The Real Jade Helm Conspiracy Nuts

By Karl Denninger

From the NY Times:

DALLAS — The questions being raised by right-wing bloggers and conservative commentators about a Pentagon training exercise called Jade Helm 15 traverse the outer edges of political paranoia.

It does?

The eight-week exercise starting in July and planned for locations in Texas, New Mexico, California and other Southwestern states, they say, is part of a secret plan to impose martial law, take away people’s guns, arrest political undesirables, launch an Obama-led hostile takeover of red-state Texas, or do some combination thereof.

Is it?  Or is it training for that highly unlikely but possible scenario?

Nobody doubts that the military needs to train in the sort of environment they may need to operate and for any reasonably-foreseeable eventuality.  That's expected and the usual practice, and there is a growing use of our military in urban, suburban and rural areas of the world (not in the United States) that would benefit from such an exercise.

So it seems that this is a rather ordinary thing, and thus the Texas (and some other people's) reaction is one of conspiracy nuts.

Right?

Let's say I take that at purely face value, which I am inclined to, particularly reading the NY Times article given the slant they put on it and the accusations made about Texans.

Now please explain, if this is a training exercise for overseas readiness, as the NY Times has claimed, why is it that the DEA and FBI are involved in any way with this exercise, including in providing interrogation services -- because they allegedly are.

Jade Helm is a challenging eight week exercise. Truly, in the Martin and Howard County area we’re only going to be here for about five-to-five and half weeks. The eight weeks comes in where there is the preparation and planning that happens back in Florida and in the Mississippi area. The exercise is a joint military and inter-agency activity. What this means is that we have units from every military service participating in the exercise with us. And we also have some of our inter-agency partners, such as the FBI and the DEA, and some of the other agencies assisting us and working with us in the exercise.

Neither of those agencies have an overseas operational role and in fact they're both prohibited by law from operating outside the borders of the United States.  Therefore I would like the NY Times to explain to this ordinary guy why the DEA and FBI would be involved in any fashion with such an exercise if the intended operational use of such training is overseas and why the overseas-operable agencies such as the CIA or our FBI and DEA counterparts in other nations where such actions might take place are not invited to participate instead in place of our national LEOs, since integration with them in any such actual deployment would be of value both to our military and those foreign counterparts.

So, what can one take from all this?  Well, the obvious: The military probably is war-gaming the possibility of civil insurrection, and if that was to occur Posse Comitatus (which is current law and prevents the Military from being used for such a purpose inside the US) would likely be repealed by Congress and The President in about 15 minutes.

In other words you're not a "conspiracy nut" if what you believe someone is doing is in fact what they're doing!

So over to you, NY Times, for slandering people that drew a completely-reasonable conclusion from available public information, never mind their perfectly-rational decision that they're going to use the opportunity to gather information through observation as well.  After all that's what an exercise is for, right?  It's all about running through scenarios that are unlikely, but possible, something the military does all the time and is a perfectly-valid part of their remit.

The same holds true for ordinary citizens and State governments.

Read more Karl Denninger at Market-Ticker.org.