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News Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US

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Coalfax said:
Someone needs to teach China how global trade winds work. In order for us to get a Balloon over them, it would need Circumnavigate the GLOBE. I believe other nations might say oif we did that.. like all of Europe, Russia and India first...

Unless we just have Baloons floating up there for yerars or something..

Politics are not usually this stupid...wait, then theres Santos. I recind that statement
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I believe the 10 "American" balloons were all successfully launched near Shanghai (Disneyland)...
1676317037056.png
 
Coalfax said:
Someone needs to teach China how global trade winds work. In order for us to get a Balloon over them, it would need Circumnavigate the GLOBE. I believe other nations might say oif we did that.. like all of Europe, Russia and India first...

Unless we just have Baloons floating up there for yerars or something..

Politics are not usually this stupid...wait, then theres Santos. I recind that statement
Click to expand...
Well technically we have these things called ships, trucks, and military bases that can go all over the world. They could potentially launch a spy balloon from anywhere.

it’s still BS face saving by China
 
Artorias said:
See I find statements like these infuriating from government officials.

They know damn well what the hell they shot down, they had a sentry loiter for a few hours, and several fighter jets all in range to visually identify the object.

At this point they're just being VERY diplomatic as to not say it is Chinese. Just rip the damn band-aid. They need to stop with these open ended statements like "no propulsion", or not ruling out Aliens.

FFS get your PR shit together.
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It's a bit embarrassing for them to have to admit they used an F-22 to shoot down an escaped bouncy castle...
 
Pohemi said:
Yep, it's China without a doubt at this point. This latest accusation from them just further confirms it.

CCP is just like the Kremlin in that they can be caught pretty much red-handed with some fuckery, and they'll point a finger and say, "nuh-uh, you!" and deny it like toddlers even when it's super fucking obvious it was them. Deflect and project the blame elsewhere, always. Sounds familiar with our homegrown dishonest clowns, no?

Exactly what the assholes are doing here, nothing more.
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What is 'losing face'? 'Losing face' in China is said to be caused by caused by embarrassment, disagreement, or criticism. 'Losing face' is equal to losing the respect of others, and avoiding this situation ('saving face') is very important in Chinese culture.
 
At the end of the day, this is all going to come down to either it's China's fault, it's Russia's fault, or something to do with money, or all 3. These stories are designed to manufacture consent from the public to push the Pentagon's budget past 1 trillion this year to deal with the 'rising threat' from China, or distract from current events going on in the world that make the US look bad(Ukraine losing against Russia/US blowing up Nordstream pipeline).

Isn't it curious how all of a sudden, out of nowhere, every news organization is covering these balloons? Keep in mind the last time China was involved in a war was 1979, but according to the mainstream media they are imperialists who want to conquer every country in the Indo-Pacific. Nothing more than an attempt to fleece taxpayers for more $$$ that goes into the war machine.

Might be a good time to invest in some defense stocks as these companies have the whole country spooked by balloons and unidentified 'objects' that the Pentagon supposedly shot down and they have no idea what they are, even though they would not shoot down something they wouldn't be able to identify.

A Classic PsyOp:

 
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Chinese propagandists encouraging the US to cut its weapons budget isn’t the best way to sell the idea. Americans who are in favor of cuts find that interference unhelpful.
 
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IronWing said:
Chinese propagandists encouraging the US to cut its weapons budget isn’t the best way to sell the idea. Americans who are in favor of cuts find that interference unhelpful.
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All I see is that Biden handling this all cool and calm, but the usual "we found something negative to beat on about Dems and libruls network" can't let an opportunity to create FUD go by. That's it. Adding that it forces our hands into something we probably didn't need to do.
 
Young Grasshopper said:
At the end of the day, this is all going to come down to either it's China's fault, it's Russia's fault, or something to do with money, or all 3. These stories are designed to manufacture consent from the public to push the Pentagon's budget past 1 trillion this year to deal with the 'rising threat' from China, or distract from current events going on in the world that make the US look bad(Ukraine losing against Russia/US blowing up Nordstream pipeline).
Click to expand...

You just can't help laundering all sorts of ridiculous propaganda: like that ridiculous story that the US would blow up the Nordstream pipeline.

