Balloon War?

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

The other two columnists today over there to your right used questions as headlines so I thought I’d follow suit.

When I first saw the headline on the online news pages about the Chinese balloon floating over U.S. airspace, my first thought was, “Why don’t they just shoot it down?”

Somehow, it took several days and allowing the thing to cross pretty much the entirety of the United States for it to occur to President Biden or whoever’s call it was to make to come to the same conclusion.

Maybe it was just a show of strength but did we really need to scramble fighter jets and use a sidewinder missile to take down the balloon? I’m pretty sure my daughter’s boyfriend could have gotten the job done with one of the many rifles in his family’s arsenal.

Anyway, now there appears to be a veritable squadron of Chinese balloons out there, floating menacingly across the sky. Is that what is has come to? Balloon war? Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely all for shooting down Chinese balloons over U.S. airspace, but what were the Chinese even thinking? Did they assume we wouldn’t notice or care? Do they not have satellites that could accomplish

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From page A6

the same goal more covertly from outer space? Were they hoping to get caught as the preemptive first steps in a more stepped-up military sign of aggression? I couldn’t say for sure, but over the weekend, the U.S. fired an unarmed ICBM from California across the Pacific Ocean. So, we apparently plan to being missiles to the balloon war, and that’s probably a good indicator for how we might respond to further encroachments upon our overhead American skies going forward.

It would almost be comical, the idea of a spy balloon. It sounds like something Boris and Natasha would have come up with to “keel moose and squirrel” in an old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon, but using balloons isn’t a new concept. The Japanese sent throusands of balloon bombs across the ocean during World War II, and although only a small percentage actually made it to the United States, one did kill a half-dozen people, so like I said, I’m a little surprised it took us so long to shoot it down.

In any event, hopefully the message was received over in China… send a balloon, we will shoot it down …eventually.