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      General Glen VanHerck, Commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.

      NBC NORAD Segment Was Essentially an Ad for the Military-Industrial Complex

      The message of NBC’s reporting was clear: Russia and China are coming, and we need a robust military to defend ourselves from these threats.

      Bryce Greene
      Aug 08, 2023

      The “Chinese Spy Balloon” has been an important story for fueling New Cold War animus against China, but it is based on a dubious premise. While the phrase “Chinese Spy Balloon” has been repeated ad nauseam in the U.S. press (FAIR.org, 2/10/23), no publicly available information exists to support that claim (Caitlin’s Newsletter, 2/14/23). While some officials still claim without proof that “we know for sure it was a spy vehicle,” the level of fearmongering from the press was certainly unwarranted. U.S. intelligence agencies had actually tracked the balloon since its launch at Hainan Island (Washington Post, 2/14/23), and after intercepting the balloon with fighter jets, according to the head of NORAD, they quickly “determined it wasn’t a hostile threat” (NBC News, 7/20/23).

      Even if the balloon was spying, the Pentagon quickly asserted that there would not be “significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.” Or as the Pentagon spokesperson put it: “Does it pose a significantly enhanced threat on the intelligence side? Our best assessment right now is that it does not.” Another Pentagon official later acknowledged that the balloon “did not collect [intelligence] while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States.”

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      Chinese balloon recovery

      US Media 'Spy Balloon' Obsession a Gift to China Hawks

      Despite uncertainty about the purpose of the high-altitude balloon shot down by the U.S. military last week, American corporate media "overwhelmingly interpreted the Pentagon's conjecture as fact."

      Julianne Tveten
      Feb 12, 2023

      For over a week, U.S. corporate media have been captivated by a so-called “Chinese spy balloon,” raising the specter of espionage.

      NBC News (2/2/23), the Washington Post (2/2/23) and CNN (2/3/23), among countless others, breathlessly cautioned readers that a high-altitude device hovering over the U.S. may have been launched by China in order to collect “sensitive information.” Local news stations (e.g., WDBO, 2/2/23) marveled at its supposed dimensions: “the size of three school buses”! Reuters (2/3/23) waxed fantastical, telling readers that a witness in Montana thought the balloon “might have been a star or UFO.”

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