Ostensibly, and on the surface, they are trained to "help out" with things like natural disasters, floods and hurricanes.
They are "ready" too for chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear hazards.
Slightly below the surface, these Fort Bragg Army engineers are also training — this time in Florida — to assist local authorities in the event of domestic disorder and potential chaos — prepared to quell civil unrest, riots, mass unrest or even the aftermath of terrorist attacks.
Scenarios which could all be really coming to America.
And that's when the potential for martial law kicks in.
ABC11 out of North Carolina reports:
Early Friday morning, more than 300 20th Engineer Brigade soldiers prepped convoys. Over the next five days, they will join more than 400 additional troops in an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise.
[…]
While the soldiers may be called on domestic or foreign disasters, this exercise is about the home front, and how to handle a situation that's overwhelming to local and state officials.
"It's absolutely essential to ensure trained and ready forces," Gilberti said. "I don't believe we're never 'not ready.' You can never be ready enough."
This domestic training, under the Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise, is coinciding with a very unstable period of stock market collapse, economic distress, hard times for many ordinary Americans, and the potential for much more yet to come.
What are they preparing for?
If ABC11's constant references to the Army engineers' work during Hurricane Katrina is any evidence, it could mean systematic violations of American rights and upended cities transformed into military occupations.
While there are plenty of legitimate disaster which the military and National Guard have provided much needed relief, it is beyond eerie how hard they are training for war-like scenarios and worse case scenarios … all depicted and set in the "homeland."
Jade Helm 15 is representative less of a specific military exercise, and more of a new benchmark in the military mindset, with increasing orders to train for urban environments and to intercede in the affairs of ordinary Americans — once so lauded as free.
And never forget: It's not the troops… it's the orders they are given.
We look at why the new China-Russia exercises demonstrate a new level of trust between the countries, as well as China's emergence as a military power.
The naval drills taking place in the Sea of Japan between August 20 and August 28 have been called record-setting by the newspaper People' Daily, the media organ of China's ruling Communist Party.
1. They Are the Longest China-Russia Exercises Yet
Putting together the two phases of the Joint Sea 2015 exercise, the total 19-day event is China's longest series of exercises conducted with a foreign power yet.
The exercises also mark the first time China and Russia have cooperated in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Japan, which show the two militaries' preparedness to defend maritime passages both near and far from the countries' borders.
2. The Exercises Are Huge
Counting both sides, the exercises include 23 surface ships, two submarines, 15 planes, 8 helicopters, 400 naval infantrymen and 30 amphibious landing ships, according to the newspaper.
Chinese forces form half of the infantry and nearly half of the other equipment. The exercises aimed to practice both cooperation in naval defense and landing operations.
3. First Time Chinese Air Force Goes Abroad
To join the exercise, five Chinese fixed-wing aircraft crossed the Russian border in-flight for the first time ever.
According to the newspaper, this demonstrates a high level of trust between the Russian and Chinese armed forces, and also highlights the specific character of landing operations in small-scale wars.
4. First Russian-Chinese Landing Operation Ever
According to People's Daily, the landing operation is typical for drills conducted by large powers, but it does not parallel those of "certain" states focused on capturing islands.
"Unlike certain countries, which from year to year conduct so called 'island capture' exercises where the opposing force is a certain state, the landing scenario of the Chinese-Russian exercises is mostly oriented toward the organization and tactics of military actions in a landing operation," People's Daily wrote.
On Wednesday we witnessed the third largest single day point gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ever. That sounds like great news until you realize that the two largest were in October 2008 – right in the middle of the last financial crisis. This is a perfect example of what I wrote about yesterday. Every time the market crashes, there are huge up days, huge down days and giant waves of market momentum. Even though the Dow was up 619 points on Wednesday, overall we are still down more than 2,000 points from the peak of the market. During the weeks and months to come, we are going to see many more wild market swings, but the overall direction of the market will be down.
Sadly, the mainstream media is still peddling the lie that everything is going to be just fine. So millions upon and millions of Americans are just going to sit there while their investments get wiped out. In the six trading days leading up to Wednesday, Americans lost a staggering 2.1 trillion dollars as stocks plunged, and the truth is that this nightmare is only just beginning.
