China’s Balloon ‘News Reporting,’ Just a Lot of Hot Air

OPINION

China’s Balloon ‘News Reporting,’ Just a Lot of Hot Air

By Mark Schwendau

From about age 6 to 62, I have been on the outskirts of America’s defense industry, lovingly looking in. While I never served in the military, I know I did my part and I know something more than many of the mainstream news pundits rattling their jaws about the recent China balloon world tour aerial show.

My interest in industry and engineering began at the young and tender age of 6. A huge modern new factory opened up just around the corner from the home where I grew up. Before that factory was officially opened, a Sunday Open House was held, and the public was told this would be the first and last time we would be allowed in the facility as they were going to be doing TOP SECRET government research work. That business was Chicago Aerial Industries. Their mission was to make very high-end optical camera lenses and camera equipment for aerial reconnaissance. I think the open house was done to present themselves as good neighbors, as there were rumors they were going to be doing nuclear stuff, which was untrue.

At the time, the Cold War was in full swing, and we were doing “duck and cover drills” in our grade school in the event Nikita Khrushchev (Russia’s president at that time) decided to drop the “A Bomb” on us. The importance and significance of this factory opening near my home was punctuated by a visit from the United States presidential candidate JFK himself. John F. Kennedy was a Navy veteran and hero of WW-II as a survivor of the sinking of the PT-109, after which a movie would come about by the same title in 1963. At the time of his visit, he was a U.S. Senator. While the town I grew up in was heavily Republican, Kennedy, a Democrat, was respected by people of both parties as a brilliant real American patriot.

“October 25, 1960 – Senator John F. Kennedy’s Remarks at Chicago Aerial Industries Inc. Barrington IL”

You may ponder why a 6-year-old kid would know and remember all of this. Part of the factory tour and lecture my family received that Sunday afternoon open house showed a camera and lens for a future satellite in space, and the man delivering the lecture said, “With this lens in a satellite in space if Nikita Khrushchev lit up a cigar on the front steps of the Kremlin in the dead of night, we could pick up his face as clear as if he was in your family photo album.”

For those who know and remember their history, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik-1, the world’s first manmade satellite. It measured 22.8 inches or 58 cm. in diameter and weighed in at 183.9 pounds (83.6 kg), and it orbited the Earth in around 98 minutes. This singular event in history marked the beginning of “The Space Race”. Thereafter Explorer 1 became the first successfully launched space satellite by the United States on January 31, 1958.

So many years later, I would grow up to become a high school teacher drafting and design instructor. After this, I would transition to a college-level professor of Computer-Aided Drafting and Design, or (CADD) and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) or CAD-CAM. You can imagine my surprise and delight when several of my young graduates earned interviews and job offers from some of the top defense contractors around the nation. As their instructor, I soon had agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) coming to visit me in my home around the kitchen table as they conducted interviews of me relative to each of my new graduates soon to enter the defense industry.

For any technology educator, this was a high honor that was never discussed in our colleges of education while we were being prepared as student teachers in training programs as undergraduates. I can recall many teacher luncheons where I became the center of attention as my fellow teachers wanted to know, “Having the FBI come to visit you in your home…  So what was that like?!”

Then there were both family and friends I came to know as members of the defense intelligence community with different levels of clearance. I always would jokingly tell them, “Just don’t tell me any company secrets where after you tell me, you will have to kill me, okay?”

So this is what I think happened with that Chinese balloon…

So with my background from all of the above by way of about 12 family, friends, and student graduates, this is my take on the Chinese balloon incident.

Let me preface my remarks by stating I am no fan of Joe Biden, and I think he remains an unprosecuted criminal at large. I think he is guilty of treason with his chief crime being selling his offices as Senator and Vice President to the highest bidders.

Having said that, these are some points of my own I believe will be proven true over time:

First, that Chinese balloon could gather no intelligence that could not be had from satellites in space, probably easier and better legally.

Second, China sent this balloon over America to help destroy Joe Biden’s presidency, which already has one foot over the open grave and the other on a banana peel. Economically the whole world did better with the leadership of Donald Trump, and that included China. While Trump is focused on building the world up, Biden is focused on destroying it with war… he has to protect his money laundering brothers of Ukraine, the most corrupt country in all of Europe, no matter the costs.

Third, where ignorant people of the legacy media are pontificating on how this satellite should have been shot down when it started over Alaska, those who know defense in the intelligence community know it was only up there doing what it was doing by choice.  It was left to do its mission, so we could collect intelligence from it. Specifically, we would have had an interest in what kind of signal was controlling the balloon, what kind of signal was it communicating information back to China, what information was it sending back to China, and which satellite was it making use of in space to do so.

President Donald Trump is no idiot like Joe Biden. This is why he created Space Force.

Fourth, the Red Chinese and CCP think they can intimidate or panic Americans and are sadly mistaken. Many Americans are well-armed and just waiting for a fight. There is a quiet anger and rage just under the surface of America related to the recent Covid-19 pandemic for which China is getting the blame and has seemingly, thus far, gotten a free pass. Their lack of openness and cooperation after the pandemic began makes them presumed guilty in the minds of many Americans. The lie of the virus coming from “bat soup” out of a Wuhan “wet market” was particularly insulting since it is a proven manmade Gain of Function (GOF) virus.

Fifth, the American military and Pentagon did not take that balloon down until they were done with what they wanted to get out of the experience. Even now, after the balloon has been downed in shallow waters of the Atlantic, Navy divers are looking for pieces of the downed balloon to gather even more intelligence.

Sixth, the balloon was for and about politics. America already seems to be in a period of divisiveness and turmoil the likes of which this country has not seen since the Civil War. China probably thought it would be fun to just stir the pot a little bit more.

Like the Covid-19 pandemic, this balloon spying incident should be the last straw. China should be forced to pay the price, and that price should be the loss of their designation of “Most Favored Trading Nation Status” granted to them by former President George H.W. Bush previously. China has assumed the production of many American-designed and made products of the past and that should be taken back to America even if it means subsidizing these industries with government tax dollars to do so. After all, that is exactly what China does over there! One example is our medications for the pharmaceutical industry. When the pandemic hit the world, it came out China makes some 80% of the world’s drugs as well as much of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This begs the question; what idiots of Washington, D.C., allowed this to occur, and how is this not deemed a threat to our national security?

This move will put China back where we found them about 40 years ago, riding bicycles rather than driving cars.

Forget the “civilian weather balloons”, as China called them, as well as lame threats from China after the fact, and focus on that which is really sour in this relationship between America and China!

Copyright © 2022 by Mark S. Schwendau

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Mark S. Schwendau is a retired technology professor who has always had a sideline in news-editorial writing where his byline has been, “Bringing little known news to people who simply want to know the truth.”  He classifies himself as a Christian conservative who God cast to be a realist.  Mark is an award-winning educator who has published seven books and numerous peer-reviewed trade journal articles, some of which can be found on the Internet.  His father was a fireman/paramedic, while his mother was a registered nurse.  He holds multiple degrees in technology education, industrial management, OSHA Safety, and Driver’s Education.  His website is www.IDrawIWrite.Tech.

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