February 9, 2023
"The Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. military over the Atlantic Ocean... was part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries..."
"... across five continents, the State Department said Thursday.
The United States used high resolution imagery from U-2 flybys to determine the balloon’s capabilities, the department said in a written announcement, adding that the balloon’s equipment 'was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.'
The agency said the balloon had multiple antennas in an array that was 'likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.' Solar panels on the machine were large enough to produce power to operate '“multiple active intelligence collection sensors,' the department said.
The agency also said the U.S. government was 'confident' that the company that made the balloon had direct commercial ties with the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, citing an official procurement portal for the army. The department did not name the company...."
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The only way to win this war that the neocons are planning with China, to quote an old sci-fi trope, is not to fight it.
The agency also said the U.S. government was 'confident' that the company that made the balloon had direct commercial ties with the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, citing an official procurement portal for the army. The department did not name the company...."
It's Nike. It's the Air Xi.
So….we let the damn thing go all across our country scooping up whatever communications it wanted? And is anyone silly enough to believe that info wasn’t going straight back to Beijing? I mean, if we can get data from satellites miles above the earth what makes anyone think China couldn’t get the info regularly from this balloon?
The US military and intelligence agencies fell flat on their faces...since the Trump years at minimum.
No shock, as they put all their energy into Crossfire Hurricane and other anti-Trump nonsense.
Our intelligence agencies need a massive purge on professional competence grounds, beyond the political partisanship issues established several years ago.
Comey? Strzok? Clapper? All who signed the letter saying the "Hunter Biden laptop story is Russian disinformation? Why have you not been fired already?
How clever of QuidProJoe's administration to give them a free flight over our Minutemen installations.
As soon as we finish paying to upgrade the CCP military we are toast.
This is a national embarrassment. We have massive gaps in not just our national security, but our territorial security.
Apologies offered in equivocation to mitigate self-inflicted progress. NOW, they care.
And JOE helped..(said in the old Shake and Bake commercial voice)
The people in charge of this country's defense are either on the Chinese payroll or on their side. Maybe both.
Impeach/fire every one and not a cent more for them to waste.
This whole story stinks. UFO's? Where did all the other balloons go? Please don't tell me that they flew back to China.
Our government is lying to us. That's not terribly unusual but they used to do a better job of it.
tim in vermont said...
The only way to win this war that the neocons are planning with China, to quote an old sci-fi trope, is not to fight it.
**********
Yes. Biden and the left, who are doing most of the chest-thumping are now "neo-cons".
Got the talking point memo. Thanks.
Interesting that the media have suddenly rediscovered national security concerns. But only about high-altitude surveillance balloons. They clearly have shown no such concerns about low-altitude surveillance humans. As in the 20 million or so illegal border crossers over the last few decades.
I suppose the media are comfortable that our intelligence community under Joe Biden has developed the technology and the methods to retroactively determine how many and which ones were/are spies, such as, for example, Pelosi's driver, Swalwell's Bang-Bang, etc. And maybe it's not just spies. The fact of the matter is that nobody can even say with certainty that the CCP has not also inserted 10 battalions of trained troops across our borders, a few dreamers at a time. Crazy thought, I know. Prove it's impossible.
But hey, they got that balloon.
No big deal, the CCP are doing it to everyone.
Nobody else had a cow.
Move on people...
From all the dissembling, I get the troubling feeling that the DOD and the other alphabet intelligence agencies have known about these balloons and have hidden them from Trump and his appointed head of their organizations for sure and maybe from Biden and his people too. Probably for different reasons; Trump because he was trying rein them in and Biden because they know he's compromised. Regardless, it would be wrong, perhaps treasonous.
The countries worst enemies are in DC.
Why does everyone assume that we didn't disable the balloon's ability to collect and/or transmit the information it was seeking.
I know there is ample evidence to support a presumption of incompetence, corruption and malign intent when it comes to our government, but cut our military some slack.
Yes. Biden and the left, who are doing most of the chest-thumping are now "neo-cons".
Got the talking point memo. Thanks.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm. The origin of "neocon" is well known.
"part of a fleet of surveillance balloons directed by the Chinese military that had flown over more than 40 countries..."
But hey, an actual American general judged that white thingy to be no threat at all, so what's the big deal?
Sure, our "domain awareness" could be better, but hey, as long as we play nice with the CCP, it's all good.
Spy Balloon
Blowing up the Nordstream pipeline
Compare and contrast.
How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline (substack.com)
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream?utm_campaign=post
Ground-penetrating radar
Kind of interesting how the Brits get off scot-free in that Hersh story.
It's also interesting how specific people in the US foreign policy establishment were named.
Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland
Sussman
"I will pay you 1 million dollars for a no show teaching job, and you make me Secretary of State" Blinken
Joseph Robinette "Loose Cannon" Biden.
Such leaks are almost always part of a power play, and all of the people named are part of the foreign policy establishment that has led us into a disastrous war with Russia that has basically left us unable to compete militarily with China, which is just sitting back and enjoying the show. They can outproduce us, and we set ourselves back as to any prior advantage we might have had, because it's all been squandered in a useless vendetta on behalf of Ukraine and Poland.
All we have are the oceans, and our nukes, and I suggest that we stay behind them and stick to our own knitting.
The only way to win this war that the neocons are planning with China, to quote an old sci-fi trope, is not to fight it.
Is there any communist country and enemy of the U.S. that you don't shill for?
"Got the talking point memo. Thanks."
