Balloon spy

[kent_island_sailor]

holy shit
you would think that balloons broke new ground in long range aerial surveillance
you do realize that planes and satellites have been doing this daily for decades

Which makes the balloon thing odd. It seems a high-risk-low-reward operation. We'll know more (or someone will) once they get the payload dredged up and analyzed.
A slow moving and relatively low altitude balloon with that big antenna surely can get more info than an airplane or satellite, but it is not exactly a stealth operation and it is easy to see where it came from.

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

I think I see your problem.

Why speak the truth to power when it is easier to speak bullshit and waste the time of democRATS and other enemies?

 

[Remodel]

Why the F has Joey not shot this down? Hes allowing a hostile nation to send crap into our airspace, we have legal authority to do it, and he does nothing. Its unbelievable. The Biden Penn Center must still be getting checks

Why the F didn't Donnie shoot any down? He's the one with a Chinese bank account, and he had many more opportunities than Biden.

 

[Bus Driver]

Dog missed a golden opportunity to defend the defeated ex-President. It seems the balloons that passed over the US during the previous Administration were discovered to have done so AFTER he left office. Of course, the defeated ex-President had to deny it, as well.

A senior administration official who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, however, claimed that while a series of balloons did fly over the U.S., “the previous occurrences were discovered after the Trump administration left office.”

Cite.

Then again, even if it was discovered while that guy was in office, we know how serious he was about paying attention in his daily briefings.

I have a hunch when an aide came into the Oval and said "Time for your Daily Brief, sir" the now defeated ex-President would remind him he was wearing a diaper.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Well, Fox may have accurately reported on that un-named DOD official saying there were Chinese balloon overflights during the Trump administration. We now Mark Esper, Mike Pompeo, John Ratcliffe saying there were not.

I think I see your problem.

Dog2 is just a fucking liar.
Mark Esper doesn't have a public track record of lying for Trump but I'm not sure I'd believe what he says contradicting other sources.
Pompeo is a fascist lying fuck from way back, I would not believe him saying the sun rises in the east. Dog2 lying and quoting liars, what a surprise.

 

[Peter Andersen]

Why the F didn't Donnie shoot any down? He's the one with a Chinese bank account, and he had many more opportunities than Biden.

Domnies were over Guam and Hawaii for short periods.. Not over entire continental USA. Biden had another balloon he also did not shoot down. This wasnt the first.

 

[Bus Driver]

Assuming this balloon was gathering intel, and broadcasting it back to China (does anyone believe otherwise?), do you really think in the days after it was detected, our intelligence services were not busy gathering intel from it? Of course, many will claim that is not the case, as that info hasn't been shared. Give me a fucking break. There is so much to which we are not privy.

 

[MagentaLine]

Assuming this balloon was gathering intel, and broadcasting it back to China (does anyone believe otherwise?), do you really think in the days after it was detected, our intelligence services were not busy gathering intel from it? Of course, many will claim that is not the case, as that info hasn't been shared. Give me a fucking break. There is so much to which we are not privy.

Oh yeah sure. And mayor Pete is hard at work getting the FAA to keep the airlines from trading paint on our runways and keeping the NOTAM system up to date.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Oh yeah sure. And mayor Pete is hard at work getting the FAA to keep the airlines from trading paint on our runways and keeping the NOTAM system up to date.

NOTAMs have been a mess for decades. FYI

 

[Dog 2.0]

I think I see your problem.

At least they have names.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Assuming this balloon was gathering intel, and broadcasting it back to China (does anyone believe otherwise?), do you really think in the days after it was detected, our intelligence services were not busy gathering intel from it? Of course, many will claim that is not the case, as that info hasn't been shared. Give me a fucking break. There is so much to which we are not privy.

I am sure some SIGINT types had a lot of fun with it.

 

[veni vidi vici]

.

It was very obvious that you did not believe in science. How does this work?

Oh I most certainly believe in science!
Not political science
Mask don’t work
The inoculation does not prevent transmission or contraction of the coronavirus
That is the science!

 

[Bus Driver]

Dog Deux objects to "unnamed sources". At least, he objects to them when they don't serve his purpose*.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said in a statement published Thursday.

Balloon Incident Reveals More Than Spying as Competition With China Intensifies​

We were caught flat-footed, it would seem. That this happened before won't matter for the folks who find fault with anything and everything to do with the current Administration.

