>

General Mattis wouldn’t tell President Trump about the spy balloons? 
TREASON!
Chinese spy balloon was watching ‘sensitive military sites’ and program has been targeting US for years

GOP has been complaining that Biden took too long to take action. Biden waited until it could be brought down without risk to others. Trump just let it happen. Three times. Now Republicans are pretending like they don't have a double standard, criticizing Biden but saying nothing about Trump. >

Supposedly Biden wanted to shoot it down days earlier, but the military said it was getting good data from studying what the balloon was transmitting and convinced him to wait >

and they still get to pick it up and see what it was was on it.  the fact that this happened at least 3 times during rumps time in office and nothing was done should scare you. >


and nothing was done should scare you.

Not just nothing was done, but nothing was even noticed. >

Musta been noticed. If not we wouldn’t know about these three’s >

This doesn't cause any anxiety response in me.
Russia has been flying spy satellites over us for a long time. If it's electronic surveillance of frequencies I'd be a little more concerned but I think it would be cheaper and easier to just send a few student spies over here with some receivers. 
The whole thing looks so amateurish and clunky that I could see how it really could just be collecting weather data. Regardless, if it's flying in our airspace without prior permission then we should shoot it down. Done and done. >

The simplest explanation to me is that they just wanted to see how we'd respond to something flying over our airspace. I mean the Chinese are kinda slapdash in how they construct their shit but they're not stupid. >

China can definitely build quality products if the price is right. >

I'm just saying that people tend to equate low quality products with stupidity which just isn't true. >

People seem surprised that a technologically-advanced adversarial power is spying on us, a gigantic country that’s impossible to surveil? Like we haven’t had spy planes flying overhead since the early Cold War?
I get the outcry and the knee jerk reaction to shoot it down, but a Chinese spy balloon floating at 60k feet is  probably less worrying than all the other Chinese spying currently happening through Tik Tok, hacking, and corporate espionage. >

Remember when a Chinese spy walked right into Mar-a-Lago when TFG was the sitting President? >

Remember when swalwell was banging a Chinese spy? Remember when Feinstein had a Chinese spy as a driver? >

The fbi said salwell had no relationship with the Chinese spy. Not sure why you guys continue with a false narrative. >

I'm just trying to figure out why you guys refuse to admit Tucker, Hannity etc lied to you about salwell? >

Because accepting the reality that their main news source lied about one thing is the first crack in the glass of their worldview that Fox is not the same 'lying mainstream media' they claim to hate. You can't expect them to willingly shatter their whole inner reality of their own volition. They aren't self aware enough for that. >

Well they had reason to believe they could operate with impunity, because Trump has allowed it. >

They know 100% they shouldn’t have been doing it then and they shouldn’t be doing it now.
Just because Trump didn’t do shit about it didn’t meant they thought it was all perfectly acceptable. >

Yeah, no matter what, it’s a foreign vessel in US airspace without any permission to be flying over our citizens like that. If it was reversed, you bet your ass they’d shoot it down too. I personally think it was just a test to see how we’d respond, and we responded accordingly. >

You know, when I was first notified about this story I think I had a normal reaction. One of slight curiousity and intrigue and the merest feeling of unease, a very minor unsettling feeling, and then it went away. I scanned an article or two and satisfied my curiosity. I also understood that while alarming, this isn't unprecedented  and it doesn't untangle the fabric of our foreign relationships. 
But one brief look at how Republicans are reacting to this same story, and you'd think Armageddon is approaching. >

and since China is holding Trump’s purse he allowed it. With the spy at Mar a Lago I bet China was just confirming the national secrets Trump sold. >

No shit. They also said they can easily make the instrumentation useless too while over our airspace. >

That's kinda how spying and espionage generally works. Using a big ass, slow-moving balloon is a little unorthodox, but they are probably expendable. What are balloons going for these days? >

ONE BEELION DOLLARS *pinky to mouth*
... if you believe Trump. >

Much was learned by patiently observing the balloon and taking it down where it could be recovered. It would have been idiotic to blast it down right away as some have suggested. >

I overheard some Qanons saying this is how they delivered Covid to the US >

Lol. Under Trump then. >

I wonder what excuses the Chinese going to use once its confirmed that the balloon was loaded with surveillance equipment >

They will say it wasnt as its all a ploy against the West >

Balloons on Biden's watch...unknown
Balloons shot down by Biden...one
Balloons on Trump's watch...three (known)
Balloons shot down by Trump...zero
GOP...Biden soft on China >

I’m really enjoying how next level embarrassed the Chinese are by this. Apparently they thought this would work and now they’re making up anything they think will work in order to deny spying on the US. >

I'm old enough to remember when the Chinese said it was just a civilian weather balloon, no need to worry.  I hope that precision hit on the balloon made them feel a little less safe in Beijing. >

Cut the strings on their fancy toy with surgical precision using an IR missile.
The subtle display of capability in that strike is likely lost on 99.9% of people on reddit, but trust me, the CCP understands. >

Everyone says it’s overkill, but if we overkill a ballon imagine what would happen if you launched a ground assault… yeah >

Ah, so that means Trump was just letting it happen under his watch, huh? Fucking traitor. >

I mean hate on trump all you want but according to the report it never made it’s way up the chain of command any of the 3 times due to the short time frame. The military literally said they never informed the trump admin. You can hate trump for a lot of things, and it’s well deserved, but this ain’t one. >

Of course their spying on the US. What do you think Tik Tok is? >

Trump said this was not a big deal because he was paying his Chinese taxes on time. >

Watching these sites is useless. Getting things to successfully fly over these sites is the point. Test flights. >

We (USA) probably know the schedule of their (China) spy satellites, to they probably sent a balloon to try and catch us with our pants down, so to speak. NORAD probably just told those "sensitive military sites" to hide things like they usually do when those spy satellites pass over. >

Considering the military had been following this balloon since it left Chinese airspace it's hard to believe they thought the balloon could sneak up on us. >

Right, this is what I'd expect too so why do so many seem to think we had no idea until it was over ND or some nonsense? >

Because Fox didn't tell them. >

Explains why they waited until it was over water.  If you think of just how much open space and nothing we have between cities in this country, they could have safely taken it down easily. What they wanted was a water landing to keep the instrument package more intact. >

Even rural areas have houses, and dropping it over a rural area carries some risk. Plus it’s not like they were getting anything they didn’t already have from spy satellites so it wasn’t a huge deal. Even less if we really were able to jam it while it was in our airspace. >

And where doe the ballistic missile land? >

Because Trump allowed it to happen. Biden had the balls to take it down. He initially wanted it down once it got into our airspace but was too dangerous over land. >

Of course.  We watch their sites, they watch ours.  Anything really worth seeing is kept underground.  It's all a big really expensive dance that predates Biden and Trump. >

What I dont understand it why would China was any sort of altercation with the USA, wouldn't a war with USA dramatically hurt their economy?  Who would shoot their best customer? >

China demonizes the US for supporting Taiwan.
As a country, China is extremely nationalistic and xenophobic.
And the US is their major competitor for being the center of the global economy and military.
(ie. some of the USA's allies started drifting away from us and to China when Trump took office in 2017. Though per my understanding their bungled handling of COVID, Ukraine and other crises drove the countries away and back to us.)