CNN national security analyst James Clapper reacts to the US military shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon after it drifted off the East Coast near the Carolinas. #CNN #News
What ex-intel chief thinks about suspected Chinese spy balloon being shot down
Imagine if it was not just a spy ballon but a ballon that spreads a virus/bio weapon over the us
@Jackson Pompeio can verify it .
You can imagine lots of things, but that does not make them likely occurrences.
@D W https://youtu.be/uScncrFyY-U
Mark Esper specifically denied this. He was secretary of defense. Where has pompeo said there was a balloon over the mainland US?
They did that already with covid 19
@Lusty Lusty from the lab in wuhan china where they were playing with it.
Don’t turn this into a republican or democratic issue, it’s about protecting everyone in America!
@3 wolfs down Lol, I don’t think that would be the best delivery system over Wyoming, but if it was shooting it down out there would probably be best. It would likely be easier to recover on land than from the sea, too.
Exactly, no matter our political views we should all be on the same page when it comes to the security and safety of our nation and fellow Americans.
@Britt Howard they had a boat picking it up before it even hit the water .. technology
@3 wolfs down good to know. I am glad they could get it. I heard it was super heavy, so I was concerned about it sinking out of reach.
Blame Trump lah
They were probably checking the response.
Spying is as old as time. How the situation is handled is just as important as the data collected.
manipulating the stupidity of the average Merkin is the brilliance of the Chinese
If you think so , whatever . Hell , the Mexicans are freely walking across our border by the hundreds of thousands every day and they are worried about a balloon floating across our country ? Yall people are pathetic
Now China is going to shoot dow our USA spy balloons near China!
@Steven Michael Cunningham clearly China is going to shoot dow our USA spy balloons and air-planes!
💯
They need to interview George Santos he knows a thing or two about balloons since he is a clown.
You are right about Santos, but a big distraction to the subject matter of the Chinese spy balloon.
Good one .
Stupid suggestion lah interview the squad better.
George’s coming after you pal and pop yours!
😂😂😂😂😂
A cryptic message of “Congratulations Steve!” was written on the outside of the balloon. Analysts have yet to decode the message.
is that to imply of Special NK Representative, Stephan Biegun? Are the Chinese taking the fall for NK’s spy mission?
As Trump would say, “Maybe you should ask Gina!”
I love that our military was jamming their equipment while it was over us and extracting useful data. Kudos to Joe Biden and our military. It was the right way to handle this supposed weather balloon.
Spying is sometimes referred to as “The 2nd Oldest Profession” 😎
@Dentatus Dentatus prostitution and no, that’s not a joke
@ThirdEyeMind it’s really sad that you have to explain that to someone
@ThirdEyeMind I told someone prostitution and he replied back being a hunter/gatherer was the first profession
@Judge Dredd u gay fam
@ThirdEyeMind 👍 yup 😎
It is a test for our response, it told them that we protect our territory but we do it safely and with consensus. Loss of life or damage to property is of our concern. So I would imagine they will capitalize on the lag in our response to other threats. They must conclude of our confidence and in our need to have total victory without sacrifice. Noble to us is perhaps weakness to them because of possible values differences as lives, infrastructure or resources are possibly expendable for the greater objectives. Seen that somewhere lately?
It sends the clear message that when they sent their ICBMs at our cities that we’re too chicken s**t to shoot them down until after they’ve accomplished their mission
It probably tells them that they will have plenty of time to spread any type of germ warfare before we will take steps to stop them. This should have happened when they entered our airspace not when it departed. The track of the balloon when it left China clearly shows we knew it was headed our way. And what is the name of the “ civilian company”? Anyone heard? Yeah, I did not think so……
A yank trying to convince himself with so many unnecessary words. Too much waffling.
Who protect U. S ,? WHY U. S government no destroyed that Chinese Ballon as soon it was founded out? Just examples, Alaska is basically unhabitad , why was no taking action out there? What is the real situation, Americans no want more distractions from this U. S GOVERNMENT.
Uh no. So many desperate attempts by republicans to spin this. This was A MILITARY DECISION. Because there is no need to shoot it down until it’s in an area it can be safely recovered with minimal damage to property. A threat assessment would’ve occurred as soon as Canada’s EWR detected it. We know what it looks like. We know they exist. They’ve been over US territory 3 times during the Trump administration. They likely lost control of it due to jet streams.
