I'm assuming that the cost of building and launching these balloons is lower that launching fighter aircraft to shoot them down with missiles. I wonder if we're about to see thousands.
Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
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Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
The military has released radar, IR and other sensor data from other UFO's before. Why not release them for these things?
Because operational security. Why give adversaries info about your capabilities.
Pretty sure everyone knows they can take IR photos from the Plane... That is not really a secret.
Plus I reject the idea of secrecy from the citizens, government can not be "for the people by the people" if they keep secrets from the people
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#253I'm assuming that the cost of building and launching these balloons is lower that launching fighter aircraft to shoot them down with missiles. I wonder if we're about to see thousands.
But remember - these planes are often up in the air anyway for training. The US Air Force has some of the highest flight hours per pilot of any air forces. Yes it will cost more, but it's hard to say by how much.
Fighter jets don't just sit in hangars all day. They're no good without trained pilots.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#254If an agitator puts up a balloon and payload, one of which contains a potentially dangerous substance, and a nation in question shoots it down, thus releasing and activating that substance, who is responsible? And who does the public deem responsible? (I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
if an agitator launches a missile at another country and a nation in question gets hit by it, thus releasing and activating an explosion, who is responsible?
I'm trying to think of potential grey areas in the middle where the agitator could say "It was minding its own business. It wasn't dangerous until you shot it down. That gas mix was part of the cooling system and would've been completely fine if you didn't launch a missile at it." And some portion of the host public could be convinced that this was a reasonable opinion and hold their government responsible. I don't think your example fits that.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.
The UN is certainly something more than that, and not literally just a forum. They have an active duty peacekeeping force of approximately 81K people. While that's similar in size to the active duty forces from a nation like a Peru or Chile, the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history in places like Central Africa. For example: "Consi…
> Consider a small sample of heinous cases
I can cite henious cases committed by London Police force. Just a couple months ago we've convicted 'bastard dave'. He was a cop and used his position to become a serial rapist and a murderer, and he had a nickname, which strongly suggests some of his colleagues knew something.
You have to assess three points to understand if the entire organisation is responsoble.
Have they commited significantly more warcrimes, than comparable situation suggests is, dreadfull to say, normal? Say during occupation of Iraq? For blue helmets I mean, I hope London police do not think of themselves that way.
Can these acts be traced back to some higher level of command, that is either turning a blind eye or is actively encouraging them?
When these acts become known, are the perpetrators punished, or are these acts tolerated?
I have not studied history of blue helmets, but these are the kind of questions you should be seeking to answer.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UN is certainly something more than that, and not literally just a forum. They have an active duty peacekeeping force of approximately 81K people. While that's similar in size to the active duty forces from a nation like a Peru or Chile, the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history in places like Central Africa. For example: "Consi…
"the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history" First, I don't think calling them "blue helmets" has the negative connotation you think it does. Second. What's the difference between the UN peacekeepers and any other army? All have a mixed history and I'm pretty sure have let's say a high amount of immunity. People do bad things, especi…
As you stated you don't know much about their details, it wasn't meant to be pejorative: they're actually called Blue Helmets (and Blue Berets). I would wager their most defining visual characteristic is their helmet color, which is quite terrible as camouflage and wholly unsuitable for a conventional military force.
Their Rules of Engagement are also significantly different from those of a conventional military force.
The International Court of Justice (the IJC–not the ICC) is part of the United Nations System. At that body, at least, UN peacekeepers enjoy blanket immunity. To oversimplify it, it's another case of, "we have investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing."
The UN nominally expects host countries to prosecute the war crimes of their peacekeepers, but in reality the nature of deploying to somewhere needing peacekeepers is that the rule of law on the ground is already minimal, at best. So there's no real enforcement mechanism to prosecute these crimes.
It is not a trivial distinction. One can debate their virtue and utility value one way or the other, but the distinction is real and significant. They operate under a unique set of circumstances and saying war is hell and victors typically enjoy their own brand of immunity is true enough, but not entirely applicable here.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#257Imagine if you launch a balloon for say $10k so that your adversary has to spend $400k on a missile plus $70k x number of planes x hours in flight. And now do it multiple times per week. Seems like a decent strategy.
A lot of other comments have covered other aspects, and here's another one. If balloons become commonplace, I'd bet that they don't scramble the latest and greatest to shoot them down. It could probably be done with a turboprop.
The F-22 was probably used in the most popular case as a show of force.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots and lots of satellites that keep passing overhead and you compose the images to abstract away the fact they came from multiple physical satellites. Idk how many companies/govs have this capability but: https://www.palantir.com/offerings/metaconstellation/
But then it’s hard to claim that such a system is targeting any one specific place.
Well, it’s certainly easy to claim that
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#259If an agitator puts up a balloon and payload, one of which contains a potentially dangerous substance, and a nation in question shoots it down, thus releasing and activating that substance, who is responsible? And who does the public deem responsible? (I don't think this is realistic, just musing about other schemes that could be going on.)
Both would have acted with (at least) careless disregard for human life, so I would consider both to be responsible. It would however be much easier to know who shot it down than it would be to know who put it up, so I think the public would primarily blame whoever shot it down in practice. There would probably be no way to know if the government was telling the truth about the origin of the object in such as situation, absent an admission.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty clear this guy is a key player in their mafia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career
> In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. They did what now?
Yeah, so the lore goes, Musk just wanted to send humans to Mars, and had no intention, originally, to build his own rockets. The first tactic was to retool an ICBM for spacier spaceflight, but the Russians laughed them out of the country.