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February 22, 2009
National Guard Scraps Plans to Invade Rural Town
National Guard scraps plans to invade rural town
DES MOINES, Iowa
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."
The Guard had planned a four-day urban military operation in tiny Arcadia, Iowa, population 443, sending troops to take over the town and search door-to-door for a suspected weapons dealer.
The exercise was designed as a mock scenario to give soldiers the skills needed for deployment in an urban environment, and military officials stressed that only households that consented to be part of the drill would be searched.
"It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia," Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company, told Carroll's Daily Times Herald. "We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing.
"We really want to get as much information out there as possible," Kots continued, "because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia."
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood, however, told WND that the operation has now been "scaled back" and no longer involves an "invasion" of Arcadia.
And while Hapgood confirmed the Guard had been inundated with objections from citizens concerned about soldiers patrolling the streets of an American town, he said most came from people out of state and unfamiliar with the operation. Iowans, he explained, typically cooperate with the Guard. The change in plans was based on troop evaluation, he said, not public outcry.
"Higher headquarters leadership," Hapgood told WND, "given the unit's status of training proficiency, made a decision to scale back the exercise."
Kots described the original operation to the Herald as set to begin on Thursday, April 2, with reconnaissance and exploratory patrols. On April 4 convoys were to be deployed from the armory in Carroll to nearby Arcadia, where soldiers would knock on doors, showing a picture of the invented "arms dealer."
"Once credible intelligence has been gathered," said Kots, "portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents' wishes.
"One of the techniques we use in today's political environment is cordon and knock," Kots explained. "We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner's body language and position to protect him."
The planned drill had also included overhead supervision from a Blackhawk helicopter, crowd-control measures and simulated extraction of "injured" people, culminating in capture of the "arms dealer."
"This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit," said Kots. "And it will hopefully improve the public's understanding of military operations."
"There are no active duty bases in Iowa, so there are no urban warfare training areas of any size," Hopgood said. "In order to get that larger neighborhood feel or city feel, we have to be creative and partner with our communities."
Hopgood further told WND that in past cooperative exercises with the community, the people of Iowa have welcomed learning how their sons and daughters operate in action.
Plans for the urban operation training, Hopgood explained, are still set to continue, but will be conducted in a smaller, platoon-by-platoon basis in the near vicinity of the Carroll armory.
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Here is a story from a few months ago regarding an exercise of the same kind in Indianapolis:
Indianapolis To Become "Mock Battlefield"
Circle City to be site of three week long urban warfare training
Indianapolis will become a "mock battlefield" for the next three weeks according to local press, as over two thousand marines will stage a huge urban warfare training exercise in and around the city.
About 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis, reports the Indy Star.
The Marines have been granted permission by state, federal and local authorities to fire weapons, conduct patrols, run vehicle checkpoints, react to ambushes and employ nonlethal weapons after landing helicopters and deploying throughout various parks, stadiums and fairgrounds.
“We don’t want anyone thinking that there’s an invasion happening or that we declared martial law or something like that,” Debbi Fletcher of the Indianapolis/Marion County Emergency Management Agency commented.
“Our aim in Indianapolis is to expose our Marines to realistic scenarios and stresses posed by operating in an actual urban community, thereby increasing their proficiency in built-up areas,” Col. Mark J. Desens, commander of the 26th MEU, said in a statement. “While some of the activity will take place around Camp Atterbury, residents in many areas can expect to see helicopters flying overhead, military vehicles on the roads and Marines patrolling on foot,” Desens said.
~ snipet ~
There have been literally thousands of these kind of operations in the planning and going on for years now. Many designed to use the military on the streets of American cities in direct violation of Posse Comitatus. The Pentagon has a full Command in operation working on these activities, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
We have seen how new provisions will effectively nullify the U.S. constitution, and a recent spate of executive orders, in particular PDD 51, outline preparations for the implementation of open martial law in the event of a declared national emergency.
The Pentagon has "War Plans" drafted in the event of any type of terror attack, which would be coordinated by Northcom in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and would involve martial law and thousands of troops on the streets.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
"Hopgood further told WND that in past cooperative exercises with the community, the people of Iowa have welcomed learning how their sons and daughters operate in action."
Well except for one thing, one huge thing. In the past we did not have a man named Barack Hussein Obama in the White House and his fellow travelers communists and thugs in his administration. It is very different today than four years ago. Today, the stimulus bill has opened up Pandora’s box. Four years ago, we had a moral President, now we how a Nietzsche specialist in the WH.