 

[billy backstay]

A bit of interesting thread drift, and a good read!! How the Chinese Belt and Road initiative is failing in many places, and may lead to Chinese military control points throughout this corridor, similar to the Marshall Plan after WWII.

@Bristol-Cruiser, would love to hear your input on this, if you can spare a few moments.

Road to nowhere: China's Belt and Road Initiative at tipping point

Pakistan, Sri Lanka debt crises threaten Beijing's regional influence

asia.nikkei.com

 

[veni vidi vici]

Dog Deux objects to "unnamed sources". At least, he objects to them when they don't serve his purpose*.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said in a statement published Thursday.

Balloon Incident Reveals More Than Spying as Competition With China Intensifies​

We were caught flat-footed, it would seem. That this happened before won't matter for the folks who find fault with anything and everything to do with the current Administration.

We ?

 

[veni vidi vici]

.

 

[badlatitude]

Domnies were over Guam and Hawaii for short periods.. Not over entire continental USA. Biden had another balloon he also did not shoot down. This wasnt the first.

Who or what is a Domnies? Do you have a cite for not shooting down a second balloon? The only second balloon I could find was one of a Chinese balloon over Latin America.

Edit to add: GOP Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida says the Pentagon has briefed members of Congress about previous Chinese surveillance balloons that flew near Texas and Florida during the Trump administration.

According to other sources, three balloons violated US airspace during the Trump Administration.

 

[Bus Driver]

Who or what is a Domnies? Do you have a cite for not shooting down a second balloon? The only second balloon I could find was one of a Chinese balloon over Latin America.

You're asking Petey for evidence? Oh man, I love this place!

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

A bit of interesting thread drift, and a good read!! How the Chinese Belt and Road initiative is failing in many places, and may lead to Chinese military control points throughout this corridor, similar to the Marshall Plan after WWII.

@Bristol-Cruiser, would love to hear your input on this, if you can spare a few moments.

Road to nowhere: China's Belt and Road Initiative at tipping point

Pakistan, Sri Lanka debt crises threaten Beijing's regional influence

asia.nikkei.com

I would not pretend to be an experts but some thoughts come to mind about this. The B&R I had at least a couple of purposes. One was to increase China's influence in the world both politically and economically. The other was to provide stimulus for the Chinese economy. The first is pretty much self-explanatory, just to take one example, investing in Pakistan had both economic benefits (they thought or hoped) and geopolitical ones since it increased ties with a country that also has historic issues with India. We think about China-US a lot but it would be a huge mistake to ignore tensions between two countries with three billion peoples. If India gets it act together it could become a much greater economic and geopolitical thread to China.

China's incredible economic growth in the last few decades was fuelled by infrastructure building - if you haven't been there go to check out the trains, subways, highways and airports, and by consumer spending - they make more cars than the US, Japan, and Germany combined. Problem is there is relatively little infrastructure left to build and consumer spending is not increasing in the exponential way it once did. One problem is that the population has started to decline so there will be fewer people to buy shit. The other is that people already have the stuff they need so they are not buying their first refrigerator or car, just replacing. This is where the B&R I comes in. When they built a port in Pakistan or Sri Lanka (the one in Columbo is very impressive) they use Chinese steel and cement and mainly Chinese workers who send money home to their families. I have not seen estimates of what Chinese GDP growth would have been over the last decade without the Initiative.

Important to note that they were building stuff internationally before the B& R had its name. We saw two good examples in tiny countries during our circumnavigation. In Lesotho, they were paving highways in return for the rights to build a diamond mine. In Grenada, they were building a school building and a cricket stadium. Not sure what China got out of it other than a vote in the General Assembly. (Side note: China has an embassy in every country that is the UN, the US does not. Their ambassador is stationed in Barbados and looks after five countries. We got to know the Chinese ambassador a bit because of June and she invited us to a Chinese New Year celebration - food, beer, a show (I lost a musical chairs game to the strongman in the show - he wasn't very tall but he was very strong.) All the workers on the school and stadium were there - their companies and maybe the embassy paid).

I think it may be premature to right off the initiative, at least partly because it is to important, economically and geopolitically for the Chinese. I think they got carried away with it initially and spent like drunken sailors (who had lots of money of course). They may have to write off loans and be more judicious in where they invest but they need it to succeed. They do think in generational terms rather than in terms of when is the next election. But I could be wrong.

 

[badlatitude]

You're asking Petey for evidence? Oh man, I love this place!

I want to ask him what a better indicator of Trump's incompetence was. Did he know and do nothing, or was he utterly clueless while America's border was violated?