Isn't it curious how all of a sudden, out of nowhere, every news organization is covering these balloons? Keep in mind the last time China was involved in a war was 1979, but according to the mainstream media they are imperialists who want to conquer every country in the Indo-Pacific. Nothing more than an attempt to fleece taxpayers for more $$$ that goes into the war machine.
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Maybe we're hearing about it now because it's actually been recently identified as a vector for spying. Hard to quantify stuff when you didn't know if it was there or not. I mean, look at all these covid deaths we're hearing about. If we didn't test for it, we wouldn't have people dying from or with covid, right?

Also, let's just gloss over the fact that China has had numerous border disputes with its neighbors and has strong desires to be an imperial power and wishes to exert its influence over its neighbors: it's a big reason that all those countries keep inviting us in - their scared of their bully neighbor. But I guess it's only imperialism in your book when it comes from ships in the West. In other cases, it's just sparkling "we were always here, these are our historic lands, mind your own business".
 
How much it cost to shoot down a balloon? 1/2 a million? It get expensive real quick if there are 100s of them, isn't there are satellite laser?
 
Lanyap said:
Yeah, Russian disinformation.
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Have a read there and thank me later bud. Or maybe you can just fall for the US propaganda that little green men(or the Chinese) coming to terrorize us and we need to ramp up military spending quickly.

I’ll be back once the official Trillion dollar request from the Pentagon comes in because it’s coming:

www.politico.com

Biden prepares largest Pentagon budget in history as spending cuts loom

Lawmakers have threatened defense cuts in larger battle over the debt ceiling.
www.politico.com www.politico.com

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Young Grasshopper said:

Have a read there and thank me later bud. Or maybe you can just fall for the US propaganda that little green men(or the Chinese) coming to terrorize us and we need to ramp up military spending quickly.

I’ll be back once the official Trillion dollar request from the Pentagon comes in because it’s coming:

www.politico.com

Biden prepares largest Pentagon budget in history as spending cuts loom

Lawmakers have threatened defense cuts in larger battle over the debt ceiling.
www.politico.com www.politico.com

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Cool. Don’t come back until then😉
 
alien42 said:
A sidewinder costs $400k. If you miss with the first shot, that makes $800k.

US military's first shot at unknown octagonal object over Lake Huron missed, officials say | Fox News

The second missile ultimately took down the target over Lake Huron, officials said
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
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Sidewinders can't be remote detonated, can they? I just wonder where that missed shot ended up. I mean probably in the lake, but they'll have to go recover it if it wasn't self-destructed after missing. And those missiles have some range on them.
 
Dave_5k said:
It's a bit embarrassing for them to have to admit they used an F-22 to shoot down an escaped bouncy castle...
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This says that the first was a Chinese spy balloon, but the other three might be just 'sky trash' (that got noticed because of the increase in vigilance after the first one).

www.theguardian.com

What is ‘sky trash’ and is it linked to the mystery objects shot down by US?

Nearly 2,000 balloons are launched into the sky daily, to monitor everything from the weather to specific phenomena in space
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

“All kinds of stuff has been launched over the years. Normally it falls to Earth but some accumulates,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

These objects – predominantly balloons – are used to monitor the weather, conduct scientific research that can’t be done on the ground or to check things on Earth that can’t be seen by a satellite.

“The simple fact is they’re cheaper to fly than a satellite, you can put up many more … and resolution can be better because they’re closer to Earth,” says Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist and an astronomer at the Australian National University.

These balloons are launched by governments all over the world, as well as by scientific research groups and private companies.
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pmv said:
This says that the first was a Chinese spy balloon, but the other three might be just 'sky trash' (that got noticed because of the increase in vigilance after the first one).
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That makes sense, at least for some instances. The only exception would be objects that pilots witness maneuvering (not simply moving with a draft or jetstream, but changing course and speed, altitude, etc.) They'd obviously be taking closer looks at that, I would think/hope.
 
All the crap floating around up there seems to open up an opportunity for the Chinese, or anyone else, to conceal purposeful malevolent objects amongst it. Seems like it makes it not-very-cost-effective to shoot it down with expensive missiles, if the vast majority of it is just lost radio sondes or cheap sat-phone alternatives.
 
Pohemi said:
Sidewinders can't be remote detonated, can they? I just wonder where that missed shot ended up. I mean probably in the lake, but they'll have to go recover it if it wasn't self-destructed after missing. And those missiles have some range on them.
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my 5sec google search turned up nothing.
hopefully it landed somewhere safe and not in someone's house
 
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