Several questions keep nagging about the Chinese spy balloon being allowed to traverse the entire North American continent and penetrate all the Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) established over every military installation in its’ path.
Where was NORAD and the other affected Major Command’s leadership during this blatant incursion and why didn’t they alert fighter interceptors to shoot it down? Heads should roll over that question! Were they ordered to “stand down”? By whom?
What was the NSA doing when the balloon was intercepting classified cryptographic and communications intelligence over our “most sensitive defense installations?
Nothing I write is classified and has been previously released by either former Presidents, reported in the national media, or published in books and magazines – obtainable through Open Source.
It is no secret that the “National Security Agency (NSA), is a U.S. intelligence agency within the Department of Defense responsible for cryptographic and communications intelligence and security.” – Wikipedia. So, what was the NSA doing (or not doing) for more than a week while a balloon controlled by a government who has sworn to use “every means available” to destroy America – including political and economic warfare; with our civilian population, American women and children as legitimate targets? (see: Unrestricted Warfare by PLA Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui). If the world’s most advanced SIGINT collection asset was sitting on its’, well, asset, who ordered it to do nothing? Three of the four most advanced computers in the world are located at NSA. Taxpayers pay a lot of money for that “security” agency to do its’ job – besides monitoring J6 demonstrators and political rivals.
If it was doing nothing (hard to believe since its SIGINT “vacuum cleaner” is constantly “on”), why wasn’t it? Who ordered it to stand down? Heads should roll if the NSA was ordered to not collect on the Chinese spy balloon. If the NSA was monitoring, the taxpayers have a right to know (in general) how much damage was done to our national security – like any other espionage case – without exposing sources or methods.
Decades ago, during the early years of the Cold War it was common knowledge U.S. intelligence assets like the NSA could monitor Soviet military land communications, and even monitor the telemetry guiding Soviet missiles (SIGINT). The American public was privy to the Russian MIG pilot’s communications when he shot down KAL Flight 007. Which begs another question: if we had the capability to intercept their missile telemetry, why couldn’t we jam those signals causing missile failure rather spending billions on thousands of our ICBMs to kill the world ten times over? We’ve had very specific jamming capability since the beginning. The answer is probably because there’s not as much MONEY required for jamming as in (pardon the pun) the ballooning Defense Industry. I’m strongly in favor of deterrence – but intelligent deterrence.
What happened to “Kinetic Spike” aka “Rods from God”- a space-based system consisting of telephone pole-sized (20′) Tungsten rods launched from satellites toward pin point targets on earth. The kinetic energy gained by the Tungsten rod travelling at ten times the speed of sound destroying any potential hardened bunkers or secret underground sites? – Wikipedia. (a former student of mine showed this to me from a ‘90s Popular Science magazine.) We could’ve used that during the hunt for bin Laden – if Clinton or Bush had the huevos to actually kill him the 13 times the Alec Team offered to do so. Is it sitting up there gathering space dust?
What happened to President Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense system? You remember the big debate about spending tens of billions for an anti-ballistic missile laser defense system? First revealed publicly (to my knowledge) in the Schwartznegger movie Eraser in which a Rail Gun blows away everything in its’ path. It originally was so large it could only fit on a large Navy vessel. It was reduced in size sufficient to blow a drone out of the California sky from a 747 back in the ‘80s. We’ve had plenty of opportunities to use that in our last few foreign escapades. That system could have been used to prevent the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers if Secretary of the Treasury Rubin had not refused to approve the “Atlanta Plan.” Where is it now? What happened to our taxes for it?
Reagan’s Chief Budget Officer, David A. Stockman in his book The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, 2013 recalls seeing President Reagan actually bowing to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Oval Office after his inauguration and granting the DOD three times what they ever dreamed of asking for. Star Wars and the DOD budget busting increase required the largest tax hike in American history. Some believe it was necessary to create the demise of the Soviet Union. The CIA and just about every other country’s intelligence service knew the Soviet Union was imploding years before Reagan. But “war is business – and business is good!” Where is “Star Wars” now? In an Area 51 warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant?
According to Stockman, only 1% of the funds for Star Wars was spent on the program. The rest was spent on conventional force armament – a fact Stockman believes enabled our P-M-I-C leaders to eventually “export democracy” to countries who had no interest in doing so. It also enabled our PMIC to use a golden hammer to invade countries rather than a scalpel – like a drone acting on actionable intelligence (again, like the Alec Team had 13 times) to punish those responsible for 9/11.
But back to the NSA. Three of the four most advanced computers in the world are located in the “Puzzle Palace” at Ft. Meade, Maryland. The NSA has been described as the world’s largest “vacuum cleaner” for electromagnetic emissions. Was it collecting on what China’s spy balloon was collecting and transmitting back-to-base (BTB) – as it should have been? If it was, we know what sensitive information the Chinese obtained. And we know where it was transmitted to. If we don’t the taxpayers have not only been left defenseless but ripped off monetarily. If the NSA was not collecting on the Chinese spy balloon, why wasn’t it? Heads should roll if it wasn’t!
If the Russians can piss on one of our drones flying in international waters downing it with AVGAS, we can certainly do the same to a spy balloon 200 feet tall flying over our country.
As a taxpayer and a retired veteran, I want to know where our defense dollars are going – and why they’re not being spent more intelligently for our national defense. Why multi-billion dollar systems aren’t being used now.
The H.A.T.T. (Hogs At The Trough) national security strategy doesn’t work for me.
