Years ago, the diminutive mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, taught me a few lessons that have outlived him and stayed with me since.
A cub reporter, I was somewhat confused when the late, great, Ted Mann asked me whether I understood the difference between a story that sheds light or merely creates heat. And whether I knew the difference between the facts and the truth.
It took a while, but both lessons sunk in, which brings me to the present and the upcoming special operations exercise known as Jade Helm 15, slated to run July 15 to Sept. 15 across a wide swath of the Southwestern United States and parts of Florida.
I was really hoping to avoid writing about Jade Helm 15, which is not exactly new news, but because some people I really like keep bringing it up in all its conspiratorial glory, I feel compelled to wade in and offer my take as a professional observer of the spec ops community.
In a nutshell, and sorry to say but that is a good word for it, the conspiracy goes something like this: Jade Helm is a warm-up for U.S. Special Operations Forces, controlled by the U.N., to take away your guns and drag U.S. citizens off to FEMA camps, presumably through tunnels dug into Walmart stores, which have been mysteriously closing while they are turned into temporary holding pens.
Don’t take my word for it.
I watched a breathless report by Joe Biggs on InfoWars.com as he discussed Jade Helm.
Biggs, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, told his audience, that “this shocking operation is about a brutal martial law takeover of what Socom calls hostile states…. This is a straight-up, in-your-face training to target American citizens who are part of this fast-growing liberty movement. They aren’t playing around, people. They know that Constitutionals will stand up. They see us as a threat to their powerhouse. They know that Texas could break away and become it’s own. That’s why they are coming here.”
The video report is complete with images of U.S. troops rappelling�out of helicopters.
As a veteran who served with the 82nd Airborne, Briggs should know better than I that commandos are already plenty good at rappelling�out of helicopters and dragging folks into the night. Or, as with Osama bin Laden, schwacking them at the scene. So what is Jade Helm 15 all about?
It’s about practicing the other core missions for which commandos are responsible.
Though special operators are in as many as 80 nations on any given day, for the past 14 years, the vast majority have been in Afghanistan and Iraq, performing just some of those core missions — mostly direct action, which is the schwacking and foreign internal defense, which includes training host nation forces to protect themselves.
To get a little more information, I sat down with Army Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, the spokesman for Army Special Operations Command, which is running Jade Helm 15, which the Pentagon calls a “Realistic Military Training” exercise.
You might remember Lastoria from that sometimes contentious public hearing in Bastrop County, Texas, where he answered questions from citizens concerned about martial law.
I first met Lastoria in Afghanistan three years ago when I went to observe Green Berets conduct Village Stability Operations — training Afghan local police to protect their own villages.
That was one of several core missions the commandos were performing on a regular basis. And are still performing in Afghanistan. Though you don’t hear about that much anymore, what with these Daesh fellas running wild in Iraq and Syria, where the recent schwacking of a high-level Daesh leader shows that commandos are still pretty good at such operations.
“Even though we’re committed in the Middle East, we are just taking the time to make sure that we’re trained properly, organized properly and equipped properly for all of our core tasks,” Lastoria told me a few weeks back when we sat down during a break at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference.
So what are the other core tasks?
According to U.S. Special Operations Command, which is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, they include special reconnaissance, countering weapons of mass destruction, counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, security force assistance, hostage rescue and recovery, counterinsurgency, foreign humanitarian assistance, military information support operations, and civil affairs operations.
The latter two missions took place in Afghanistan and Iraq. And commandos are still involved in humanitarian operations and hostage rescue and recovery — last summer’s unsuccessful attempt to rescue American hostages in Syria being the most visible example.
Jade Helm 15, however, is an effort to prepare commandos — mostly Green Berets, but also Navy SEALs, Air Force and Marine commandos as well as conventional forces like the 82nd Airborne Division and interagency partners — for future conflicts using what is known as unconventional warfare tactics and techniques.
Called UW for short, unconventional warfare consists of “operations and activities that are conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area,” according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s doctrine for special operations.
Now, I can see why the overthrow-the-government part of UW would set a few people on edge, especially if they already are losing sleep over Walmart tunnels to FEMA camps, as this recent email I received would indicate.
A Walmart contractor has now revealed the details on the clandestine renovations at Walmart and it is not good! They are definitely going to be Martial Law staging centers for interment camp processing. These bombshell revelations have been received by Dave Hodges at thecommonsenseshow.com…. they are also posted at his site along with numerous photos.
The photos include snapshots of trucks full of shelving being hauled out of a Walmart store in Texas. So there you have it folks.
Because Green Berets and other commandos have been so tied up over the past 14 years, and continue to be in Afghanistan, Iraq (and sometimes Syria and Africa and other hotspots), Lastoria says that for many, their last training for unconventional warfare took place during Robin Sage, “the U.S. military’s premiere unconventional warfare exercise and culmination phase” of the Green Beret’s qualification course.
“Some of these guys haven’t done it in 14 years,” Lastoria said of UW training. “They have to get back to it, because at special operations, we are always looking ahead. We know how to take on Afghanistan and Iraq, but we need to be prepared for all possible deployments.”
Where in the world could that be?
Oh, Ukraine, maybe, where it looks like the Russians are massing for another incursion. Or somewhere in the Pacific, where the recent suspected Chinese hack attack, even if it doesn’t involve the People’s Liberation Army, serves as a reminder of increasing tensions. Then there is Syria, maybe Iran and a few places in Africa.
Now, unconventional warfare raises issues unto itself, but not the ones being espoused by InfoWars, The Common Sense Show and many others.
To me, the really sad thing about Jade Helm 15 phobia is how ready people are to believe that their government is out to get them. But like Ted Mann pointed out to me many years ago, there is a difference between the facts and the truth. And between shedding light and creating heat.
It is a fact that the National Security Agency collecting data, or the FBI flying around scooping up information, raise legitimate concerns about whether the 4th Amendment is under fire. It is a fact that going after reporter’s phone records and sources has a chilling effect on the 1st Amendment. And it is a fact that for many reasons, including what some see as an attack on 2nd Amendment rights, a lot of people don’t really like the current administration.
But those facts do not add up to a truth that includes Green Berets jumping out of helicopters to send Texans to FEMA camps via Walmart tunnels.
And the people pushing that idea are not shedding light.
They are just creating heat.
Isn’t Texas hot enough as it is?
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The Pentagon announced no new deaths in support of the ongoing operations in the U.S. Central Command region,
There have been six U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and two in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.