In any case; it posed almost no national security risk. It was observing in the electromagnetic spectrum, which is why the US prevented them from gaining any intelligence by either jamming it or reducing their emissions.
Now let’s see what the US loses by doing what they did; nothing. Literally nothing. Except for more partisan divisions, but no matter what the republicans would’ve done this.
Now let’s see what the US loses by shooting it down immediately; potentially property damage, zero chance of recovering the balloon as it would’ve gone down over deep water or over land. Potential loss of life.
Now let’s see what the US gains by doing what they did; Detailed tracking data on the maximum speed, ability to fly in the wind, effect that the wind has on it, detailed information on it’s electromagnetic emissions, radar cross section. The US gained most likely TERABYTES OF DATA THAT CAN BE USED TO BETTER TRACK, DETECT, DISABLE OR SHOOT DOWN THESE BALLOONS. Plus allegedly they have recovered a significant percent of the actual hardware onboard.
So yeah; good thing that the republicans weren’t in charge! Otherwise they’d have done… the same fucking thing. And the democrats would be bitching at them about it too. This is probably what China was banking on; that “okay, well it got blown off course, we could leave it there and cause division because we all know that’s what will happen because there is LITERALLY ONLY ONE SENSIBLE MILITARY ACTION TO TAKE; WHICH IS WHAT THEY DID, so why don’t we just do that instead?”
I suspected China tested US air defense awareness at this high attitude. I think China succeded.
Except it was detected as soon as it crossed into US airspace.
Trump set the standard by allowing no less than 3 ChiCom Spy Ballons to operate UNIMPEDED…& HID this from the U.S. CITIZENRY. As Stated by the fkn PENTAGON.
A US training video I saw shows us back in the day using this same technology to detonate a device midair for the soul purpose of frying our resources, grid, etc… Seems this would enable us defenseless enough for an attack. Makes sense. Once it happens and we stall, it’s too late.
Well…bidumb stalled..for days
Not at that altitude.
The whole situation is wild The Audacity Of China to even do that boldly in the open🤔
They did it 3 times during the trump regime
@Sinmatic X Bot or trolling fool! Which one? And what would you know about adults talking? Clearly you have no experience based on your childish comment.
China has no fear of Joe Biden
@Belly Dancer Em not wear this one flew
@JustOneTime still happened, and trump ignored it because he was more interested in golf
“Imagine if this was shot down over a red state?” – James Clapper. Whatever could he have meant?
He meant that Fox News and the Republicans would have gone ballistic if anyone was hurt.
They just hate President Biden.
@Sun Rise Exactly right!
We don’t have red states. His treachery exposed.
@Joanna Hayden Of course we have red states.
The red states voted for the traitor Trump.
Also demo’s not going to critique anything administration does regardless of damage or potential damage.
It seems to me, “waiting several days to shoot it down” gave every opportunity to prepare for recovering the module. One must wonder if they are even capable of making such a plan, much less carrying it out.
Do you really think they broadcast what they know and do? For all you know it’s already in a lab.
Ah bet the Navy can git that thang. Go Navy!!!
Clapper. Now there’s a voice of reason.
We will never know the true reason for the balloon flight or what it was really doing it will be kept top secret 🤐
Glad to hear Clapper have some sensible thoughts about this. Some of the ex military experts CNN has had on over the past few months have been just awful, decent job by Clapper today.
Balloons can and have been used as weapons platforms. An adversary can potentially arm one of those with a low yield nuke and fly it near its flight ceiling, where it would be much harder to detect and shoot down.
Make that a swarm of tactical nuke balloons and those seemingly harmless vehicles become a nightmare.
This could be just a series of tests of range and maneuverability.
That’s exactly what they were doing, I also thought they could be spreading pathogens, that might kill crops, or viruses
Finally! Somebody saying something interesting. I’ve actually learned something that moves the story forward.
They always leave out that any damage was minimized – we had dozens of intel aircraft flying nearby balloon at all times and presumably jamming, minimizing any intel they collected. Let’s hope FBI releases what is found on the recovery of the payload. As Clapper says we have tried ballons back in 70’s and they were not very useful.