Winds of Change.NET: Upping the Ante in Ecoterrorism

May 27, 2003

Upping the Ante in Ecoterrorism

by Celeste Bilby at May 27, 2003 5:13 PM

I wonder how much longer it will take before people start to take whack-job ecoterrorist groups like the ELF and the ALF as a serious threat? People didn't seem to mind so much when the ELF was burning down ski resorts and car dealerships, but now they've upped the ante. The ELF has started targeting peoples' homes.

The radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front is claiming responsibility for fires that destroyed two houses near Ann Arbor in March.

The slogan "ELF, no sprawl" was spray painted on the garage door of a house next to one of those burned March 21 in the Mystic Forest subdivision. On its Web site, the group claims responsibility for the fires, which it says caused $400,000 in damage.

The group also takes responsibility for burning luxury homes being built near Philadelphia late last year. A picture of a burning home is featured on the Web site, along with instructions on how to start fires.

Think you're still safe, because you don't live in a suburb? Think harder.
Continued...

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is also changing their tactics, and other activist groups are watching to see how effective their new methods are.

At 3 a.m. one recent morning, animal rights activists enraged by a company that tests products on animals gathered outside the home of an executive.

They bellowed through bullhorns, made sirens pierce through the night and papered the Los Angeles neighborhood in leaflets denouncing Huntingdon Life Sciences officials as, among other things, "puppy killers."

"We'll be back," the group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, later warned the executive on its Web site. "We know where you live, we know where you work, and we'll make your life hell until you pull out of HLS."

What made the noisy protest unusual was that its target wasn't an executive with Huntingdon Life Sciences: It was a manager of a Los Angeles company that just sells software to Huntingdon.

Whatever your take on this scum - that they're irrational fanatics who will do whatever it takes to force you to submit to their world-view, or that they're spoiled children desperately in need of a vigorous session behind the wood-shed - they represent a real danger to our way of life. We are facing tyranny by a violent and radical minority that insists on attacking and destroying whatever they feel conflicts with their ideology - and that includes a good steak, a new car, a home in the suburbs, a vacation spot, and a solid business.

Update:Eugene Volokh has commentary on 'direct action' by animal rights supporters as well, and he's far less strident than I am.

Printer-friendly Version

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.windsofchange.net/windsopcentre-cms/trackback.cgi/1293

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference
"Upping the Ante in Ecoterrorism"

Comments

#1 from FH at 3:24 am on May 28, 2003

It is only a matter of time before Eco-terrorists start killing people in order to "save animals."

The thing that really scares me is if these ec-freaks start getting together with Islamist terror groups to launch organized attacks on Western countries, specifically the US. They do share many of the same enemies(capitalism, globalism, judeo-christian tradition-they are mostly socialists after all-, and of course, "the system"). The Islamo-facists would be able to teach groups like ELF a lot, so we can only hope that their differences, which are quite big, prevent them from ever cooperating.

#2 from Robert Crawford at 4:16 am on May 28, 2003

FH: Don't clutch that reed too tightly. Differences have a tendency of being ignored by terrorist groups when it's convenient for them. In Netanyahu's book on combating terrorism, he gives the example of Mideast terrorist training camps being used -- simultaneously -- by neo-Nazi, Marxist, and Islamist groups. Granted, they were all being funded by the Soviets, but they were happy to live by "the enemy of my enemy is my friend -- for now".

Though, to be honest, I think the white supremacists are the more likely bridge groups. They can find commonality with ecoterrorists and Islamists.

#3 from Celeste at 4:35 pm on May 29, 2003

There was also, if I recall correctly, IRA collusion with the KGB, and I'll try to hunt down news accounts of it, and I also seem to recall IRA involvement with columbian narco-terrorists.

I think it more likely you'll find a structure closer to that of the relationship Sinn Fein has with the IRA. Groups like PETA, and the Sierra Club act as the political mouth-pieces of these groups. PETA, in particular, has used the funds it receives through charitable donations to directly support the ELF, and animal-rights terrorists. PETA helps ecoterrorists out with their funding, and they in turn publish information on websites with instructions on how to commit terrorist acts. PETA consistently refuses to condemn ecoterrorism. Sounds kind of like the House of Saud.

"Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works."
? Ingrid Newkirk, in the April 8, 2002 issue of US News & World Report

"I will be the last person to condemn ALF."
? Ingrid Newkirk, in the New York Daily News, December 7, 1997

#4 from Joe Katzman at 5:15 pm on May 29, 2003

We've blogged the IRA's connections with FARC here before... just run a search for "IRA" here at Winds of Change.NET, there's lots of stuff.

Re: connections with the KGB and its satellite intelligence services (incl. the Czechs, providers of SEMTEX explosive and arms), the best source is Claire Sterling's "The Terror Network."