A US F-22 Just Shot Down the Chinese Spy Balloon
A pair of U.S. F-22 fighter jets shot down the Chinese spy balloon as it drifted off the coast of North Carolina at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The two F-22 raptors could be seen circling the white spy balloon, itself the size of three school buses, before lighting it up in a poof of smoke. The deflated balloon then could be seen drifting down from as high as 60,000 feet, likely landing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The spy balloon was first spotted over Montana earlier in the week having floated in from Canada, forcing a diplomatic rebuke from Washington to Beijing bringing the world’s top superpowers in direct conflict for the first time in years.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken canceled a scheduled trip to China with Chinese officials issuing regrets over the balloon’s course, but said it wasn’t meant to spy on its assumed American targets.
The Pentagon confirmed the mission to shoot down the balloon Saturday and said it was done at the behest of President Joe Biden.
“I told them to shoot it down,” Biden said this afternoon, explaining he’d given the order to down the balloon on Wednesday, but that the Pentagon was waiting for the safest possible way to do so, without any impact to people or property on the ground.
“They said let’s wait for the safest place to do it,” Biden said.
The Pentagon has said it is now prepared to retrieve the debris from the balloon, which could provide U.S. intelligence with a definitive answer to what the Chinese government was surveilling.
On Friday, Pentagon Press Secretary and Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder called the event completely “unacceptable,” and initially didn’t count out shooting the balloon out of the sky via missile strike and the Defense Department was “monitoring and reviewing options.”
The Biden Administration has increasingly committed to force projection in the Pacific region as a means to constrain any plans by China to militarize and intimidate allies. The growing number of bases available to U.S. troops builds on new locations in Australia, Guam, and Japan.
In January, tensions forced one U.S. Air Force four-star general to issue a memo to his troops, predicting World War III was drawing dangerously near.
“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we’ll fight in 2025,” said General Mike Minihan in January.
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via https://www.DMT.NEWS
Ben Makuch, Khareem Sudlow
