Okay, perspective time.
I've done a little bit of research into this whole thing and this is what i've come up with so far. Bear with me, this might be a bit lengthy, but i like what i've found.
The military operations in the spring of 2012 was the first i had heard of such a thing, but these weren't the first. I found AT LEAST three previous instances of these kinds of military operations occurring in, around or above civilian towns and cities:
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World Net Daily (February) - Kingsville, Texas
Some residents said they were terrified when helicopters swooped into town from the Army Special Operations Command, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, last Monday night.
[...]
At least eight helicopters are reported to have participated in an assault exercise using live ammunition and explosives very close to innocent bystanders who were not warned of the planned action.
[...]
The Army Special Operations Command at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, has acknowledged that the event was the kick-off of a series of similar training operations going on in Kingsville, Corpus Christi and Fort Sam Houston, but would not confirm that the group was the Knight Stalkers. Additional training events have been confirmed in the area.
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The Anniston Star (March 14) - Oxford, Alabama
Friday evening the Williams family sat down in their Oxford living room and popped a movie into the VCR. Then the power went off — a total blackout in all the neighborhoods surrounding the Anniston Municipal Airport in Oxford — and what sounded like a war began outside.
[...]
Residents near the airport heard what sounded like machine gun fire, saw the fiery-red flash of explosions, and saw silhouettes of what looked like paratroopers dropping out of the darkened skies.
[...]
The “invasion” was part of a special training operation conducted in Anniston, at Fort McClellan and at the airport in Oxford from Tuesday until the wee hours of Saturday morning.
[...]
She said the Army does exercises like this “to give the rangers, Air Force special operations and the 160th opportunities to experience training in new and different environments. It adds to the realism of the exercise as real-world missions are in environments unfamiliar to our soldiers.”
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Richmond, Virginia TIMES-DISPATCH (May 3)
A planned Marine Corps training exercise in Richmond has some Virginians worried about secretive encroachments on civil liberties, accident hazards, and misguided use of the American military. The urban maneuvers, these worried citizens say, may mask preparations for a Year 2000 computer meltdown so great that governments are afraid to discuss it, or plans to confiscate firearms, or the groundwork for a presidential power grab.
[...]
The Marines and governments that have worked with the service on other exercises say the Marines are just getting ready to deal with crises that take them into increasingly dangerous urban areas overseas. . . .
[...]
The bottom line, the Marines' White said, "is we're doing this training to save lives, the lives of our Marines. "The allegation that we're doing anything other than that couldn't be farther from the truth."
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But there is one catch -
all of the above stories occurred in 1999!!!
I was wrong. There IS a history of these kinds of military operations occurring in, around and above civilian towns and cities.
References:
World Net Daily, February 1999:
Original source URL:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19990215_xex_fear_and_loa.shtml (Expired)
Current Archive:
http://tinyurl.com/a3c27oh (LISTSERV Archives) (
http://home.ease.lsoft.com)
The Anniston (Alabama) Star, March 14, 1999:
Original source URL:
http://www.annistonstar.com/news/news_19990314_3434.html (Expired)
Current Archive:
http://tinyurl.com/avat48f (archive.org)
Richmond, Virginia TIMES-DISPATCH, May 3, 1999:
Original source:
http://gatewayva.com/rtd/dailynews/virginiaarch/milit03.shtml (Expired)
Current location:
http://www.entrewave.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/4598
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And of course, just like today, there was the same old, tired, over-hyped, alarmist rhetoric coming from the usual crowd:
(This banner is from infowars, year 2000)
THE TRUTH ABOUT BLACK HELICOPTERS
InfoWars.com - May 1999:
We are being conditioned, like Pavlov's dog, readied for what is coming, Martial Law. Whether a result of Y2K, domestic terrorism, financial crisis or some other contrived emergency, we shall think nothing of it when troops in black helicopters, wearing Nazi style uniforms, rappel into our streets and begin moving door to door. The signs are all there for us to read: Oklahoma City- like Hitler burning the Reichstag, the massacre at Waco, the drug war that has been used to usurp more and more of our civil liberties, mock gun conviscations, troops training in our streets and many others. The signs are there. Are we too concerned with our petty little lives, our stocks, our jobs, to care. Shall we just go about our daily lives, blind to what is happening around us?
Original source URL:
http://www.infowars.com/journalism.html (Expired)
Archive URL:
http://tinyurl.com/bzwowyl (archive.org)
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Screen shots from InfoWars - October 2000:
Photo references:
http://tinyurl.com/d8d9qdp (archive.org)
http://tinyurl.com/bhds4x2 (archive.org)