Whoever commissioned this can develop some baselines for his study, which is the genuine point of this drill.
Let's say forinstance the questions as, "The percentage of homeowners who will comply with a voluntary search of their home for firearms."
This is a crucial bit of information, for those who would disarm us. IMO
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:44 AM
Comments
Aww Gee Whiz. Again, I am sick to death of liberal weenie pies. This is an exercise for the military and the tiny towns love to be included. We need to be ready to go at a moments notice and be prepared. The military never injures anything and they really enjoy the camaraderie with the people. My brother did a couple of those when he was in the Marines and played a gunshot victim so that the Hollywood makeup artists could get ready to do the movie Platoon. No one objected to famous people being in town. But that was a different time. Everyone needs to calm down and let the military practice. We have disaster drills here once or twice a year in case of biological attacks since we live so close to Offutt AFB. I think it's a good thing.
Posted by: Lynn at February 22, 2009 07:07 AM
This is scary. Since when do National Guardsmen go after "suspected weapons dealers"? Wouldn't the BATF or local authorities be the ones looking for a suspected weapons dealer? Why would there be injured people in looking for a suspected weapons dealer?
I was a member of an Exercise Evaluation Teem where we planned and executed different scenarios concerning disasters with the local and base communities. Such scenarios would be aircraft crashes, release of chemical or biological agents, and terrorist attacks.
Posted by: BobF at February 22, 2009 09:00 AM
No shiite for they watched my movie DR. STRANGELOVE! It's all about bodily fluids and cool crisp pure water...
- USAF Colonel Jack D. Ripper
Posted by: drstrangeloveb52isok at February 22, 2009 09:04 AM
We did operations with civilians a lot in Special Forces. It is good training, the kind you just can't do in a classroom. The civilians liked it and some of them became very adept at the roles they played.
I agree that anything like this raises a red flag because of Obama. However, the military needs this type of training because this is exactly what it is doing in the guerilla war in the MidEast. In guerilla warfare going after an arms dealer is a very real scenario.
This operation was planned months before Obama came into office. Also, the National Guard is being deployed into combat just like the regulars. So it needs to train just like regulars.
If the shit hit the fan and America had another revolution, I could see these NG units fighting the government. In the same scenario I could see these civilians with useful military knowledge of fighting the government.
Posted by: TomR at February 22, 2009 12:41 PM
The Ubangi is setting us up for another civil war where he pretends to be Lincoln and usurp states rights, we've had a few generations trained in urban and guerilla warfare and although old we still have the skills and most of us are armed. I can support the urban training and have participated in the past but this is an entire new regime. Like you said Chrissie, we had a moral president, now we have a Megalomaniac like Hugo Chavez.
Posted by: Jack at February 22, 2009 12:54 PM
This is going to divided the country for sure and the Military. How many troops will be willing to go into a town and confiscate private citizen's guns.
Maybe reading too much into this at this point but down the road it could be a likely scenario.
What will be the ROE's if a citizen resists giving up his gun will he be shot, pistol whipped or thrown outside and beaten in front of his family.
We know where this, obama, is headed. What can we do about it ? This administration is moving at such a fast pace this could happen tomorrow for all we know. But first obama has to get the confidence of the Military, and that he hasn't got. Or is the Military going to train the 'Civilana Security Force' to take the guns instead ?
After they take the guns, and free speech cancelling the next election can't be far behind.
Posted by: Mark at February 22, 2009 01:34 PM
Lynn, Oh good, thank you so much for sharing about that. I had never heard of it before.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:19 PM
BobF, see what Lynn said, apparently they have done this for awhile now. It helps our troops.
I jsut don't like it being done with Obama at the helm, he scares me a lot in what he will or could do.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:21 PM
drstrangeloveb52isok, LOL so funny.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:24 PM
Tom, thank you so much for explaining and sharing about this.
I had no idea, I never heard of it before. I am so glad it helps out troops, that is the most important thing for me to know.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:27 PM
Jack, that was my only concern about this.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:30 PM
Mark, thatis a good point too. For many or most I would think they would say no to oders if that happened like you said. But who knows and with Obama now as their CIC and also his love for the UN too and his loathing for our Constiution....just so many things that add in to the equation. It may never happen and I pray to God it never does.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 22, 2009 05:34 PM
