File photo of a F-22 Raptor. Fox News.
A third object has been shot down by an American F-22, this time in Canadian air space. Fox News. The object was detected by NORAD and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau ordered it shot down. A US F-22 fighter jet got the kill with another AIM 9X Sidewinder. Canadian air assets, including CF-18s and CP-140s were in the area as well. The shoot down comes after the shoot down of a Chinese spy balloon last week and another shoot down of an unknown object yesterday. It is suspected that both objects are also spy balloons, but considerably smaller than the one from last week.
Meanwhile, another incident occurred in Montana, where air space was briefly closed after an unknown object was seen on radar. Fox News. F-15 fighter jets were scrambled but were unable to locate any object.
My Comment:
After the anemic reaction to the first Chinese spy balloon, it seems clear that Joe Biden and now Justin Trudeau are going the other way with it now, shooting down any and every balloon that they see. I am guessing that Biden lost quite a bit of face when he allowed the first balloon to completely cross US air space and is now trying to look tough.
To be fair, I think shooting these down is the right thing to do. We shouldn't allow the Chinese (or whoever is launching these balloons) a free pass to our air space. And without knowing what exactly these objects are it's very possible that these could be a large threat. America has come under balloon attack before and it would be very easy for that to happen again. There is even a precedence for the use of balloons in biological warfare, so we have every reason to be concerned about balloons as a possible vector of attack.
With that being said, I think things are getting a bit out of control. People are not used to this kind of thing and it really shows. Biden is out to lunch as always and isn't doing anything to reassure people that things are ok and it is having some bad effects.
The messaging is pretty terrible as well. Instead of calling these things balloons, which by all accounts is what they appear to be, they are calling them objects, immediately drawing comparisons to UFO theories and the very real encounters our military has had with UAP's. Half of social media believes that aliens getting shot down and the other half thinks that the whole thing is just a distraction, via an old school Project Bluebeam conspiracy. Needless to say I don't support either theory but the fact is that if the Pentagon had been even a little clearer on their language none of this would be happening.
What I don't know is if this is a panic by the United States or not. My guess is that these balloons were common and unknown until now but since the big balloon was detected we adjusted our radar and have found out that there actually was a pretty extensive balloon program from the Chinese. I doubt that these things are new and probably have been flying over the United States for a long time. The smaller balloons, which the 2nd and 3rd ones appear to be, might not have been detectable on the ground through traditional means.
I think that the threat is real, but I also don't think that Biden is handling this crisis at all well. A real leader would be trying to tamp down on the panic that appears to be building and would be trying to get answers from China (and whoever else might be involved). Biden does not appear to be doing that at all and does not seem to be at all in control of the narrative.
Finally, I do wonder why it was our F-22's that shot down this last object instead of Canada's own defense forces. They had CF-18's and given the altitudes mentioned, they should have been able to engage these balloons on their own. The only things I can think of is perhaps the CF-18's weren't armed or that the F-22 has a better electronics suite to actually engage these things. Either way, it's a bit strange and even a bit frustrating, that the Canadians didn't shoot this down themselves.
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