The Web is ablaze with what the left delightfully refers to as right-wing conspiracy theories involving the ‘invasion’ of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas by the US military on July 15 through September 15 of this year. Is this really a training exercise or is a coup d’etat on the horizon?
According to Army Lt. Col. Mark Lasteria, Jade Helm 15 is not a military operation to take over Texas and much of the South West. He says that no foreign troops will be involved in the ‘training exercise,’ U.S. troops would not confiscate firearms, and the Army didn’t intend to implement martial law.
I don’t know about you but that sure makes me feel better – not! President Dwight Eisenhower reminded us in 1961 that we should take nothing for granted. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic process.”
A standing army, something that propelled the early colonists into revolution, strips the American people of any vestige of freedom, according to John Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute. “How can there by any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead?” Or, I might add, when you have the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security labeling Conservatives, Veterans, Tea Party members, Patriot organizations, Constitutionalists, and Christians as potential terrorists.
We are “assured” that The Posse Comitatus Act, US federal law 18 U.S.C. § 1385, signed on June 18, 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes, in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807, will protect us against the military. Does that make you feel more secure? The Posse Comitatus Act was passed to limit the powers of the federal government in using military personnel to act as domestic law enforcement but, contrary to popular belief, the military can be used when ordered by the president and authorized by Congress to support the police. It can also be used at any time when nuclear material is involved in an emergency, or as support for civilian law enforcement agencies for counterdrug operations, and in emergencies involving chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction.
Seven years ago the US Army War College issued a report calling on the military to be prepared should they need to put down civil unrest. Summarizing the report, investigative journalist Chris Hedges declared, “the military must be prepared, the document warned, for a violent strategic dislocation inside the U.S., which could be provoked by unforeseen economic collapse, purposeful domestic resistance, pervasive public health emergencies or loss of functioning political and legal order.”
At what point will all of the government’s carefully drawn plans for dealing with civil unrest, homegrown terrorism and targeting pre-crime become a unified blueprint for locking down the nation?
Why is the government amassing names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation and what criteria are they using to make those decisions? What’s the rationale behind turning government agencies into military outposts? As of 2008, 73 federal law enforcement agencies employed around 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority. Why are federal agencies stockpiling .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and 320,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? Since when did the Post Office require “assorted small arms ammunition?”
Why is the government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to local police departments? What possible use could DHS have for more than 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles? And why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country and exactly what are they training for?
Why is FEMA stockpiling massive quantities of emergency supplies, biohazard disposal capabilities, 40 yard dumpsters, tent hospitals, and 31 million flu vaccinations, or clothing, tarps, manufactured housing units and beverages? Why does the TSA need $21,000 worth of potassium chlorate, a chemical compound often used in explosives?
A letter sent to Dave Hodges at the Common Sense Show by an anonymous Texas Ranger suggests that the government is preparing to fight ISIS terrorists that cross our southern border. He also mentioned that there are trains moving throughout Texas outfitted with shackles, presumably to transport prisoners of some sort. Perhaps they will be transported to those FEMA camps that the government claims doesn’t exists.
I must admit that I love a good conspiracy and this has the makings for a great one, but alas, on July 15 I think we’ll discover that this is just exactly what the government claims it is – or at lease I hope so. But I do understand all the concern. Military drills can be heart stopping!
The area in which I live has been under attack from the US Air Force for years. love fighter planes, especially when they fly overhead in formation but not so much when they zoom over my home low enough to see their markings and rattle my windows. One day I was on the tractor and I swear, when they flew overhead, they sucked the air right out of my lungs. Another day a thunderous noise forced me into the yard to discover a black unmarked copter hovering slightly over my roof. A neighbor had a worse scare when two flew over her head with armed military personnel hanging out the door. And I will never forget my encounter with an Osprey hovering just above the ground near my home or the late night C130 fly overs. These are things you never get use to.
I have learned over my lifetime to never totally discount a conspiracy as some have proven to be less conspiracy and more truth. Remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