Bush voted for Biden, Cheney voted for Biden, Cheney's daughter is a Democrat heroine. Max Boot is all for the Democrats now, Bill Kristol too. Do you even think about what you write? The Democratic Congressional Peace Caucus wrote an open letter opposing funding the war, and were forced to retract it within hours by their own party.
Yeesh!
There are NO large Chinese companies that don't work for the CCP. NO, as in NONE, but we keep getting stories about their 'ties' to the Xi regime.
effinayright: "Yes. Biden and the left, who are doing most of the chest-thumping are now "neo-cons".
Got the talking point memo. Thanks."
The neocons slid back into the democratical party, from whence they originally came, without hitting a single speedbump and have been warmly greeted and very nicely compensated and much lauded by the left/dems.
That this might somehow still be debateable at any level is quite astonishing.
And this is without exception.
There is no notable "neocon" that has remained on the republican side.
Just to play devil's advocate, maybe the DoD has known about these balloons for a while and has developed tools to either block their communication with the home base or to send bad data. That would explain why they let it cross the whole country before shooting it down.
Given the record of government incompetence it's a long shot, but it is a possibility.
The freaking out over this is astonishing. The chances no agency or the military wasn't collecting every scrap sent to or by these balloons is ludicrous. I prefer it doesn't go over abase, but I doubt it saw anything really new since the silos have been there for decades.
Did we know or not know about these balloons? I can't say, but I doubt the USA would say we had been tracking them for years, like we wouldn't say if we were reading their codes. Why wod we tip them off on how good we actually are?
"Is there any communist country and enemy of the U.S. that you don't shill for?"
I am shilling for America. Is it shilling for China to point out that we have squandered any military advantage we might have enjoyed with a stupid misadventure in Ukraine over who gets to rule over a bunch of Russian speaking slavs within the former borders of Russia, and then the borders of the former Soviet Union? Joe Biden and his corrupt son don't get to decide for me who "America's enemies" are.
China can make missiles and shells so much faster than we can that it's not even a debate. What are we supposed to do? Order some up on Ali Baba, and wait for them to show up in containers at the Port of Los Angeles? We have off shored our manufacturing base to China. It's gone. We can use spatulas as catapults and flip hamburgers at them.
China is collapsing demographically, so is Russia, demographically collapsing countries don't embark on campaigns to conquer the world.
tim in vermont said...
"Got the talking point memo. Thanks."
Bush voted for Biden, Cheney voted for Biden, Cheney's daughter is a Democrat heroine. Max Boot is all for the Democrats now, Bill Kristol too. Do you even think about what you write? The Democratic Congressional Peace Caucus wrote an open letter opposing funding the war, and were forced to retract it within hours by their own party.
*******************
Just WHO is it who is pumping tens of billions into the war? Out-of-power "Neocons", or the Biden administration, which ---unlike the "neocons" you speak of---has the power to do so.
Who cares what the "Democrat Peace Caucus"---who are they and how many members do they have, btw---think?-----certainly not the Biden Administration!!!! I think you made that group up!!!!
Also, explain this:
https://nypost.com/2023/02/06/support-for-us-aid-to-ukraine-divided-among-party-lines-poll/
"Democrats were far more supportive of efforts to aid Ukraine than Republicans or Independents, with 81% of members of the liberal party saying they wanted the US to offer prolonged support to Kyiv, compared to 53% of GOP voters and 59% of Independent voters, the poll found."
SNORT
The rubble bounceth.
Wait a minute, do you think that Ukraine is not a neocon project from the get go? L o fucking L. Thank you for providing the evidence that the Democrats are the most supporting of this neocon war. Neocons were the ones who backed the coup in Ukraine in 2014, and put an anti Russian govt in place there, neocons are the ones who have been pushing the expansion of NATO, neocons are the ones who have been arming Ukraine for eight years against the Russians after putting that anti-Russian government right on Russia's borders, and somehow you think that pointing out that Democrats support this war overwhelmingly proves that the neocons are not Democrats. Not any longer.
Neocons are anything but out of power. But I have to hand them this, they have done a heck of a job on your cognitive abilities with their propaganda. This war is about the expansion of NATO, it's about a neocon wet dream, and you support it.
"Progressive" Democrats Formally Retract Call For Diplomacy As Ukraine War Hawks Steamroll Dissent"
Ukraine War Hawks = neocons, and they run your party.
effinayright just ain't all that bright. This isn't the first time you have made it obvious. If you can't keep up with the conversation, it is best to stay quiet.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
"China is collapsing demographically, so is Russia, demographically collapsing countries don't embark on campaigns to conquer the world."
No. They're both going to learn some hard lessons first. That's how this historically goes.
effinayright: "The rubble bounceth."
Uh, I was assured there would be no Latin and no lisping prior to the cocktail hour.
tim in vermont: "China is collapsing demographically, so is Russia, demographically collapsing countries don't embark on campaigns to conquer the world"
Russia has the 3/4 of the GDP of Italy. And the Italians throw much better parties. The russkis could barely keep a couple squadrons in Syria effectively operational so projection of force is almost negligible.
All this focus on Russia is designed to serve 3 purposes:
- Keep Ukraine in the fold for graft opportunities via forever war and money laundering
- Keep up the democratical/LLR political lie that russia wants Trump (insert any other republican name here) to win
- Keep the focus off the real player in this game that has bought off the entire leadership set in DC and elsewhere: The ChiComs
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