Where 'Homeland' came from, and why it was rejected at first:

[The Straight Story]

DoD Helps Hometown USA Confront Terrorism (corrected copy)
(Jan 2000)

Initially, defense officials dubbed the overall program "homeland
defense," then acknowledge this could create a misperception of an
implied military takeover, Berkowsky said. Defense officials recently
changed the program name to "civil support" which "conveys much more of
the role that we legitimately have in this regard," she said.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2000/n01132000_20001...

another snip from early on in the article:

In the event that terrorists strike, DoD is considering ways to best
support civil authorities in the event of terrorist attacks involving
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. "Looking at history, there is
no weapon that has ever been developed that man has failed to use,"
Berkowsky said

Contrary to some critics' view that defense officials and the media
have hyped the threat, she said, DoD and the media share a
responsibility for educating the public, "but we must address it in a
balanced and responsible manner.

"John Q. Public may not be having nightmares about biological
terrorism, but the national command authority must be focused on those
things that are a high risk to a large number of the population," she
said. Berkowsky is the Pentagon's civil support liaison to the National
Security Council and other federal agencies.

In the past year, she noted, U.S. authorities responded to more than
200 threats involving chemical-biological agents such as anthrax that
turned out to be hoaxes. However, there have been credible threats, she
said, and they're not limited to state-sponsored terrorists.

See Also:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=77532&mesg_id=77532

[Peter Frank]

1. I'm the furthest from being anti-Semetic...

...the second time I heard the term was when I discovered the Israeli precedent.