Does Jade Helm Violate Posse Comitatus?

Originally published at WhoWhatWhy.org

June 1, 2015 by Ralph Lopez

Obscured by Jon Stewart’s well-publicized mockery of Texans’ reaction to Jade Helm 15—the US Army’s two-month-long exercise across nine states scheduled to begin in July—is the fact that the criticisms may not all be deranged droolings.

The Daily Show‘s Stewart made headlines earlier in May when he ridiculed Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision ordering the State Guard to “monitor” Jade Helm. The comedian-cum-newsman called Jade Helm critics “Lone Star lunatics.” But are they? Or is there more to the story? As always, WhoWhatWhy has remained agnostic while asking questions. Now, we provide a few initial answers. More will undoubtedly come.

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Jade Helm will be conducted in the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. One other state, Colorado, has dropped off the list, as have at least two counties in Texas, in response to the controversy.

Criticisms of the exercise range from panicked, extreme scenarios, such as imminent martial law and mass arrests, to more nuanced concerns—for example, that military exercises on this scale could desensitize  civilian populations to martial law tactics and governance.

The massive exercise, led by the US Army’s Special Operations Command (USASOC) under Lt. General Charles T. Cleveland, will include unconventional warfare units from all service branches, including US Army Special Forces, US Navy SEALS, US Air Force Special Operations, and USMC Marine Special Operations Command.

According to Jade Helm’s official PowerPoint presentation, other participating units are USMC Marine Expeditionary Units, the Army’s 82nd Airborne, and last but not necessarily least, civilian “Interagency Partners.” The latter refers to a range of domestic law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Department of Homeland Security.

One contingent, Special Operations, is of particular interest. Special operations units are highly trained elites that specialize, among other things, in assassinations and “extractions” of human targets. In a 2013 article titled “5 Takeaways from the US Special Ops Raids in Somalia and Libya,” published by the Washington DC-based defense trade journal DefenseOne.com, an analyst heaped praise upon “small, multi-agency task forces led by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that target individual terrorist and insurgent leaders for death or capture.”

“Infiltrating” Towns and Cities

Jade Helm presenters have stated that troops will “infiltrate” towns and cities, and rove among the civilian population, both in uniform and in civilian clothes. Roy Boyd, chief deputy of the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office, told the Houston Chronicle: “They’re going to set up cells of people and test how well they’re able to move around without getting too noticed in the community… They’re testing their abilities basically [to] blend in with the local environment and not stand out and blow their cover.”

Elaborating further, Thomas Mead, a contractor hired by USASOC, said in a presentation to the Big Spring, Texas, City Council in March that special forces “operators,” as Special Ops soldiers are called, will enlist local roleplayers as informants. Mead told the City Council that operators will be looking for “someone who gives a little nugget of information for them to build an intelligence picture.”

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