3216
3217

Despite it being Legal Eagle it’s all his buddy who is generally a military law guy.
Mostly it’s a huge breakdown of international law and if the US broke any of said laws.

3218

“Legal” in these cases really translates to “able.” I do think the formalities are important, and the more folks follow a set of agreed-upon rules the safer the world will be. In reality, though, national sovereignty is the primary building bloc of the modern world order, and has been since, oh, Westphalia give or take a century. Given how many spyplanes and not so spy-planes have been downed over the years, this balloon shoot down seems fairly mundane in some respects. More interesting is the discussion of how and why Beijing got itself into this mess.

3219

True of all nuclear armed states at the end of the day, but here the US didn’t seem to violate any international laws or agreements.

China tried to play games with the wording of the agreements, but the US wasn’t buying it (nor by the video should we have).

As far as actually shooting it down I’m in the “who gives a shit” camp and that the outrage mostly backfired when Biden did something and we all found out Trump let them do this 3 times was kind of humorous.

3220

Yeah I’m pretty happy with how we played this, rather than going all off the rails and whatnot.

3221
3222

It’s either a balloon or aliens.

3223

Damn it, there goes my dinner delivery!

3224

RIP old man and boy scout.

3225

they made it down ok

3226

So a Chinese agent and his handler landed on our shores? Way to go, Brandon.

/s

3227

No word yet on just what the “thing” we shot down was. I hope it wasn’t an angel.

3228

"Adventure is out … "

3229

Members of the USAID teams have conducted damage assessments on buildings and infrastructure at more than 630 sites since arriving in Adiyaman via Incirlik on Wednesday, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said today.

In context: Just a few years ago, the Turkish government threatened to close Incirlik amid disputes with the United States. Now the site is becoming a hub for vital aid flowing into Turkey following the country’s deadliest earthquake in decades.

More than 20,000 people are reported to have died in Turkey and Syria since last Sunday. Among them are at least eight US citizens, the White House said today.

As of Friday, Incirlik Air Base has received more than 1,337 international flights supporting earthquake relief efforts, the US military said.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon ordered the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush operating in the Mediterranean to prepare to assist Turkey’s rescue and recovery efforts should Ankara request it.

3230

So are we up to 3 engagements of objects in the past week or so now?

The original, the one reported the other day in Alaska, and apparently one now by the Canadians. Anyone know of any others? I guess they’ve decided they don’t want whatever is riding on those balloons to collect any more data, or they have to do it because of politics.

3231

Looks like a U.S. jet did the deed?

3232

'Murica! F— yeah!

BaldEagleFlippingTheBirdAtChina.gif

3233

Time to build the barracks as we’re clearly going to need more XCOM troopers.

3234

I believe that this is the part where we upgrade the F-22s with beam weapons.

3235

We need Jeff Goldblum.