FEBRUARY 10, 2023 – Much has been made of the Chinese surveillance balloon that recently floated across the United States and was finally shot down over the coast of South Carolina. Most—though my no means all—of the “hullaballoon” was launched by indignant Republicans and their official megaphones. Why not? After all, they had what appeared to be a target the size of a large barn surrounded by a Midwestern cornfield . . . er . . . a balloon the size of “three school busses.”
Democrats targeted the balloon as well. Or rather, they took aim at the Chinese. How dare they spy on us! Here was a slow pitch right down the middle for Joe Biden to hit a stand-up double, taking the sting out of the BEIJING BIDEN bumper sticker I saw the other day on a car bearing an array of MAGA signs.
As a non-objective (I assure you) observer, I’d do exactly what the president did: I’d consult with informed advisors, who, in the case at hand reside in military and intelligence circles. I wouldn’t rely on the knee-jerk reaction of people with little to no grasp of actual . . . facts. Query whether Biden followed this same procedure when the second balloon crept into American airspace. He might well have consulted only with his political advisors, who stuck their fingers into the air and said, “This time, shoot it down immediately!
But something broader is afoot that receives little mention by any of the pundits and pontificators. When I hear or read experts describe the possible forms of surveillance conducted by the Chinese balloon, I immediately think, Gee, that’s pretty detailed. Is it pure speculation or . . . is it based on the high level of sophistication that we ourselves deploy against the Chinese (and others)?
What’s the difference, I then ask, between a Chinese balloon the size of “three school busses” floating over the U.S. and an American satellite that could fit inside one school bus and floats in geo-synchronous orbit above China? Answer: a matter of degrees.
The initial contention by the Chinese that the “three school busses” were an off-course weather balloon was patently lame. President Eisenhower had floated that line against the Soviets when in the 1950s they discovered U.S. surveillance balloons over the USSR. As a trial balloon, the explanation sank like a rock. When I hear such things, I wonder, How dumb do they think we are? . . . or . . . How dumb are they to think we’re that dumb?
Except . . . when I see how easily we subscribe to our own nonsense, I worry that we’re pretty dumb much of the time. Many of us are incapable of discerning between bald assertion and fact-based evidence; between evidence and . . . proof. The good news is that the species has never been good at separating fact from fiction; lies from truth. The historical exhibit book in this regard is voluminous. I say “good news,” given how far we’ve evolved despite ourselves.
I’m certain that the balloon story is commanding much time and attention at the highest levels of government—here and in China—but I predict that as short a time as it takes a high-altitude spy balloon to float over a continent, this week’s balloon incidents will blow past our news feeds. Millions of people in Turkey and Syria, meanwhile, will struggle to survive horrific conditions down on the ground. How long before our attention wanes there, as well—as it has with the day-to-day misery of innocents caught in Putin’s Endless and Pointless War?
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
