May 8, 2015
The Texas counties of Victoria and Goliad, originally scheduled as two of the sites for the massive Jade Helm 15 military war simulation exercises across the Southwest this summer, will no longer host the operations, reported theVictoria (Texas) Advocate. No reason for the cancellations has yet been released.
Covered in depth by The New American, Jade Helm 15 has been the source of increasing concern and speculation among residents of Texas, ever since a map connected with the training operations surfaced that labeled the states of Texas and Utah as "hostile," while more liberal states were tagged as "permissive." Disquieted and unconvinced residents do not trust that the military and federal government are telling them the truth, or that the media is accurately representing their concerns.
The Goliad Advance-Guard noted that the Goliad County exercise was to have been conducted on the famed O’Connor Ranch, property owned by Sheriff T. Michael O’Connor. Various publications have been unable to elicit responses from the Army Special Operation Command, and as of press time, The New American had not received answers from calls to the two sheriffs of Victoria and Goliad Counties.
Mention of "Jade Helm" anywhere in central and south Texas these days will most likely not receive a neutral response. Talk of the controversial military training exercises has been akin to prodding a rattlesnake, polarizing some residents against their county and city governments.
The mainstream media have focused on reporting conspiracy theories, with few interviews of residents in targeted Texas areas — including the small Bastrop County town in which this reporter resides, which will be one of the hosts of Jade Helm. The county will host a large portion of the military events, and sentiment is running high here against the military exercises, as well as against city and county officials for not informing the citizens until after the decision had been made to host the operations. One resident wondered which was more frightening: Jade Helm itself, or a county government so out of touch with its residents that it didn’t realize they would be concerned.
Communities are reporting various accounts of what they’ve been told by the military command personnel. A Victoria resident who closely follows all city council meetings told The New American that there was no mention of the exercise until after it was cancelled. “We never heard anything about it till after the fact," said the resident, "and only then were assured it would only have been out in the county, anyway, and we never would have seen [the military personnel].”
A different report comes from the Bastrop County town of Smithville. One resident remembers the city council meeting at which the plan was announced: “We were told that personnel would be in plain clothes and in uniform, on Main Street, out in the community and would be armed. Since that first meeting, those things have never been acknowledged again, and we don’t feel that our concerns have been acknowledged at all.”
From another, “We’d like Jade Helm to withdraw from our town.” And yet another, “This seems a violation of Posse Comitatus" (a federal law passed in 1878 which forbade the use of the military in domestic law enforcement).
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