himself does it weekly, if not daily. The ever-mixing combination of humiliation and macho.
Trump himself a constant victim, but he's the one who, alone, can fix it.
America was great, but now it is weak, and he will make it strong again.
But only he can do it.

A laughably basic level of fascist psyops.

tim in vermont said...

"A laughably basic level of fascist psyops"

Projecting on your own comment? Somebody has been boning up on his propaganda texts, I see.

tim in vermont said...

"Maybe it was a high tech ground penetrating radar"

Perfectly plausible, likely even, did you see it? It should have been shot down immediately, over Alaska.

tim maguire said...

any discussion of what Trump did should be about why his administration did not do a better job of threat detection

If the Trump administration didn't know about it, then how did Kirby ans VanHerck find out when they came in? Nobody could believe they were pouring over old films, so either they made it up or the military knew but kept it to themselves. Both are problems, but neither is the problem you complain of.

This is unfolding like the Paul Pelosi story. Why can't these people get their lies straight!?

tim maguire said...

The funniest thing about the "Trump did it too!" lie is that Trump is now the standard of what's ok. Biden was right to not shoot down the balloon because Trump didn't shoot down the balloon either.

They have no shame. Every word they say is spin. Truth is irrelevant.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

" fascist devotees..."

Are we the ones sending heavy weapons, artillery shells, Abrams tanks, missiles, etc, etc.. to Bandera worshipping openly fascist Ukrainians, who can't help but paint Nazi symbols on the tanks we send them before going into battle, to avenge Hitler against the Russians who defeated him?

No, Chuck, Joe Biden is the supporter of fascism, and Mitch McConnell, not Trump, who wants this war ended now.

JAORE said...

Let's say there were balloons during the Trump term. Let's say all the Trump top level people knew. Let's say they are blatently lying about that knowledge.

Why do flights during Trump's time make the Biden delays and inaction until after days over our important sites OK?

At best it says BOTH were incompetent fools.

Iman said...

Gee… NORAD can track Santa’s progress - with his small team of reindeer and a sleigh - but not a humongous balloon?

What’s up wit dat!?!?!

Jon Burack said...

What is frightening is the level of lying Biden's team is now apparently ready to do at the drop of a hat. And lying that can only presume the utter stupidity and gullibility of the public (the press of course eats it up). It is inconceivable to me that any balloons made it into US airspace undetected by anyone during the Trump years. This nation has been prepared for every conceivable missile attack since long ago during the Cold War. Missiles are smaller and faster than balloons, no? Think they would not see every one of them from the start. Who do they think they are kidding? Moreover, they detected this one right away but didn't tell anyone. Leave it to those fascists in Montana to spill the beans by looking up into the Big Skys. What a friggin' joke.

n.n said...

Undetected or unreported? We know that there were diverse instances of congressional, administrate, and military sabotage during Trump's administration. Or, perhaps, it was quiet quitting. Or, perhaps, it is the braying of a handmade tale. Trump is serially unpopular for ending Obama/Biden's second Iraq war, Iranian funded proxies, Kiev's lucre and Wuhan-style labs, and the World War Spring series. Putin, too, for not taking a knee, and having the audacity to stand up to a Nobel prize redistributed in pieces.

robother said...

So, Chuck's reaction to DOD getting caught red-handed lying about Trump's actions and possibly concealing threat information from the Trump Administration? "Trump is Hitler!" Politicization of the military is the essence of fascism, but Chuck is cool with that, as long as the right people benefit.

Eva Marie said...

Blogger JAORE said...
“Let's say there were balloons during the Trump term.”
No. Let’s not say that. The Biden spokesperson lied and now the Biden administration won’t divulge the name of the liar so that he/she can’t be questioned.

Big Mike said...

We’re learning more:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who serves on House Foreign Affairs Committee, was, to say the least, unimpressed by the Biden administration’s classified briefing on the China spy balloon and blasted the briefing as “unspecific, insufficient, and backward-looking.”

Senior administration officials conducted the briefing in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). Not only did the briefing fail to provide adequate information on the spy balloon that was shot down, but no evidence of Chinese spy balloons taking place during the Trump administration was presented.

“What I took away from this briefing confirmed that this administration and not the previous one had plenty of advance warning of an escalating Chinese espionage program, failed to act, and has now humiliated this country on the world stage,” Issa told Fox News Digital.

Michael K said...

A laughably basic level of fascist psyops.

Chuck should be an authority on fascist psyops. Isn't that what "The Bulwark" does ?

Your TDS is taking over.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Remember the supposed bounties paid by Russians on American soldiers in Afghanistan? the leaked story about Donald Trump was supposed to have known about and did nothing. If these three Chinese balloons had transited the U.S., some Pentagon "resister" would have leaked the story after the first balloon. That didn't happen. There were no balloons during DJT's term, just Biden the paid Chinese stooge's term.

gilbar said...

so;
the DoD either did, or did not, detect earlier spyflights..
And they either did, or did not, tell President Trump about it..

