Conspiracy theories flourish over military exercise in Texas

Posted 2015-05-08 14:10 by Grunt Report with 0 comments

To U.S. military officials, the upcoming seven-state military exercise known as Jade Helm 15 is a way to sharpen troops’ skills in urban combat and terrorist control.

To skeptics in Texas, however, it’s a veiled attempt by the government to overtake the Lone Star State and impose martial law. The flurry of internet-fueled conspiracy theories have even roped in actor Chuck Norris and the state’s governor.

Announced in March, Jade Helm 15 will span seven states, including Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, and involve U.S. Special Operations forces such as Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces, better known as Green Berets, using public and private lands to train for overseas missions. The eight-week exercise will begin July 15. Similar training exercises have occurred before but none this big, according to the military.

But the prospect of armed federal troops descending onto Texas streets have ignited a host of unsavory theories, from the military’s intention to impose martial law to a plan to return Texas and border states to Mexico. Sites such as InfoWars.com and OathKeepers.org have questioned the military’s motives and helped fuel the speculation.

At a special meeting last week in Bastrop, 30 miles east of Austin where some of the exercises will take place, some residents held up signs reading “No Gestapo in Bastropo” and “Keep America Free” and voiced concerns about the military’s intentions. A U.S. Army Special Operations spokesman in attendance reiterated that there are no plans to impose martial law.

Norris, writing on the conservative website WND, warned Texans to stay vigilant. “The U.S. government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise,'” he wrote. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”

Responding to the concerns, Gov. Greg Abbott last week directed the commander of the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises, so that “Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.”

That order sparked a flurry of angry responses, many from Abbott’s own Republican party. Former Republican state legislator Todd Smith rifled off a letter to Abbott, calling his move “pandering to idiots.” “I am horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my Governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my Governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do,” the letter said. “I’m not sure which is worse.”

Conspiracy theories are no stranger to Texas. From those who allege government involvement in the Dallas assassination of John F. Kennedy to separatists who maintain Texas is still legally an independent republic, Texas has spawned its share of alternative theorists.

But even the wildest theories are often a reflection of current societal fears and anxiety, said Jesse Walker, author of The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory. Recent images of militarized police battling protestors in Ferguson and Baltimore is likely fueling much of the fear among critics of Jade Helm 15, who are wary of military personnel in domestic settings, he said.

“You’re looking at something that’s going on under the surface that’s clearly of deep concern and making people scared,” he said. “You can’t ignore that.”

One of the concerns of skeptics of Jade Helm is the military’s map of the seven states that will be involved in the exercises and how states labeled “hostile” for the exercise tend to be conservative-leaning, such as Texas.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said his office had been “inundated with calls” about Jade Helm and released a statement on Tuesday criticizing the military’s planning of the event.

“The map of the exercise needs to change, the names on the map need to change, and the tone of the exercise needs to be completely revamped so the federal government is not intentionally practicing war against its own states,” he said.

But his Republican colleague, Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Texan and chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, called all the hand-wringing “silly.”

“These are incredibly capable, patriotic Americans and the notion that they’re going to be some sort of private army for the president to take away all our guns is just silly,” he told the Dallas Morning News.