DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Why the US hasn't shot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, according to officials

Way more? And…Lol …. an accomplishment? That was McConnell, cheating the system calling out a rule that never existed. Goper’s pffft. Your trump brigade 0 Biden 2

Lol … yeah ok maybe…..but you do know that you and your trump brigade has a gigantic lead when it comes to making up conspiracy theories. Like the one you just made up here.

Maybe you should watch the news. There are a couple of reasons.

1. The Chinese spy balloon was flying at 60k feet. Almost twice the height of commercial jets. The latest one was flying to 40k feet which is in much closer proximity to commercial flights. Thus posing a very direct threat to commercial flights.

2. The Chinese spy balloon was much, much larger. The debris field in turn was much, much larger. The debris field of the Chinese spy balloon was approximately seven miles wide. This made the area required to shoot it down much smaller without causing serious risk on the ground.

This has been reported almost everywhere.

Perhaps you should understand what you're being told from "the news".

Jan. 28th. Balloon spotted over Alaska. A HUGE state with a population of some 735,000 people.

A known spy balloon.

It is conveniently allowed to traverse the entire continental states.

It is shot down over the Atlantic AFTER doing its job. All facts.

Next, we have an "object", which we still haven't identified what it was, who owned it, where it was going, etc - shot down. Just off the coast of the largest state in the u.s.




So, a known spy balloon was able to traverse the country while an unknown "object" gets shot down immediately.

In between the 2 events, we have reports of a chinese spy balloon having been present in the past, unbeknownst to anyone in the previous administration, and also another one having been present under the current administration. None of those were, apparently, known at the time?

I find the 'reporting' odd, to say the least.

What is this thing we shot down?



Now, people will say the u.s. stymied any intel gathering the balloon was doing and say all is good. If true, that technology would've been in place with this other 'object".

The next thing brought up would be "the balloon was at 60,000 ft. which poses no issue for air traffic, while this "object" was at 40,000, which does. I understand that.

However, how could it interfere with air traffic? It was supposedly the size of a car. It was on radar. Its location was known.

Just questions I hope we get answers to, when it is safe to explain. I.e. - I don't, you don't, we don't, need to know all the info at this time. I get that.

One was the size of a small car the other was the size of three buses with a debris field of seven miles. One was flying at an altitude that threatened passenger jets the other did not. If you didn't want the answers I have no idea why you bothered asking he question.

Spoon fed, I see.

Typical.

Maybe an adult could respond sometime.

Maybe you could quit trying to deny the reports with no substance to validate it. But I doubt that.

Yeah, cause Biden shot down the balloons all by his big self?

Sorry.. TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMP!

I know you don't like me speaking badly of your boy Trump. I'll stop when he's jailed and can no longer do anything political.

From what I heard in the last week on the news from former military people and talking heads and some reports from the administration and military;

They did not want to shoot it down over the Aleutian islands. The water there is cold and about 2 miles deep where they thought about shooting it down. They probably would not have gotten a salvage operation there in time and the water is way too deep. The water off of Myrtle is about 47 feet deep. Much easier recovery.

Then it entered US mainland. Biden gave the orders to shoot it down Wednesday whenever it was safe. The military did not want to shoot it down over any population areas. The "balloon" was about the size of a commercial airliner with about 3 busses worth of equipment on it weighing several tons.


Also, we were tracking what this balloon was doing as it entered the US with spy planes, jammed its communications and limited access to un-encrypted communications on the ground in areas this thing was passing over.

Also, since we have started recovery of what was in the ocean, it has been noted that there were several antennas on this that could be used for communications or geo-mapping and there were also equipment in this balloon that had English labels. The Biden admin already said that they need to look and see where/how the Chinese are getting these parts and take steps to limit that in the future.




From CNN although but it is published in other sources also;

A senior State Department official said Thursday that the balloon “was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations” and was part of a fleet that had flown over “more than 40 countries across five continents.”

The Biden administration has determined that the Chinese balloon was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring US communications, according to the official.

Initial classified balloon report wasn't flagged as urgent, drawing criticism
“We know the PRC used these balloons for surveillance,” the official said. “High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations.”

Signals intelligence refers to information that is gathered by electronic means – things like communications and radars.

Only evidence that was on the surface of the ocean has been delivered to FBI analysts so far, one official said, which includes the “canopy itself, the wiring, and then a very small amount of electronics.” The official said analysts have not yet seen the “payload,” which is where you would expect to see the “lion’s share” of electronics.

The officials added that understanding the components of the balloon is vital intelligence and could be “important pieces of evidence for future criminal charges that could be brought.”

Despite the latest revelations about the capabilities of the spy balloon, the Pentagon has insisted since the vessel was first acknowledged publicly that it does not give China capabilities above and beyond what they already have from spy satellites or other means.

“We did not assess that it presented a significant collection hazard beyond what already exists in actionable technical means from the Chinese,” said Gen. Glenn VanHerck, the commander of US Northern Command and NORAD, on Monday.

Just in.....
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just put out a message that a THIRD flying object was shot down in the Canadian Yukon by an United States F22. Over Canada.
Norad notified of the object and a F22 and a Canadian fighter jet went and the F22 took it out.

I've said before, I got out of him almost everything I hoped for.


I know you will contort yourself into inhuman shapes to find a way to make Trump look worse than Biden (worship the cult of peronality) but the contention was Biden was great cause HE shot down two balloons and Trump didn't shoot any. I really don't care about balloons, I do care greatly about the federal judiciary. Trump won that. You can spin it with whoever, but in the end Trump gets the credit. McConnell didn't do the nominations. Biden can't fly a jet.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/11/politics/norad-additional-object-northern-canada/index.html

Now Canada shot one down.

3rd one shot down.

