Following publicized reports that the Army National Guard was planning a military training exercise on the streets of a rural Iowa town, the commanding officers have called off the mock "invasion." [More]We talked about this yesterday.
An inside source I contacted told me:
David, these are normal exercises for the Guard. The Guard gets deployed more than active duty units nowadays, and a lot of their missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo involve searching for weapons smugglers in urban environments. This is nothing to be alarmed about, and it’s nothing weird.WRSA still isn't buying the official line and give their reasons.
I have to say I respect my source, but then have to wonder how realistic the described exercises really are. I can't see politely looking over homeowner shoulders while they cooperatively open cabinets to be any scenario I'd expect to encounter in actual operations.
"I have to say I respect my source, but then have to wonder how realistic the described exercises really are. I can't see politely looking over homeowner shoulders while they cooperatively open cabinets to be any scenario I'd expect to encounter in actual operations."
ReplyDeleteYou are correct to be suspicious. The scenario the Guard spokesman described does not happen in Iraq or Afghnaistan, and didn't happen in Bosnia. The milblogs and my conversations with the Bosnia veteran do not give credence to the Col. and what he claimed.
There is no polite "looking over someone's shoulder" while they "open their cabinets and cupboards for you" as the homes we raid in Iraq and Afghanistan are the homes of adversaries. The situation is very tense, stressful and hair-trigger.
No, whether the local Guard units realize it or not, this is conditioning for another kind of operation altogether.
Proper training for operations in combat zones require realistic conditions (as realistic as can be made without injuring or killing people) that can only be recreated in mock towns and cities on military installations with people trained to be adversaries and aggressors. The participants must behave the way the folks do in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia for the training to effective. Additionally, the training must be realistic, observed and critiqued to provide any significant benefit.
Twenty years in the military and 3 full training programs taught me that training must match actual conditions and stresses as close as can be achieved to be truly effective. People do not learn unless the training is as realistic as possible - this is extremely important for combat operations.
From a Iowa guardsman:
ReplyDeletehttp://mausers-meds-bikes.blogspot.com/
I've not seen any of these "exercises" in my part of the state, but then my county has quite a few "independent" types in it. Others responded with a typical "what's the big deal?"
Sometimes I wonder about this place. A few more years and the decision will be made for us.
See, I like and respect my friend and really, really want to believe. But I keep coming back to this...
ReplyDeleteWesternrifleshooters put me off as insane conspircy nuts with massive persecution complex. As soon as people start bringing up the Amero, NAU, and all that other wonderful nuttery they have immediatley lost all credibility and sense of sanity in my eyes. It's one thing to be prepared and to be attentive but it's another when you start blurting out lies and baseless assumptions to get some kind of imflammatory emotional appeal. I get very angry as since 2003 I have been a 9/11 debunker. I kinda stopped a few months ago and talk more with the on the fence people than the ones to far gone for any reason to penetrate their skulls. And in that line of debunking you get dragged into the more crazy theories. I cannot stand them becuase any info given to them that contradicts their beliefs is rationalized or ignored. It reminds me of creationists.
ReplyDeleteWesternrifleshooters put me off as insane conspircy nuts with massive persecution complex.
ReplyDeleteand yet you have posted anonymously on an entirely different blog to say so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
I agree with you, David.
ReplyDeleteI want to believe in the better angels of our nature too, but I'm discouraged with what I see and hear. The same guardsmen who helped with sandbags during our flood last summer, were the same ones who blocked people from getting back to their homes after the water receded.
I think our would-be oppressors need to be reminded of Solzhenitsyn's quote: "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?"
It just might stop some of this BS
A government that lies to its people is not a government for the people.
ReplyDeleteRe Anon:
ReplyDeleteWow!
A real live 9/11 conspiracy debunker?
What does that have to do with the confirmed story re Iowa NG's plans to conduct weapons confiscation drills?
Nice ad hominem, though...
Could it be that you are working through the same cognitive dissonance that David and StrandedinIowa mentioned, and have chosen to express the discomfort in a less responsible manner?
Welcome to the jungle, amigo.
If you think you are uncomfortable now, wait until those same or similar NG folks pull this generation's version of the Kent State incident.
We soon will look back on 2008-09 as the last quiet years...
Just remember, the Guard exercise in Iowa, that was just "called off" was to be "realistic training" . . .
ReplyDeleteIf they claim otherwise, they are lying.
why can't we reconstitute the citizen militias, have a nuclear armed air force and navy, and get rid of regular troops. Oh, that's right, then we can't have our Empire. All neocons who think it's cute murdering millions of Persians for no good reason and then are shocked when this kind of thing happens; you all are morons. Yes, I'm AGAINST the troops, corporately. They are the tool of the Leviathan state and all the evil connected with it. If you or someone you know is "serving" the empire tell them to get out and come home. The "war on terror" is a war on you and your family.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
ReplyDeleteAnd a combat brigade is coming home to "help people at home". Wonder if this is called off too, oh wait, they were helping at home after being over there so couldn't be training for going over there. The new camps on military bases are good deeds too, just ask a Fudd/prag.
LtC Hapgood is a liar. But as a man I used to know used to say "once you can fake sincerity, you got it made."
ReplyDeleteI didn't hear him avoid the question of whether he would confiscate weapons from Americans. He told me he would, he just said he hadn't been ordered to do so,.....yet.
This is completely off-topic, but I feel compelled to respond to an earlier comment. Plans for a "North American Community" and a European Union-style currency for this "community" (which some have speculatively referred to as the "Amero") are very real. The European Union evolved out of the European Common Market after WWII. Later it became the "European Community." Finally, it morphed into the European Union of today. The same thing is being planned for America. This is a matter of fact. This is a long-range goal and is obviously not going to happen overnight. It is downright foolhardy to ignore this or dismiss it as a "conspiracy theory."
ReplyDeleteYou can download a pdf copy of the “Merger in the Making” special issue of The New American magazine here:
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/action/upload-portal?func=startdown&id=13
The Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report entitled "Building a North American Community" (sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales) can be found here:
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
Robert A. Pastor, a member of the Task Force, has written a book entitled "Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New" which is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Toward-North-American-Community-Lessons/dp/0881323284/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235330769&sr=1-1
One reviewer noted that this "may be the biggest story of the 21st century, but few press outlets are telling it." And another stated that "Robert Pastor should be hung for treason. He is determined to undermine the sovereignty of the United States of America." I wholeheartedly agree with both of these statements.
Lou Dobbs, who has also been reporting on gun issues that no one else in the mainstream media will touch, has reported extensively on this issue. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3E4s4JTzsY
Semper research.
Fudds/prags/quislings keep chanting "it can't happen here" just like the Germans and the Jews in Germany did. There are plenty of references to what they said after, the few that were left. Read history instead of reliving it.
ReplyDelete