About that balloon

I know. I know that we have had enough balloon stories already, but here are more. The Chinese spy balloon was launched from Hainan Island (China) and traveled to Surfside Beach, S.C. More than 7,000 miles. We tracked it all the way. But we did nothing about this balloon until it had traversed the entire United States, gathering intelligence the entire way. Why on Earth didn’t we shoot it down the minute it entered U.S. airspace? Then there were three other balloons that

Joe Biden said were most likely research balloons and had no intelligence-gathering capability, but he wanted them shot down because they would be a hazard to air traffic. Wasn’t the PRC balloon a hazard to air traffic? But nothing was done about it until it had reached South Carolina. The PRC balloon was shot down by an F-22 Raptor aircraft with a Sidewinder missile. The plane cost $143 million. The missile cost about $400,000.

Four other Sidewinder missiles were used for a total of five because the one over Lake Huron was a miss and had to be fired again. Couldn’t a cheaper solution have worked?

It appears Biden controlled personally the entire operation. This begs the question about our command and control system. If a hostile plane entered our airspace and starting dropping bombs, would it take Biden’s approval to retaliate?

Too late. If I had been commander in chief, I would have told them to shoot the PRC balloon and classify it Top Secret and tell no one. There would be no frenzy about balloons. We don’t have any secrets anymore. We blab everything.

RUSS BAILEY

Little Rock