Chinese weather balloon goes rogue, terrorizes U.S. | GARY COSBY JR.
The U.S. finally shot down a balloon from China that had drifted across the whole country, allegedly spying on us. If you listen to the chatter on the internet, they gained every secret the United States has ever had and can now predict the moves the U.S. for the next hundred years or so, and they know where the aliens are stored in Area 51.
As you can tell, I don’t think much of this whole incident. China might have gained a few hours worth of “I Love Lucy” and “Happy Days” reruns to add to their collection in Beijing, but if you really think they got any useful information about the United States military, I just don’t know what to say to you. They didn’t.
Whatever this balloon could have gained in actual intelligence, Chinese spy satellites would have likely gained a hundred or a thousand times over already. Every single day, multiple times a day, satellites from other nations pass over U.S. territory taking high-resolution photographs and listening with extremely sensitive electronic ears to pick up on anything that might give them an advantage.
Rogue weather balloons are not needed.
Of course, the Biden administration letting it float across the whole country was ridiculous. You mean to tell me that, with scientists who can calculate how to launch a probe to Mars and land it in a specific area on a planet millions of miles away, they couldn’t figure out how to drop that balloon in Montana where there aren’t many people nearby? Yeah, right. Good thing it didn’t fly over Alabama. We would have filled the sky with so much lead we might have killed a hundred people on the ground when the bullets fell back to earth.
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So why bother? There is a real and very good answer. Just look at social media. Man, you would think America was completely incompetent if you read social media feeds. You would think Joe Biden was in Xi Jinping’s pocket the same way Donald Trump was in Vladimir Putin’s.
The only thing China gained was to sow a little discord into our otherwise perfectly harmonious political environment. And you want to know why? Taiwan. China would like very much to invade and take Taiwan. There is this small matter of the U.S. Navy being in the way.
Taiwan is perilously close to mainland China, making it dangerous for our ships because we would come under the land-based aircraft and missiles. We, however, are not going away, so there is a bit of a standoff.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the United States and the Philippines announced that U.S. military forces would be granted temporary bases in the Philippine islands, one of them very close to Taiwan. The U.S. Navy has a strong presence in the south Pacific and will continue to maintain that presence for the foreseeable future. Now we can add a strong contingent of ground troops to the mix.
What options does China have? This would have been entertaining cabinet meeting to attend. Xi Jinping and his ministers discuss their options and one minister says, “We could fly a weather balloon over their territory and watch as they lose their minds over it.” Sage heads of the Chinese state wag in agreement and off goes a balloon.
By the way, Forbes reported that the Pentagon said this is not the first incursion into U.S. territory by Chinese spy balloons. Apparently, this happened during the Trump administration more than once as balloons drifted over sensitive military installations in Hawaii and other locations.
China has a big problem. They have 1.4 billion people. The overwhelming majority of their population is oppressed by the communist government. That’s an awful lot of people to have unhappy with you. The Chinese economy is not nearly as strong as it has been, and cracks are visible in that monolithic entity. With all that going on internally, why would China even give a thought to Taiwan?
Think about when U.S. presidents get in trouble domestically. What do they do? Suddenly, there are foreign trips that need to be made, allies need to be visited. They need a distraction. Baiting the U.S. over China flames Chinese nationalism, casts us as the villain so the Chinese people worry more about the United States than they do about their government. We become an effigy they can burn in Tiananmen Square so the people don't look so hard at how their own government is betraying them.
Their rogue ballon did nothing to harm our nation. It probably did nothing to enhance their nation. All it did was create a media stir that enables the Chinese communists to point the attention of their population somewhere else and in the process cause a little hate and discontent in our nation.
Or, maybe I’m wrong and we should start launching stealth bombers and fighters to take out Beijing. That would teach them to be more careful where they fly their balloons. Besides, who knows but that they might start launching kites at us next. I hear they invented the things, after all.
Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Chinese weather balloon goes rogue, terrorizes U.S. | GARY COSBY JR.
