The Unfriendly Skies

The line about Hollywood, that nobody knows anything, applies to politics too. No one at the White House knows anything, which is no surprise, because Joe Biden is unfit and Kamala Harris is incompetent. No Democrat knows why drones have invaded our airspace. No Democrat knows if Iran has a mothership in the Atlantic, or whether the drones over the skies of New Jersey are a threat rather than a nuisance. Regardless of who is responsible, Iran now knows that it is easy to breach our airspace. Ditto for China and Mexico’s drug cartels. Ditto for illegals and Islamists in the United States. So much for our trillion-dollar defense budget. So much for the Air Force or the Navy, or the National Guard or the Coast Guard. So much for the FAA or the FBI, or any federal agency in charge of safety or law enforcement. Like the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across Alaska and the contiguous United States, the drones above New Jersey prove how easy it is to invade America. Never mind how easy it is to arm a drone or use one to bomb civilians. But we must be mindful of the fact that our enemies have the means to attack us on the cheap. If our enemies want to attack us, they can. If we do nothing to stop our enemies from violating our airspace, they may attack us. What we must not do is pretend we are safe.

And yet White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre keeps pretending she speaks for Joe Biden, or that Biden is aware of the situation in New Jersey. Here she is saying the White House is looking into the story. She treats the issue as a non-issue, acknowledging it with all the personality of an automated reply from a customer service bot. She offers zero details. She speaks in generalities, repeating herself without saying anything of substance. She is the perfect spokesperson for a president in name only.

Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey is the opposite of Jean-Pierre. He says Iran launched a mothership off the East Coast. He also says Iran bought the drones from China. If what he says is true, the drones are a threat. If nothing else, the drones are a threatening gesture, a form of saber-rattling with propellers. The purpose of any such act is to send a message, telling the United States—showing the United States—that America is not safe from reprisals. The message is unambiguous.

Even if Van Drew is wrong, even if Iran is not operating a mothership or invading American airspace, it may. If a non-state actor wants to position 50 drones above a U.S. military base, if a drug lord wants to use drones to bomb a police station or courthouse, he can. This fact alone should give us pause.

Listen to Robert Wheeler, the FBI critical incident response group assistant director. He says the bureau does not know what the drones are. Maybe if the bureau had focused on public safety with the same zeal with which it focused on raiding Mar-a-Lago and violating the rights of a private citizen Wheeler would have something meaningful to say. No doubt Kash Patel will have a lot to say when he becomes the new director of the FBI. No doubt Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will also have a lot to say about how much money the FBI wastes.

No doubt Congressman August Pfluger of Texas is right when he says, “The threat is real.” The threat is not regional but national. Drones have been spotted over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Drones have been spotted over government buildings in California. And drones have been spotted over President Trump’s golf course in New Jersey. The incidents are too many to be inconsequential. The incidents are also too frequent to be unimportant or wholly inexplicable. It does take hundreds of billions of dollars to know that drones violate U.S. airspace with impunity. It does not take a career in law enforcement or a security clearance to know that the FBI is clueless or that the military under Biden is useless. And yet we must take care that our skies do not become like our borders: open to terrorists and criminals.

About Iran, President Trump said it best: Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear sites. Even if Iran is not responsible for the drones, it is guilty of seeking to use them. Even if Iran never uses them against us, it has used them against Israel. All of which is to say Iran has no right to nuclear weapons. President Trump’s message to Iran is simple: No more money. The days of rewarding Iran, of giving the mullahs millions—no, billions—for nothing, are over. The days of weakness and ransom are over.

Whether Iran is to blame is almost beside the point. Whether terrorists are responsible is less important than the fact that the drones are an act of terror just the same. Psychological terror is sometimes the most potent form of terror. As a display of terror, as a way of scaring us without attacking us, the drones did their job. The drones accomplished their mission, of alarming us without physically harming us.

Now we must sound the alarm, so we may take action.

We must safeguard our skies and protect our airspace.

We must control our borders.

We must be secure again.

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Steve Gruber is the host of America’s Voice Live, which airs daily on Real America’s Voice TV