Today, I read that the U.S. Military (all branches) plans on conducting a massive drill of their special operations forces in the southwestern USA called, “Operation Jade Helm”, including my home state of Utah. Sadly, I had to learn this fun fact from an article in the British Daily Mail news. Soldiers armed with blank rounds will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado for 8 weeks
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3013900/Fears-martial-law-special-ops-set-swarm-Southwest-operate-undetected-civilians-ve-deemed-HOSTILE-massive-military-exercise.html#ixzz3Vhd6ZEVx
What alarmed me was that in the exercise, various states have been designated as “Friends, Foes, and Unsure” Here is the map of the exercise and designations:
As a veteran, I am fully supportive of anything we do to sharpen the troops and make them more effective in combat and urban warfare; but I do have a few tongue-in-cheek observations:
It is no surprise to me that Utah, Texas, and part of southern California have been designated as ‘Hostiles’. We have always had bad feelings and sometimes open rebellion toward government land grabs and social control. We are the last reserve of rugged individualists in America, and we seldom take crap from anyone. We particularly despise the IRS, the Bureau of Land Management, and Democrats in general.
While the Texans were suckered into joining the Union early, Utah got pissed off and took on the US Army back in the days of the ‘Old West’. California was largely settled by immigrants from Utah who kicked out the Mexicans, and later evolved into fun-loving surfers. The state is now action central for the Mexican ‘Reconquesta’ movement, who want the place back. Northern California (colored blue in the map) is considered ‘Friendly’ in the exercise, probably due to all of the passivist gay people that live there, and the outstanding vineyards and wineries all over the place. And, I think Nevada is ‘Blue’ because of the legal whore houses everywhere and of course, Las Vegas. Colorado is ‘Blue’ because all of the inhabitants (except cadets at the Air Force Academy) have turned into pot-smoking hippies. Arizona and New Mexico are special cases because they are largely owned by Native Americans who are still licking their wounds from the conquest of the West by white men, and are living on running the concessions at the Grand Canyon or the Lost Dutchman goldmine.
So, this all make a kind of weird sense to me. The only problem is that this massive exercise has not been publicized in any newspapers in the region. It starts in July, and runs for eight weeks.
It could be a disaster if we don’t know about it before hand, and unload our guns.
This how i feel…
You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!
My, my, Raymond; I had no idea I was responsible for everything. Don’t let my wife find out! And, as you are living in Vermont, and enjoying your freedom here, you should learn that in a democracy, our revolutions take place in the voting booth. The cold, hard truth is that people all over the World usually get the kind of government they deserve. If you want to change America, run for a government office and do it; don’t shout out useless slogans.
What government? Corporations own this country now.I could never be a politician, those bastards are crooked as hell. I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system are nothing more than bureaucratic douchebags;) that furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites.
Along with the absolute total corruption of our political agencies by big business. Revolution wouldn’t work in this country, it would create a lot factions that would destroy America. I believe America is still an experiment in we should keep trying with very little bloodshed.:)
Well, Raymond,
I don’t know if you are a citizen or not, but I need to educate you a bit. First of all, very few politicians in the USA are ‘Crooked’. Most are honestly trying to perform on the promises they made that got them elected. It is true that they have to raise a lot of money to get elected, and a lot of that comes from corporate America. When in office, they are bombarded by requests and demands from special interest groups and contributors to their election, and they have to balance helping those who got them elected and their promises to ordinary citizens. This is where the ‘rubber meets the road’, and it is a tough proposition. We depend on a free press to investigate and expose those that use their political power unwisely or fraudulently. In the age of the Internet, thousands put their every move under the microscope, and this is a good thing.
Big and small business is what funds the operation of government. Individual income taxes contribute little. Most big businesses are responsible to their shareholders, and little businesses to their customers and employees. This entire chain of commerce is scrutinized by nearly everyone from government regulators and the Justice departments of the states in which they operate to the Feds. No other system of government on the entire planet is examined in such detail.
Government is always evolving, hopefully, for the better. The best thing that ordinary citizens can do is to become educated and enlightened. The best thing about America is that free speech is really free. You can curse the government, curse the politicians, and in my case, the bloggers. I don’t care if you rant and rave about my posts, if they make you wiser in the process. And, I am proud to have put my life on the line to defend your right to disagree with me.
Seems to me. most people were never even aware of the previous such exercises. They do these sorts of large scale exercises fairly regularly, but try to avoid civilians – and I don’t mean “not shoot at” but (as much as possible) not even interact with. Everyone they intend to interact with will be military roleplayers, pretending to be either hostile or civilian.
I mean, the first such exercise I heard of was nearly 20 years ago, and the only reason I heard of it was because I tended to hang out with “paranoid wackos”. I’ve heard of a few other exercises since. There were a couple of times – if part of the exercise was taking place in an abandoned neighborhood in a city somewhere – that they would warn people who lived nearby that if they heard something it was just an exercise. Though I do recall one time they didn’t and everyone was calling the cops until they finally did tell everyone it was just an exercise. If you’re close enough they’ll tell you – but not details, they really don’t want any idiots trying to get a good view and putting themselves in danger.
Well, Steven, for me to comment, you have to say something I can comment on. By the way, You live in one of my favorite places in the USA. When I was young I hiked through Mesa Verde, Valley of the Ancients, all over the Colorado Plateau, etc., and hung out on both the Hopi and Navajo Indian reservations. I was once invited to attend a Hopi snake dance ceremony.
Hi, Steve, I hadn’t heard of these exercises being done in the past, and the whole thing struck my funny bone because it sounded so absurd.
I am now really getting a big laugh at the responses to this post which was meant to be funny. At my age you need all of the laughter you can get.
No. I just visited there as a kid. That photo was posted for a “Where in the world?” competition. If you want to read about a local (to me) attraction, try this:
http://visitfindlay.com/on-common-ground-easter-sand-sculpture/
A very pretty area. I had no idea that Ohio has a wine industry! 🙂
When I was young, I wasn’t really aware of it either (not counting homemade of course). Seem like most of the wineries are on the Lake Erie islands, though I’m sure there must be others. My particular area is too flat – that is, the ground is well-suited to tractors and farm machinery in general so farmers grow corn, soybeans, wheat, etc. Grapes would require hand labor to harvest, not machinery.