So essentially, from July 15 to September 15 some military personnel are going to take a trip out west and pretend like they are conducting covert operations overseas. Doesn’t sound too exciting — but that’s just the press release. The devil, as they say, is always in the details which is why we took some time to look over the Jade Helm presentation (embedded below) to see if we could discern more about the drills. Here are some highlights we found interesting/humorous.
First, there’s the rather amusing state classification map wherein Texas and Utah are deemed “hostile” and where New Mexico is “leaning hostile.” California is “permissive” (we suppose this means the populace has resigned itself to what was probably, were this real, a unilateral invasion by the US military), but unfortunately, there appears to be an insurgency brewing in San Diego.
Next is the section entitled “Why Texas?” wherein the US Army Special Operations Command first explains how patriotic Texans generally are, then hilariously proceeds to suggest (in as polite a manner as possible) that the Lone Star state
1) resembles the type of desert wasteland soldiers might expect to encounter in a modern overseas conflict,
2) is just underdeveloped enough in many areas to give trainees an idea of what it might be like to be operating undercover in a hostile Middle Eastern country,
3) is home to the type of xenophobia which will make the locals approximately as skeptical of “outsiders” as the inhabitants of an occupied country might be but who are at the same time just gullible enough to be tricked into trusting the “invaders,” and best of all
4) is home to social and economic conditions that any normal American would consider “unfamiliar.” Here are some excerpts:
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The city of Baltimore has been transformed into an “
