Because I don't think one guy saying they're launching non-damaging attacks on satellites is worth making the lives of over a billion people worse.
Interestingly enough, Trump took the same position when the Iranians shot down an expensive spy drone, and Trump called off the punitive strike against Iran that would have killed ~150 people. Yet people maintained that he was an unstable warmonger. shrug
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734683701/trump-reportedly-or...
That he claimed to have stopped one strike doesn't change his record, though his overall record was similar to other recent presidents.
That's kinda my point, he wasn't significantly different from the other idiots we've had in office but CNN et al. certainly didn't spend 8 years calling Obama an unhinged tyrant, despite him also being more of the same with regards to bombing brown countries.
and if the other party applies this same reasoning to your response? if your epistemics are at all self-consistent, then after the escalation you’re responsible for the negative impact on about half of all the lives impacted. the easy out you present is just self delusion.
Yeah it was probably the CIA or another similarly reputable agency[0] that actually made the report.
[0]https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/cia-employ...