Alleged Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over Montana

[Coola Yagami]

Apparently people on Twitter are saying Trump allowed China to fly their weather balloons three time during his presidency and hid it from the media. Kinda like a 'take that people that think Trump woulda shot them down'. They're also singing and dancing that Trump did nothing while Biden did (eventually) shoot the balloon down.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Apparently people on Twitter are saying Trump allowed China to fly their weather balloons three time during his presidency and hid it from the media. Kinda like a 'take that people that think Trump woulda shot them down'. They're also singing and dancing that Trump did nothing while Biden did (eventually) shoot the balloon down.

From what I heard it was a senior defense official who stated it, though sounds like it may have been instances of balloons briefly flirting with US territory and this may be the first that it just came right on in and through. Though those other cases really should have been public and dealt with in a way to discourage what now just happened.

Even if it really did turn out to be just a weather balloon and no harm was intended, by now China should have been better about preventing this after those prior incidences and figure out a way to go retrieve it before it gets into territory it shouldn't be intruding on.


Thing that bugs me is that China sits there now kind of mad that we shot it down, but where the hell were they in keeping in touch with us over it and actively trying to work with us to deal with it and get it returned to them if it really was just an innocent mistake?

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Thing that bugs me is that China sits there now kind of mad that we shot it down, but where the hell were they in keeping in touch with us over it and actively trying to work with us to deal with it and get it returned to them if it really was just an innocent mistake?

They’re just mad because we’ve demonstrated that we’re not total pushovers.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Thing that bugs me is that China sits there now kind of mad that we shot it down, but where the hell were they in keeping in touch with us over it and actively trying to work with us to deal with it and get it returned to them if it really was just an innocent mistake?

Straight outta the Russian playbook: "How DARE they fight back against our blatant violation of their sovereignty and international law?!"...

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Apparently people on Twitter are saying Trump allowed China to fly their weather balloons three time during his presidency and hid it from the media. Kinda like a 'take that people that think Trump woulda shot them down'. They're also singing and dancing that Trump did nothing while Biden did (eventually) shoot the balloon down.

Sounds like something people on Twitter would do.

But, I mean... Every initial teport of these things came from civilians online, the Pentagon merely confirmed their sightings. And didn't Trump have a rocky relationship with the media? So how come we didn't hear a single peep about this back then? And if the president has the power to hide it from the media, why wouldn't Biden do the same now? The answer is simple: because the president can't, and because this never happened before now.

The people on Twitter didn't think this through. That's TDS for ya.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Apparently people on Twitter are saying Trump allowed China to fly their weather balloons three time during his presidency and hid it from the media. Kinda like a 'take that people that think Trump woulda shot them down'. They're also singing and dancing that Trump did nothing while Biden did (eventually) shoot the balloon down.

It's true that several spy balloons flew over the US while Trump was president and that Trump chose to ignore this; It's been confirmed by the Pentagon they'd never made this public before.

I think people who believed that Trump was not a deterrent to this kind of thing are perfectly entitled to point out they were right. However a bigger point of discussion should be why the Trump government did nothing. One news source is alleging he saw this as "no big deal". Interesting that some right leaning pundits (that had previously been demanding Biden shoot it down) are now saying they posed no security risk but how they know that unless they'd examined one as the military now plan to do with remains of this one...and if there was no possibility they could learn anything important why would China continue to send them?

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by Galactus

It's true that several spy balloons flew over the US while Trump was president and that Trump chose to ignore this; It's been confirmed by the Pentagon they'd never made this public before.

Good to know some people still believe in Santa and other children's fairytales, I was afraid that magic had been lost to the world.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ChosenOne

I mean, it's not like those three countries are big military or nuclear powers. Costa Rica in particular literally has no armed forces... So why would China be spying on them? Could it be that the crazy bastards are formulating a plan for invading the US via the Southern border in case a war with China ever breaks out over Taiwan?

The United States has agreements with nations all over the world, ranging from simple embassies to Military bases. It's not such a stretch that we'd have pre-arranged agreements in places in South America that could serve as launch pads for our own arsenal, whether we actively store weapons there or not.

So it's very likely that the purpose of surveillance of South America is actually still to spy on U.S. activity.