The Biden administration’s handling of the Chinese spy balloon incident has been nothing short of disastrous. The Pentagon denied an early request from the 11th Air Force in Alaska to shoot down the balloon before it entered U.S. airspace, allowing it to loiter over sensitive military sites for days and even cross over half of US territory before finally being shot down by American forces.
This failure to act swiftly is concerning and raises questions about why the military was not allowed to take decisive action when they first tracked the balloon “from far away” as reported by Sen Dan Sullivan.
What’s more, this incident comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his trip to Beijing due to civilian sightings of the balloon in Montana, raising further questions about why U.S. authorities were unaware that a foreign surveillance device had crossed into U.S. airspace until civilians spotted it and notified higher authorities.
The Pentagon claims that it did not want to shoot down the balloon due to concerns about avoiding casualties on the ground or damage done by debris, despite most of its flight path being sparsely populated or over unpopulated ocean areas. This explanation does not make sense given that modern-day fighters are capable of taking out targets with precision and accuracy without causing collateral damage or destruction.
It is also clear that President Joe Biden was only briefed on this incident on March 1st – weeks after it had first entered U.S airspace – which shows how little attention this issue was given when it could have posed a serious security threat if left unchecked any longer than necessary.
This situation highlights how seriously our national security must be taken at all times and underscores just how important swift action can be in situations such as these where time is true of the essence and failure to act quickly can have severe consequences for our country’s safety and security going forward both domestically and abroad throughout other nations around the world as well.
