The bizarre secret behind China's spy balloon
www.cbsnews.com
Earlier this year America's military defenses were put on notice against a Chinese balloon believed to be on an espionage mission. Gen. Mark Milley talks about what we've learned from an examination of the balloon's wreckage.

Nobody could have predicted this. I have my doubts even when they call it “spying equipment” or whatever considering Chinese claim it was a meteorological balloon, certainly no doubt they would try to paint those tools as such.

  • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    61·
    1 year ago

    For me, the greater takeaway was that none of our political leadership had the maturity or courage to say “we’ve been operating with some bullshit narratives, some of that is our fault, I know the news loves to stir up a good frenzy but this is just a weather balloon.”

    Instead, rather than challenge people to stop and think, they spent a week launching missiles at weather balloons. Truly jaw dropping (I’m desensitized to all of the violence they normally do). I’m a communist, so by definition I’m not one of the adults in the room, but at least I’m adult enough to tell the truth when I fuck up at work and just fix it.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      29·
      1 year ago

      I think this is making assumptions about what the goals of the leadership are. If the goal was some sort of abstract idea of Responsible Statecraft or, like, philosophically sound epistemology to their claims, then yeah, they completely fucking failed.

      But that’s not the goal any more than it was with their WMD claims.

      • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        16·
        1 year ago

        Absolutely true. I’d still say going through this whole charade was immature and cowardly. They could just say that China poses a longterm threat to the American bourgeoisie, and if the American bourgeoisie suffer, no one can stop them from taking down a lot of American workers with them.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          1 year ago

          No, because then the correct answer of “Toss the American bourgeoisie to the wolves, construct a system where they cannot pass their pain down to us” becomes obvious.