More Thoughts on Jade Helm 15

MySouTex.com reports on a local meeting to explain Jade Helm 15, stating:

The Goliad County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a request by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command to conduct military exercises in the county for month-long period in 2015. 

Thomas Mead, operations planner for the U.S. Army’s Jade Helm realistic military training, spoke to the court during its Dec. 8 meeting ....

“This allows our soldiers to get a better training environment,” Mead said. “You can only do so much in a military environment. You don’t really get a true interaction with the public.” 

Jade Helm is an eight-week joint military and interagency unconventional warfare exercise that will be conducted in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. The exercises will also be conducted in 15 other Texas
locations, including Victoria County.  

“We have Army Green Berets, Navy Seals, Marine Special Operations Command, the 82nd Airborne Division and we also have some of our interagency partners such as the DEA, FBI and the joint personnel recovery agency that will be working with us.” 

... Mead said county residents will see increased aircraft in the area at night .... 

Some participants will be carrying weapons with blank ammunition and some may be wearing civilian attire while driving civilian vehicles.

The Joint Personnel Recovery Agency provides training (SERE) and support for recovery of troops and civilians isolated behind enemy lines or taken prisoner. It also coordinates domestic terrorism response operations and helps the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FBI guard against weapons of mass destruction in the United States. The latter article indicates that the JPRA, at least at the White Bluff facility outside Spokane, also works with the CIA and DEA.

This suggests two things to me. First, this is going to be a serious exercise of some special forces operators pretending to be terrorists sneaking into or around parts of the country, with law enforcement trying to track them down. That the exercise is concentrated along the border with Mexico and main smuggling routes is indicative that our national security apparatus view that as a probable scenario for a WMD to be snuck into the country.

Second, it is also an opportunity for SOF and law enforcement to coordinate in operations against the drug cartels in some of the prime smuggling routes.