Remember Orson Welles' radio drama "The War of the Worlds," featuring a terrifying Martian invasion? By a stroke of luck, the narrative was apocryphal.
This time, we may not be so fortunate. Mushrooming reports from California and New Jersey have revealed swarms of surveillance drones above sensitive areas, in what might be a dress rehearsal for a Chinese version of Pearl Harbor or another 9/11.
The Chinese motive is plain for all to see. We are arming Taiwan to the teeth. We are policing the South China Sea with aircraft carriers. We have formed the Quad (India, Japan, Australia and the United States) to block Chinese hegemony in Asia. We are blocking the transfer of dual-use high technology to China. And we have ordered the closure of TikTok, a covert arm of the Chinese government aimed at brainwashing the American people.
Where is Congress? Where are those China hawks such as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), secretary of state designate? Mr. Rubio should not be confirmed by the Senate until he comes clean about the hordes of Chinese drones. Why no oversight hearings? Why no summoning of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for answers under oath? Has Congress subcontracted out oversight to media like CNN's Wolf Blitzer?
The intelligence community regularly fumbles. Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the belated discovery that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba 90 miles from our shores.
It is absurd to say or insinuate that China is not behind the drones. All countries spy on each other. And the spying escalates in lockstep with perceived danger. Does anyone think the United States is not spying on China?
Mayorkas recently told Blitzer that "people are reporting sightings of drones" and that the matter is being thoroughly investigated. Is he being evasive because we are learning more about the enemy by watching the drones than we are losing by the intelligence collected, like refraining from prematurely arresting a known spy? Unlike the media, the secretary can share this information with Congress in executive sessions to protect intelligence sources and methods.
Three of the top five civil drone manufacturers are Chinese, and Chinese companies also feature among the top 20 drone service providers.
We know what is going on here. Consider the incursion earlier this year of a pioneering Chinese surveillance balloon, which traversed the continental United States before finally being shot down -- the cutting edge of surveillance technology. For days, officials insisted the balloon was benign, even as it passed over critical military installations. Incalculable harm was caused to national security, including our ability to anticipate a nuclear attack by China. Drones are surveillance balloons 2.0 and a prelude to war.
Transparency is the coin of the realm. Most alleged state secrets are bogus. There is no reason to conceal all the government knows about the Chinese surveillance drones. Our people are mature. They will not suffer a panic attack of the type that followed "The War of the Worlds."
Why hasn't Mayorkas disclosed everything he knows with the American people on prime time like John F. Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Until he does, we will remain stressed or terrified of what might be happening. He should reflect on these wise words attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
The Biden administration will expire in about one month. President-elect Donald Trump will undoubtedly tell us all we need to know about the Chinese drone invasion on his Inauguration Day. Elections have consequences, commonly for the better.
Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast owner of the year.
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