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 These and similar tales have gained currency in recent months
among a small but powerful group of anti-government Texas voters in
the run-up to planned military training drills in the West and
Southwest, including in the Lone Star state.
While such views represent the fringes of American political
opinion, they reflect a broader suspicion of the federal government
that has run deep in Texas for years.
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command exercise, called Jade Helm
15, has brought these fears to a crescendo, particularly in Bastrop.
Some of the exercises, scheduled from July 15 to Sept. 15, will be
held in this city located east of Austin.
At an April town hall meeting in Bastrop, attendees peppered a
military spokesman with pointed questions, including: "Are you
planning on detaining or rounding up any American citizens?"
Rosalie Howerton, a 74-year-old retired nurse from Tyler, Texas,
wrote the governor to say she was worried about the drills.
“I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t trust my government," she
said. "I don’t trust Obama. I think he is looking toward calling
martial law to stop the next election from taking place.”
 In an online comment about Jade Helm, Bastrop resident Josh Munyon
wrote: "It's something that the rest of the country should be
worried about. They already have FEMA trains that oddly enough look
like the trains that the Nazis used in ww2."
One particular sticking point has been an Army map that lists Texas
as "hostile" territory.
"Such labeling tends to make people who have grown leery of federal
government overreach become suspicious of whether their big brother
government anticipates certain states may start another civil war or
be overtaken by foreign radical Islamist elements which have been
reported to be just across our border," Louie Gohmert, a Republican
congressman from Texas, said recently in a statement.
The Texas Republican Party platform has long reflected concerns over
federal and international overreach, with calls for a U.S.
withdrawal from the United Nations and the elimination of the
Federal Reserve.
When a U.N. agency named the Alamo, the location of a famed 1836
battle in the fight for Texas Independence, a World Heritage Site
earlier this month, some Texans saw the move as a prelude to an
international takeover.
FRIENDS ON THE FRINGE
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command has categorically denied
there is anything nefarious about the drills, saying they are
training exercises, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc said there was no
truth to the rumors of a tunnel network being built under its
stores.
Jade Helm will be held on public and private land, with the
permission of landowners. The military said Army Special Operations
Forces will train in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado,
with the terrain intended to replicate areas where soldiers find
themselves operating overseas.
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Fears from constituents, however, have drawn a response from
politicians eager not to alienate right-wing voters. In a move a
Dallas Morning News editorial called "cringe-worthy," Governor Greg
Abbott, a Republican, said he would dispatch the Texas State Guard
to monitor Jade Helm to make sure it does not impinge on Texans'
freedom.
Placating such views could pay off for Republicans, who dominate
state politics and often fight their most difficult battles in
primaries where campaigns typically take a hard turn to the right.
A poll from the Texas Tribune and the University of Texas showed
that 39 percent of registered voters and 85 percent of the
right-wing Tea Party group supported Abbott's move on Jade Helm.
"Republican leaders don’t want to do something that antagonizes
these groups to such as extent that they rally around an opponent in
the Republican primary," said Mark Jones, who chairs the Department
of Political Sciences at Rice University in Houston.
"The conspiracy theories tend to get amplified in Texas because we
are a large state, with very active groups."
Despite the predictions of doom, many Bastrop residents are wary but
not overly concerned.
"We support our military, and they have to train somewhere," said
Pam Ferguson, owner of the High Cotton antique store. "It might as
well be here."
And while suspicion of the drills has run rampant among customers of
Crosshairs Texas, the town's only gun store, sales there have not
increased, said owner Troy Michalik.
"I don’t think we are going to wake up next week and find tanks and
roadblocks and martial law," he said. "But at the same time, that
does not mean that we should not be diligent and vigilant and keep
an eye about what is going on."
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Patrick Enright and Lisa
Von Ahn)
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