Contort? LMAO, I don't have to lift a finger, Trump does that all by himself. Biden will never be the traitor Trump is.

8:30 PM Eastern...
FAA has just shut down airspace over Montana for Defense Dept Activities.

He's the president... commander and chief... if he truly wanted it shot down the military listens to him... if he's an incompetent octogenarian I'm sure the military feel comfortable pushing back on him....

I guarantee you if we had DeSantis or Newsome as president and they told the military to shoot it down they wouldn't tolerate the military pushing back and saying let's wait until it cross the entire US

Because the administration realized they looked incompetent with the first one... they should have shot the first one down the minute they saw it over Alaska.... now we've had two more... one we shot down and one Canada shot down...

should have shot the first one down immediately....

]

Biden 2 Trudeau 1 trump 0

Why is it that the liberals usually get the bad guys while the Goper’s sit back and bitch and complain about how it was done?

That’s made up BS the second ballon was flying smack dabb in the middle of commercial airspace at 40000’. We had to shoot it down immediately. We need to investigate fully why the trump admin didn’t know about the balloons during his tenure. Pffft Trump admin asleep at the wheel. And trump worrying about sleepy joe’s run for the WH

ITS THE ALIENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually I think it would be awesome to have an alien as the president! He would do better than what we've had for the past ten years! ALIEN 2024!

Nobody has to contort anything. Trump did a fine job of that all on his own accord.


No, you missed how that works. When it wasn't shot down it was Biden's fault even though he followed the advice of the military. When it was shot down you give the military the credit.

And when it comes to winning the SCOTUS you obviously have zero scruples about how it was done. And no matter how much you protest, all of the shady maneuvers taken to make that happen were on the part of McConnell, no matter who you try to credit for it.

Thank you for just describing the difference between a good leader and idiots. So you're saying a president should ignore military experts who have spent their entire lives assessing and evaluating such scenarios by using what he thinks is right over such experts? Is that really what you're saying here? And you do understand that a good president would ask and seek the advice of lifelong military leaders under such a situation, right? And you consider them giving their advice as "pushing back"? That this is actually part of the job of top military officials at the pentagon, right? Dear Lord man.

Presidents have advisors, appointed cabinet officials and the pentagon exactly for such things. No president ever elected is an expert on everything. They are only as good as the people around them and if they're smart enough to listen to people that are experts in their fields in such matters. We just witnessed a former president who thought he knew more about everything than anyone else in the world. As such it made this entire nation look like a bunch of morons.

So it's all Trump, unless it isn't but it might be Biden but maybe not?

Politics as usual.

You must have missed that I was responding to your post. It was a followup to things you had posted. You make it sound like I'm the one who brought it up.

Typical deflection on your part. You understand you didn't actually make a counterpoint one would hope.

If the advise of the military leaders when it was identified over Alaska was to basically do nothing, then yes... the president should ignore that... it could have been shot down over Alaska... it could have been shot down over Montana... it could have been shot down a number of times, and yet we decided to let it go until it cross the entire US... we wouldn't have even known about it if not for the general public in Montana noticing...

and, not sure who said it above, but I agree 100% that I want to know why we didn't know about the 3 balloons during the trump admin... that's unacceptable...

I think both of the last two presidents were awful... we can sit here and debate who was worse, but this balloon scenario has made us look completely incompetent and we received multiple excuses for why we did nothing for a week...

This is getting nutty. If Biden would have said, shoot it down over the objections of the military, you'd have beat on him for not listening to the military leaders.. After all, they are the experts at shooting stuff.

He did what he did and your beating on him because he listened to his military leaders and waited until they said, ok,, shoot it down.. After all, they are the experts of shooting stuff!

And now, we are shooting stuff down and you are saying he's only doing it because he got beat on for the first one that he didn't shoot down because his Military leaders said no, wait.,...

You Know Jay, sometimes, People want to think before reacting. Think,,,,, A word that's important when one simple act could start WW3.

Thinking doesn't mean you are incompetent, it doesn't mean you are old and senile, it doesn't mean you are afraid. It simply means you are smarter and wiser than the idiots that would just shoot first and ask questions later.

Ask yourself, why have military leaders if you don't take their advice... WHY? I mean, after all, the military leaders are the experts at shooting stuff....

I don't really disagree with you that the last two presidents were terrible choices that we were given. But what I will say about the balloon not being shot down is that people are basing their opinions on what they know and not basing it on the very real probability that there is much we don't know. I'm willing to bet that a lot of the information surrounding this is classified and we may never know.

When I first heard about the balloon being over Montana I felt exactly like you did. I thought surely there's enough open area in Montana to safely shoot this thing down. That was certainly my gut reaction. But then after giving that some thought it quickly dawned on me that there was certainly a lot of information I didn't know about. So it was left up to me to go with my gut reaction or try to consider if I knew the details of why it was the military which chose to recommend not shooting it down and if I were expert enough on this topic to make such a call.

What you, I or almost nobody else knows is exactly what reasoning the military gave for not wanting to shoot this thing down. We have no idea what they told Biden to base the decision on. And no, I certainly don't think trump nor biden have enough expertise in military knowledge or strategy to make such a decision without listening to military experts about such things.

this is dumb and childish

You may as well include Bill Clinton, Grover Cleveland, and Thomas Jefferson in this list.

ok what in the heck is going on?

Same thing that has always been going on. Difference now is it's being reported.

Sorta like classified documents.

another one just shot down.

That's true... honestly Pitt, you and I probably agree more than we disagree on most topics...

I still feel they should have shot it down immediately, but I also have to trust our military to keep us safe.... I just pray that we do not engage in a war with China, but honestly, it feels like that's where we're going....

At this point I attribute it to a bunch of sabre rattling. I think the cost of al all out war between two superpowers with the current technology is too great for either side to risk.

I wonder why?