Why did we shoot it down ..because... innocuous? Because it's cool..to traverse our skies? Do tell.
Your cohort shit a lung out pretending docs in boxes in Mar-A-Lago was a national security incident..risked exposures of secrets etc .
But a spy balloon...shrug.
Too much. Lol
Really? 40 boxes of documents that were all...ALL illegally removed from the White House and were stored in an unlocked storage room in the basement of a building at Mar-A-Lago were not a security threat?
Meanwhile, who said the balloon flight was innocuous. I said it probably was not a threat, given our ability to jam it. I think recovery of the hardware will tell us what it was capable of. I think shooting it down over the Aleutian Islands would not have given us a chance to recover it. I also believe the damage of hitting the ground may have made the wreckage useless.
When China crashed into our P3 they charged the US for the cost of feeding the crew they kept prisoner for 10 days (about $40k). I think we should send them a bill for the cost of our aircraft to track the balloon and for the missile used to shoot it down.