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06/11/2005:

"Emergency Preparedness against the "Universal Adversary""

Orwellian "Scenarios"

A recent Report of the Homeland Security Council entitled Planning Scenarios describes in minute detail, the Bush administration's preparations in the case of a terrorist attack by an outside enemy called the Universal Adversary (UA).

The Universal Adversary, is identified in the scenarios as an abstract entity used for the purposes of simulation. Yet upon more careful examination, this Universal Adversary is by no means illusory. It includes the following categories of potential "conspirators":

"foreign [Islamic] terrorists" ,

"domestic radical groups", [antiwar and civil rights groups]

"state sponsored adversaries" ["rogue states", "unstable nations"]

"disgruntled employees" [labor and union activists].

According to the Planning Scenarios Report :

"Because the attacks could be caused by foreign terrorists; domestic radical groups; state sponsored adversaries; or in some cases, disgruntled employees, the perpetrator has been named, the Universal Adversary (UA). The focus of the scenarios is on response capabilities and needs, not threat-based prevention activities." (See Planning Scenarios )

The domestic radical groups and labor activists, which visibly constitute a threat to the established political order, are now conveniently lumped together with foreign Islamic terrorists, suggesting that the PATRIOT anti-terror laws together with the Big Brother law enforcement apparatus are eventually intended to be used against potential domestic "adversaries".

While the Universal Adversary is "make-believe", the simulations constitute a dress rehearsal of a real life emergency situation:

"The scenarios have been developed in a way that allows them to be adapted to local conditions throughout the country"

Fifteen Distinct Scenarios

The scenarios cover the entire array of threats:

15 distinct threat scenarios to the Security of America carried out by four categories of enemies: Islamic terrorists, radical groups, rogue adversaries and labor activists.

The scenarios simulate operations carried out by the Universal Adversary (UA). They include inter alia a nuclear detonation (with a small 10-Kiloton improvised nuclear device, anthrax attacks, a biological disease outbreak including a pandemic influenza, not to mention a biological plague outbreak. Various forms of chemical weapons attacks are also envisaged including the use of toxic industrial chemicals, and nerve gas. Radiological attacks through the emission of a radioactive aerosol are also envisaged. (See Text box below)

What is revealing in the "doomsday scripts" is that they bear no resemblance to the weaponry used by clandestine urban "terrorists". In fact, in several cases, they correspond to weapons systems which are part of the US arsenal and which have been used in US sponsored military operations. The description of the nuclear device bears a canny resemblance to America's tactical nuclear weapon ("mini nuke") , which also has a 10-kiloton yield, approximately two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. That Homeland Security should actually envisage a make believe scenario of large scale nuclear attacks by 'domestic radicals' and/or Islamic terrorists borders on the absurd.

With regard to the nerve gas attack scenario, in a cruel irony, it is the same type of nerve gas (as well as mustard gas) used by the US military against civilians in Fallujah.
Full: globalresearch.ca