Early on Wednesday morning, CNN published an article entitled “Why U.S. stocks aren’t headed for a crash“. I had to laugh when I saw that headline. If CNN is going to make this kind of a claim, they better have something very solid to base it on. But instead, these are the five reasons we were given for why the stock market is not going to collapse…
1. “The U.S. economy isn’t on the verge of a recession.”
This is exactly what all of the “experts” told us back in 2007 and 2008 too. In America today, the homeownership rate is at a 48 year low, 46 million Americans go to food banks, and economic growth has slowed to a standstill (and that is if you actually buy the highly manipulated official numbers). The truth, of course, is that things continue to progressively get worse as our long-term economic decline continues to unfold. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “12 Ways The Economy Is Already In Worse Shape Than It Was During The Depths Of The Last Recession“.
2. “China’s effect on U.S. is limited.”
Really? Go to just about any major retail store and start reading labels. You will likely find far more things that were “made in China” than you will American-made products. The global economy is more interconnected than ever before, and the Chinese stock market is the second largest on the entire planet. Of course what is happening in China is going to affect us.
3. “American businesses are doing pretty well (outside of energy).”
Actually, they were doing pretty well for a while, but now things are turning. Many large corporations are reporting declining orders, declining revenues and declining profits. Unsold inventories are beginning to pile up and the pace of layoffs is starting to increase. All of the things that we would expect to see just prior to another recession are happening.
4. “The Federal Reserve sounds cautious.”
This is laughable. Ultimately, it isn’t going to matter much at all whether the Federal Reserve barely raises rates or not. The era of “central bank omnipotence” is at an end. Just look at what is happening over in Europe. All of the quantitative easing that the ECB has been doing has not kept their markets from crashing in recent days. Those that believe that the Federal Reserve can somehow miraculously keep the stock market from crashing this time around are going to end up deeply, deeply disappointed.
5. “Stock prices aren’t crazy high anymore.”
There is some truth to this last point. Instead of stock prices being really, really, really crazy now they are just really, really crazy. But as I have pointed out in many previous articles, the technical indicators are very clearly telling us that U.S. stocks still have a long, long way to go down.
But let’s hope that CNN is actually right – at least in the short-term.
Let’s hope that markets settle down and that things stabilize for at least a few weeks.
In order for that to happen, markets need to become a lot less volatile than they are right now. The rollercoaster ride that we have been on in recent days has been extraordinary…
If you are rooting for a return of the bull market, you should be hoping for nice, boring trading days where the Dow goes up by about 100 points or so. Wild swings like we have seen on Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are very strong indicators that we have entered a bear market.
Firstly, with rates at zero, the Fed has little to no ammo to combat a contraction. Some Central Banks have recently cut rates into negative territory. However, this is politically impossible in the US, particularly with an upcoming Presidential election.
This ultimately leaves QE as the last tool in the Fed’s arsenal to address an economic contraction.
However, at $4.5 trillion, the Fed’s balance sheet is already so monstrous that it has become a systemic risk in of itself. And the Fed knows this too… Janet Yellen, before she became Fed Chair, was worried about how the Fed could safely exit its positions back when its balance sheet was only $1.3 trillion during QE 1 in 2009.
Moreover, it’s not clear that the Fed could launch another QE program at this point. For one thing there is that aforementioned upcoming Presidential election. Another QE program would just be fuel for the fire that is growing public anger with Washington’s meddling in the economy. And this would lead to greater scrutiny of the Fed and its decision making.
Even if the Fed were to launch another QE program in the next 15 months, it’s not clear how much it would accomplish. A psychological shift has hit the markets in which investors’ faith in Central Bank policy is no longer sacrosanct.
In short, as we predicted, Central Banks will indeed be powerless to stop the next Crisis as it spreads. The Fed could potentially go “nuclear” with a massive QE program if the markets fall far enough, but this would only accelerate the pace at which investors lose confidence in Central Banks’ abilities to rein in the carnage.
Smart investors should start preparing now. What happened on Monday was just a taste of what’s coming…
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