Practicing Martial Law...

Operation Jade Helm 15 is what ‘the bane of liberty’ looks like

by Bob Livingston

Operation Jade Helm 15, a covert multi-agency, seven-state, eight week training exercise coming to the Southwestern U.S. later this summer, is causing anxiety in the liberty community generally and in the center of the operation, Texas, specifically.

An Army spokesman sent to Bastrop County, Texas earlier this week did little to allay the fears of county residents and expressed surprise that Texans would be hesitant to allow thousands of soldiers and tons of military equipment to swarm across their region for two months.

Army Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria told Bastrop residents that the operation was a training exercise, not a military operation to take over Texas and much of the Southwest, that no foreign fighters would be involved, that U.S. troops would not confiscate Texans’ firearms and the Army did not intend to implement martial law.

That prompted one attendee to ask, “When we have a federal government that cannot tell the truth, how do we know that what you’re saying is true?”

Or, as John W. Whitehead wrote for The Rutherford Institute:

Let’s assume, for the moment, that Jade Helm 15 is not a thinly veiled military plot to take over the country lifted straight out of director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, as some fear, but is merely a “routine” exercise for troops, albeit a blatantly intimidating flexing of the military’s muscles.

The problem arises when you start to add Jade Helm onto the list of other troubling developments that have taken place over the past 30 years or more: the expansion of the military industrial complex and its influence in Washington DC, the rampant surveillance, the corporate-funded elections and revolving door between lobbyists and elected officials, the militarized police, the loss of our freedoms, the injustice of the courts, the privatized prisons, the school lockdowns, the roadside strip searches, the military drills on domestic soil, the fusion centers and the simultaneous fusing of every branch of law enforcement (federal, state and local), the stockpiling of ammunition by various government agencies, the active shooter drills that are indistinguishable from actual crises, the economy flirting with near collapse, etc.

Suddenly, the overall picture seems that much more sinister.

Americans, Texans especially, have a load of reasons to question the motives behind military operations on American soil. It was only four years ago that Attorney Criminal Eric Holder threatened to make Texas a no-fly zone if the state legislature passed a bill it was considering that would have booted the Transportation Security Administration out of Texas airports. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, troops barged into homes and confiscated weapons in the interest of “safety.”

Following the bombing at the Boston Marathon, troops locked down the city, ordered people from their homes at gunpoint and set up outposts in people’s homes, all during a search for one man.

During the Bundy Ranch standoff last year, President Barack Obama considered deploying the U.S. military under the approbation of a Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities signed in 2010. The Department of Defense directive provides U.S. commanders with the emergency authority to use military support to quell domestic disturbances where needed to “prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property” and when “necessary to restore government function and public order.” A second condition is when Federal, State or local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have each put out several reports calling conservatives, Ron Paul supporters and Tea party members terrorists. Members of the U.S. military are increasingly being conditioned (i.e., brainwashed) into perceiving Constitutionalists, Tea Party members, 2nd Amendment advocates and members of the liberty movement as terrorists. And the list of groups that are “right-wing” terrorists continues to grow.

The American people fought a revolution over a standing army.

During the Virginia Ratifying Convention, George Mason warned that, “once a standing army is established, in any country, the people lose their liberty.”

And Elbridge Gerry, in a debate in the House of Representatives, said, “What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty…”

Regarding Jade Helm, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is rightly concerned over what the military is up to. He’s ordered Major General Gerald “Jake” Betty, commander of the Texas State Guard, to monitor the exercise and provide him with regular updates.

But that won’t completely alleviate fears that military is practicing for a day soon when they will take over all or significant portions of the country.

Link:
http://personalliberty.com/operation-jade-helm-15-is-what-the-bane-of-liberty-looks-like/