My Serious Question Is: Assuming that they DID detect them.. Did they contact the Chinese about them?
I mean, General Smiley already is on record saying that he'd contact the Chinese about Any (and ALL) american military activity... SURELY, detection of a Chinese Spyflight is some his Chinese Masters would want to be informed of?

Rabel said...

As far as I can tell we only know it was a "spy" balloon because the administration, which no one here seems to trust, told us it was. They also told us it was an ineffective spy balloon which was not gathering any damaging data.

My current take -

This balloon and the others were actually meteorological research data gathering platforms with a very limited ability to maneuver which could incidentally or intentionally capture insignificant and otherwise available military data. The military didn't act because they did not consider them a threat.

Biden was informed and he decided to shoot it down over the military's objection as a show of strength to counter the weakness he demonstrated in Afghanistan.

We'll see if they present any clear evidence of the craft's capability and purpose. I don't expect them to do so.

The Chinese often do very stupid things. If this easily observably balloon actually was a "spying" attempt it should go on the list. Top Ten.

Rusty said...

robother said...
You know. He' goes on about Trump so much. Ya think maybe he's gay for him? I mean that last bit mad no sense at all unless he's going full San Francisco.

TaeJohnDo said...

Maybe the earlier ones were a large school bus the size of a small school bus, and hence undetectable.

Robert Cook said...

"What is frightening is the level of lying Biden's team is now apparently ready to do at the drop of a hat."

You don't think that every President (and president's teams) engage in equally regular lying and obfuscation? Such behavior by those charged to serve we, the people is a given. Every war we've started or joined in the past 70 years or so was birthed from (and justified by) lies. War secrets are secrets because they tell the truth behind the lies.

TaeJohnDo said...

Anyone else hear that the pieces were taken by the FBI, and not the military? Suspicious. Well, not really, easier to control the FBI who is 100% in the tank for dems, as opposed to the military, which is only 75% in the tank for the dems....

etbass said...

I confess to ignorance on the subject. But I have yet to read what the threat is. A balloon is far more likely to drift over cornfields of Nebraska than over Area 51... unless there is some mysterious way it is propelled and guided, which I have heard nothing about.

Satellites can discern the brand of cigarette being smoked by a bum in Harlan, Kentucky and I am sure we are surveilled by Chinese satellites daily. What is the threat of a balloon?

Educate me and maybe I will get excited.

Leland said...

Members of the Biden Administration put up a trial balloon then Trump and members of his administration shot it down immediately.

Mark said...

"And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out," said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command

The awareness gap you need to figure out, General, is the bullshit that the Biden Administration is pushing here. There was no prior balloon invasion.

And if there was, you don't need to "figure it out" - you need to be court-martialed.

tim in vermont said...

" unless there is some mysterious way it is propelled and guided, which I have heard nothing about."

You can steer a balloon by selecting the altitude, and therefore the wind direction. We haven't looked at it, so how would we know? The fact that it hovered over our missile silos and a critical airfield that hosts fleets of strategic bombers suggests that we should take a look at it, at the very minimum. What if it had ground penetrating radar on that huge array underneath it and flew over our missile silos? We needed to shoot it down and have a look, and we had a right to shoot it down and have a look.

Unless it helps Joe Biden politically, you will hear nothing about this balloon. That proves zero.

lamech said...

"etbass said...

... Educate me and maybe I will get excited."

First, the ET Bass that I know didn't need to be educated to be excited!

Second, reports have indicated that such balloons are able to maneuver by changing altitude and therefore selecting wind currents at a given altitude to guide them.

Third, while satellites may be able to identify the brand of cigarette being smoked by a bum in Harlan, Kentucky ... a balloon that loiters for days in an around a location could identify the daily patterns of the bum in Harlan Kentucky, or it could identify similar patterns of airmen and contractors at an airbase, in a manner different from what a satellite is capable.

So, you see, the Chinese government is worse than the englishters.

Butkus51 said...

go ahead get the shot.

Trust us.

Fools

Rusty said...

etbass said...
"I confess to ignorance on the subject. But I have yet to read what the threat is."
You might have missed the part where a foreign power invaded our airspace. Kind of a big deal sovereignty wise.

JAORE said...

"Blogger JAORE said...
“Let's say there were balloons during the Trump term.”
No. Let’s not say that. The Biden spokesperson lied and now the Biden administration won’t divulge the name of the liar so that he/she can’t be questioned."

Blogger,
I suppose I should have added the disclaimer that I don't believe for a minute my "Let's says". I don't.

But 1) I thought it obvious and 2) my point was that even if those outrageous "Let's says" were true, it would have not absolved Biden in any way.