Jade Helm no concern for Texans

Local columnist

link Rube Render

I have never been a conspiracy theorist and have actually spent the last six years trying to convince otherwise sane human beings that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Just about the time I think I may have convinced them of this fact, a copy of a bio from Obama’s literary agent surfaces that begins, “Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Miriam Goderich, the literary agent responsible for this error, readily admits to compiling the bio in question and then dismisses it as “nothing more than a fact checking error by me.”

This validates the principle that all conspiracy theories begin with a grain of truth.

This leads me to the current conspiracy that has the citizens of the Southwest U.S. spun up. In case you haven’t heard about it, it’s called Jade Helm 15 and is a multi-state exercise involving U.S. Special Operations Forces.

The exercise will take place from July to September across seven states and includes New Mexico as well as 17 cities in Texas. The slide presentation shows Cannon Air Force Base as an AOB, which is Aviation Operations Branch.

The conspiracy comes in when you learn that Texas is classified as “simulated hostile,” and this prompted concern from some Lone Star residents that the feds planned to take over Texas.

Officials claim the goal of Jade Helm is to “see if groups of Special Forces can move around a civilian population without being noticed and can handle different threat scenarios.” These same officials tell us the public will notice nothing out of the ordinary, since most of the activities will be conducted in remote areas.

What local residents and communities can expect is “an increase in vehicle and military air traffic and its associated noise” as well as “an increase in the local economy in fuel and food purchases and hotel lodging.”

To assist the Army in this exercise and to save it some time and money, I offer the following thoughts.

If American special operations soldiers have difficulty “moving around a civilian population without being noticed” in New Mexico and Texas, they shouldn’t be special ops soldiers. The only “different threat scenarios” they should expect to encounter would be in beer joints.

My limited military experience in remote areas does not include fond memories of food, fuel and hotel accommodations.

That didn’t take two months and the Texans have all eased the hammers down on their Winchesters.

Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at:

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