On Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Shootdowns, The American People Deserve Answers
Michael R. Pompeo
The American Center For Law And Justice
February 17, 2023
Earlier this month, the Biden Administration allowed a Chinese spy balloon to traverse our entire country, floating over the heads of Americans from Montana to South Carolina, before finally shooting it down. In just the past week, three more unidentified objects flying in North American airspace were shot out of the sky. What links each of these incidents is a lack of communication and leadership from the Biden Administration.
President Biden should have simply shot down the spy balloon, but instead, he opted to deflect criticism rather than be straight with Americans. And the Administration’s claim – that it didn’t shoot the balloon down out of concern for Americans below – doesn’t hold up. We now know that American officials were tracking the balloon the moment it lifted off from the south coast of China. It strains credulity that our military could not have safely shot it down before it drifted into Montana. If we knew when the balloon lifted off from China, we surely could have identified an opportunity to take it out over an unpopulated area of Alaska, or even Canada.
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The real issue here is the Biden Administration’s continued efforts to treat the CCP softly. Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview this week that she doesn’t feel the spy balloon incident will affect our relationship with China, and that “(w)e seek competition, but not conflict or confrontation.” In his address this Thursday, Biden echoed the same sentiment. This is the opposite of leadership – Xi Jinping just sent a clear message that he is willing to instigate conflict and confrontation, yet Biden has only responded with platitudes about seeking ‘competition.’ We should be publicly imposing costs on the CCP so that the whole world, including Xi Jinping, knows not to mess with us or our sovereignty. By not doing so, this Administration is once again showing its own weakness and inviting further attacks.
Read the full op-ed HERE