Chinese spy balloon over US

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1621967233281888257

Based !!

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

This is more ammo for RS to use against Biden with Docugate and Penn Center giving millionaire to Hunter Biden for classified Documents

43)54 Approvals for BIDEN and users think he is at 60 because polls shows Biden plus 6

[emailking]

They shot a single missile into the ballooon about 7 miles off the coast.

[ProudModerate2]

Does anyone have any news as to what China is saying about their balloon, now that it is in the Atlantic Ocean?

[emailking]

It was shot down by an F-22. The debris field is 7 square miles.

[ProudModerate2]

Here is some additional video footage of the shoot-down via CNN ...
https://us.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/02/04/suspected-china-spy-balloon-shot-down-vpx.cnn

[Landslide Lyndon]

More proof that the NYT is beyond parody.

https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon/status/1621927063530926080

[Badger]

I’m glad it was shot down, but put me in the camp if they should have just shot it down in Montana. In the meantime China got all the footage they could have asked for. They definitely still won this exchange.

Apparently debris would have come down over a 20 mi by 20 mi Square area. Even in Montana there are few places where that doesn't seriously endangered civilians.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I'm glad that they shot it down, finally.

However, they should have done this when it was over Montana. China probably got too much intel.

NORAD should NOT have let this enter the sovereign territory of the US/Canada. As soon as it entered NORAD's ADIZ, it should have been blown up.

[Vosem]

Now that Biden has had the balloon shot down, it will be much more difficult for Republicans to argue that he hasn't been doing enough to fight inflation.

*ba dum tiss*

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Now that Biden has had the balloon shot down, it will be much more difficult for Republicans to argue that he hasn't been doing enough to fight inflation.

*ba dum tiss*

As inflation is falling Republicans have moved on to complaining about gas stoves.

[Vosem]

Now that Biden has had the balloon shot down, it will be much more difficult for Republicans to argue that he hasn't been doing enough to fight inflation.

*ba dum tiss*

As inflation is falling Republicans have moved on to complaining about gas stoves.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/skeletired/status/1621973703578845187

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Obligatory, because this event has put this song in my head:

Anyway, nice W for Dark Brandon.

[TheReckoning]

I haven't read this thread, but one thing to point out in case anyone is unaware, is that up until a few years ago, we had the Open Skies treaty, until Trump pulled out of it.

The Open Skies treaty was a US-Russia thing mostly, but it also included many other countries. Basically it allowed each country to fly unarmed surveillance planes over each other's territory going back to the end of the cold war. It was one of George H.W. Bush's farsighted, wise, and positive foreign policy achievements in that era. That is actually a good thing, not a bad thing, for peace, because it allows each country to confirm and be reassured that the other side is not preparing for some crazy nuclear first strike or something along those lines. Hence it calms people down, which is good for avoiding things like accidental nuke launch or other dangerous military accidents/incidents.

Obviously, we are not in the treaty now, but in the future we should try to re-create the treaty. To work well though, all countries (most importantly USA, Russia, and China) need to be on board with the treaty. The reason for that is because if that is not the case (supposing that US and Russia are signatories but China is not), then Russia could do flights over the US and share the intel with China, while US could not do flights over China, so that would give China an intel advantage over the US.

But remember, Trump was some pro-Russia puppet who wanted to sell this country to them.

[compucomp]

I'm going to break my silence here since this forum needs the opposite viewpoint on this issue to the American echo chamber. Whether this balloon is a weather balloon or a surveillance balloon doesn't really matter since its flight over the US is what matters and that is no accident. This is a glorious result and I 100% support this move as it is a worthy, proportionate, and measured retaliation against the endless American provocations and insults against China. Even better that it forced Blinken to cancel his trip, putting the blame on him and making him look like a petulant child in the eyes of the world. Bonus points for flying above the continental US for 2 days, using a large white balloon clearly visible on the ground, causing viral Tweets about balloon sightings, and humiliating the administration as a result.

Now that the shoe's on the other foot, how does it feel? How does it feel to be on the receiving end of an insulting provocation, to have your sovereignty violated, like you've been doing to us for decades?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I'm going to break my silence here since this forum needs the opposite viewpoint on this issue to the American echo chamber. Whether this balloon is a weather balloon or a surveillance balloon doesn't really matter since its flight over the US is what matters and that is no accident. This is a glorious result and I 100% support this move as it is a worthy, proportionate, and measured retaliation against the endless American provocations and insults against China. Even better that it forced Blinken to cancel his trip, putting the blame on him and making him look like a petulant child in the eyes of the world. Bonus points for flying above the continental US for 2 days, using a large white balloon clearly visible on the ground, causing viral Tweets about balloon sightings, and humiliating the administration as a result.

Now that the shoe's on the other foot, how does it feel? How does it feel to be on the receiving end of an insulting provocation, to have your sovereignty violated, like you've been doing to us for decades?

You live in New Jersey.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They were so nervous about shooting it down over MT and they shot it down, as usual no response from Beijing, if they were so provacable they would be in Taiwan airspace right now.

Lesson learned never let China spy on US , remember after they downed our aircraft during Bush W the Prez XI apologize to Bush W after taking our crew for 11 days

[emailking]

They were apparently jamming it while it was over the US.

[emailking]

remember after they downed our aircraft during Bush W

Accidentally.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Now that Biden has had the balloon shot down, it will be much more difficult for Republicans to argue that he hasn't been doing enough to fight inflation.

*ba dum tiss*

As inflation is falling Republicans have moved on to complaining about gas stoves.

Funny meme. Thank you.

[MT Treasurer]

I will say that this was quite an entertaining episode for everyone in the state, esp. in local media and among local, uh, folk — which is quite a change from the usual depressing news, so I honestly appreciated it for the pure entertainment value it provided. Trust me, I tried to resist the "Their only mistake was not shooting this thing down where it was first spotted [Billings, if you get the drift]" and "It’s good that they took extra caution before shooting it down over the Big Belts" jokes.

Maybe Steve Daines can now introduce a "Bipartisan Balloon Bill" and partner up with a Democratic colleague to introduce a bipartisan resolution overseeing the destruction of Chinese spy balloons.

[Crumpets]

This is probably the most well-thought-out explanation I've read of what this balloon was actually doing.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/why-would-the-chinese-government-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/

This is the key section for those who don't want to read the whole thing:

So the Chinese launched this balloon to spy directly on the United States?

Probably not. The Chinese would have known that sending a clearly observable balloon into the US heartland would be a provocative action, and they are unlikely to have done so on purpose.

The most likely scenario, Antonio believes, is that the termination mechanism, which is used to bring down a balloon at the end of its desired flight time, failed. Typically a stratospheric balloon will have one or more backup termination mechanisms, but a technical problem would explain why a balloon launched in China days or weeks ago could have eventually drifted into the United States. (The Chinese government may not want to admit this technical failure publicly.) The prevailing currents in the stratosphere would appear to support this theory of a drifting balloon the Chinese government had lost control of.

The time to fly such a balloon, for spying purposes, would be during the summer months, Antonio said. That's because during the winter the winds throughout the stratosphere are much more uniform in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that raising and lowering the balloon would provide very little steering capability. "Controlled stratospheric flight is a thing, but it's not something you can really do over the United States at this time of year," Antonio said.

[Beet]

The question then is why did the termination mechanism fail? I wouldn't be surprised if it was rogue elements within the PLA that wanted to derail Blinken's trip, and sabotaged their own termination mechanism. The timing is too suspicious.

[HillGoose]

now the US should be able to send a spy balloon into red Chinese airspace to be even