Defense experts Monday questioned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to use the State Guard to watch over U.S. Special Forces training near Austin this summer in its “Jade Helm” exercise, which is spurring conspiracy theories about a federal takeover of the state.
The eight-week exercise raised conspiracy theories after the Special Forces shared planning slides about the event that marked the roles of each of the Southwestern states participating. Texas was labeled “hostile,” which prompted protests from some Texas residents who said the training was a veiled federal takeover of Texas.
That prompted Abbott to activate the 2,200-civilian State Guard to make sure “Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed,” he said in a letter activating the volunteers.
The governor’s reaction — not to mention the conspiracy theories — was questioned by defense experts and baffled the Pentagon.
“They really are totally misunderstanding the exercise,” said Steven Bucci, a 26-year U.S. special forces veteran who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense under President George W. Bush.
“I’ve never heard of their politicization in this way — they’ve always been called out to deal with things like guarding facilities in time of war [when National guard troops are deployed, and unable to assist,]” said Robert Goldrich, an expert in military manpower who previously analyzed state guard forces for the Congressional Research Service.
The pushback has baffled the Pentagon.
“We have conducted extensive coordination with state and local officials,” said Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren. “There have been some strange Internet conspiracy theories that have kind of kicked up over the last several weeks … I think that’s what’s fanning some of the frankly wild speculation.”
When asked about the training over the weekend at the South Carolina Republican Party’s annual convention, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a presidential candidate, said his office had “reached out to the Pentagon” about the exercise.
“We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying,” he said.
It’s not the first time Texas State Guard members have monitored exercises. In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, its public affairs office said “the Texas State Guard has been invited by many agencies to observe training exercises on numerous occasions.” For example, it recently traveled to “Disaster City” – a 52-acre facility in College Station, Texas, to learn medical responses for a large-scale event. It also worked on a border security with the Texas Department of Public Safety along the Texas-Mexico border.
But it’s unusual to have the Guard activated to ostensibly protect Texans from U.S. Special Forces — who likely will be comprised of a lot of young Texas men and women enjoying a bit of a homecoming during their exercise.
“This is what we’ve done at Fort Bragg since the 1950s,” Bucci said, who now is the director for foreign and national security studies at the Heritage Foundation. Ironically, when the exercise planners wanted to expand the training and move it west, to terrain that more closely could resemble terrain in the Middle East, they asked for Texas to participate “because Texans are so supportive of the military. So I don’t know who convinced the governor this is a bad thing.”
