I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination. But, when related things occur around the same time frame, it makes one wonder…

Take, for instance, the recent ‘military’ inter-agency training exercises in Miami and Houston. Using blank rounds, Blackhawk helicopters simulated attacks, scaring the bejeebus out of many residents, who thought they really were under attack.

Was that really the military or Homeland Security? I’m inclined toward the latter.

This is another important bit:

In the comment section of The Blaze’s post, I found a link to this article:

Barack Obama To Shut Down Southern Air Defense Systems

Mac Slavo: As the U.S. government continues to expand surveillance and monitoring systems to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars within the borders of the United States, a recent announcement regarding the country’s southern air defense systems is raising eyebrows.

Our southern border is, in part, protected by the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS), which utilizes moored balloons hovering at about 15,000 feet to identify low flying aircraft and missiles that may penetrate the border and cross into U.S. airspace.

The system is utilized by the U.S. Air Force, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for a number of missions including detection of drug smuggling and preservation of the air sovereignty of the continental United States.

According to Exelis Systems Corporation, the company that built and jointly maintains TARS with the U.S. Air Force, the government has ordered a complete shutdown of Aerostat flight operations:

The government also indicated its intent that aerostat flight operations will cease on March 15, 2013, and that the remainder of the fiscal year will be used to deflate aerostats, disposition equipment, and prepare sites for permanent closure. We are currently reviewing all the details of the RfP and evaluating the possible impacts on the program and our workforce. We continue to communicate with the government on this matter, and we will have more information in the coming days and weeks.

An Exelis employee close to the TARS project had this to say about the closure of the sites:

“Not only will this closure mean hundreds of people will be out of jobs, but it also means our borders will not be safe, especially along the remote U.S. Mexico Border like in Texas.

These defense radars detect low flying aircraft infiltrating our borders.

Without these defense radars, low flying aircraft will go undetected.

It will be open season for any drug/gun/slave smugglers, terrorists flying in with nukes, low altitude missiles, or even a full scale low elevation invasion/attack against America.”

With China actively and openly deploying Russian-made low altitude strategic bombers, designing EMP weapons capable of disabling the country’s power grid infrastructure, and establishing economic zones within the United States, it’s difficult to imagine the motivation behind the move to further weaken U.S. air defenses on the southern border.

If September 11, 2001 was any indication of our air defense capabilities, and considering that any ground invasion of the United States would originate on our southern border, then wouldn’t we want as many early warning systems as possible to be actively protecting our country in these specific areas?

The U.S. government has chosen to shutdown this outward facing surveillance system, and has instead turned the surveillance inward, on the American people.

Yeah… that’s the part that bothers me so much…

Strange military exercises in large southern cities… and the government shuts down Southern Air Defense Systems. Hey, maybe they’ll put more drones in the air… but do the two do the same thing? A bit disconcerting, overall.

From KeysNet:

Drug-tracking Fat Albert getting deflated

Fat Albert, the familiar military blimp based on the bayside of Cudjoe Key, is set to come down permanently on March 15 after keeping watch over the Lower Keys since 1980.

Due to federal defense funding cuts, the U.S. Air Force’s Tethered Aerostat Radar System, comprising Cudjoe and eight other sites along the Gulf of Mexico, Mexican border and Puerto Rico, will shut down.

The surveillance program is “capable of detecting low-altitude aircraft at the radar’s maximum range by mitigating curvature of the Earth and terrain-masking limitations,” according to Air Force literature from the Langley, Va.-based Air Combat Command.

The Cudjoe Key aerostat’s primary mission is to support counter-drug operations. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the latter located in Key West, employ the data, among others.

“Its presence has a deterrent value to illicit trafficking here in the area,” U.S. Coast Guard Sector Key West Cmdr. Al Young said on US1Radio on Monday. “It also allows us here at the Coast Guard to maintain real-time visibility of air and surface resources that we may have and on occasion, we have used that information to vector assistance resources to find search objects.”

NAS Key West spokeswoman Trice Denny said the Navy doesn’t use the system to any appreciable extent.

The Coast Guard find it helpful, but the Navy doesn’t use the system. That’s as clear as mud.

Defense spending cuts killed TARS. Will they kill us?