Home Grown Terrorists

The latest attack came last weekend when a large condominium project under construction in an upscale San Diego neighborhood burned to the ground. A banner stretched across the charred site read: "If you build it - we will burn it. The E.L.F.s are mad." In e-mails to regional newspapers, the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for the conflagration that also damaged nearby homes.

Did that grab your attention? How about this:

SUVs have been vandalized or firebombed in Santa Cruz, Calif., Eugene, Ore., and Erie, Pa. At the US Navy recruiting headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., cars were spray painted with antiwar messages and a truck was set on fire.

The ecoterrorists are growing bold, aggressive, and dangerous. Like their kid brothers and sisters who follow G8 and WTO meetings like Grateful Dead groupies, trashing Starbucks storefronts wherever they go, they've declared war on capitalism. The damage they do to the economy and to private property are most certainly not the equivalent of slamming planes into buildings, it is still not inconsequential.

The greatest assault, though, is on the rule of law; these groups are instilling a sense in growing fringe organizations that the way to protest and change the system is not to vote, enact legislation, or otherwise participate. No, the way to change the system is to bomb it into submission, claim to have been acting out of sincere concern for your fellow man (or the planet, in this case), play the media for the sympathetic fools they are, and cry "censorship" and "oppression" when the cops are called to take you away. By this method does the fringe continue to try to bend the majority of people in the country to their will.

And, just as we've done with terrorists around the world, it's time to take the fight to the home grown ecoterrorists and watch their movement crumble.

Many ecoterrorist targets are predictable. Loggers regularly face sabotage. Here in Colorado, its not terribly uncommon to hear of a ski resort being targeted for building a new lodge in more remote locations. The San Diego attack, though, comes as a bit of a surprise.

"It wasn't a big item on our radar," says Richard Miller, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter. The condos did take up open space and will of course contribute to urban growth and traffic, Mr. Miller says. But on the other hand, the project met environmentalists' goals, providing housing for hundreds of people in a fairly small space and setting aside apartments for poor and middle-income residents."

ELF, at very least, has turned a corner on violence. No longer content to attack more remote locations, they have begun to turn their attention on urban settings. This will not be the last such attack.

"An ELF "communiqué" taking responsibility for last September's firebombing of a US Forest Service research station in Pennsylvania declared: "While innocent life will never be harmed in any action we undertake, where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice, and provide the needed protection for our planet that decades of legal battles, pleading, protest, and economic sabotage have failed ... to achieve."

This should be chilling news to every reader. ELF has set itself up as the final arbiter of what is good and right in commerce and growth, and any deviation from their dictates will be punished. Even to the point of picking "up the gun to implement justice."

States and localities are trying to quash this behavior by passing tougher laws against this form of terrorism. Tougher prison sentences are unlikely to work, though, as catching the terrorists involved is pretty rare. In most situations, the acts are still considered something akin to vandalism--a minor crime not worthy of a huge effort to apprehend the criminals.

What ELF does, though, is not simply vandalism. It is coordinated attacks on strategic targets for a political effect. Quite simply, they want to force citizens to accept changes in behavior and force the government to amend rules governing land use. Vandalism is not so direct nor discriminating as that.

"The ELF realizes the profit motive caused and reinforced by the capitalist society is destroying all life on this planet. The only way, at this point in time, to stop that continued destruction of life is to by any means necessary take the profit motive out of killing."

That quote, from the ELF site, is about as direct as it can be in stating their aims. Aside from that, on their site, you'll also find directions for setting fires with electrical timers and instructions on what to do if questioned by the FBI.

Most of us consider ELF to be filled with loony green wing nuts. That's not how they view themselves. From their name (Earth Liberation Front), which echoes historical terrorist organizations, to the first paragraph of "About the ELF" on their Web site, they make it clear that ELF is a terrorist organization that glories in its own acts.

The Earth Liberation Front is an international underground movement consisting of autonomous groups of people who carry out direct action according to the E.L.F. guidelines. Since 1997, E.L.F. cells have carried out dozens of actions resulting in close to $50 million in damages.

Modeled after the Animal Liberation Front, the E.L.F. is structured in such a way as to to maximize effectiveness. By operating in cells (small groups that consist of one to several people), the security of group members is maintained. Each cell is anonymous not only to the public but also to one another. This decentralized structure helps keep activists out of jail and free to continue conducting actions.

They may be loony, but they aren't stupid, they aren't harmless, and they are becoming more extreme in their acts. It is time for our country to recognize these people as the serious threat that they are. It is time for us to understand that they are "unlawful enemy combatants" and should be treated as such. What they are doing is not constitutionally protected speech, is not lawful in any way, and is directly aimed at destroying the basis of our economy.

It's time to start taking ELF as seriously as it takes itself.

Read the Christian Science Monitor article.
ELF Site.

Posted by zombyboy at August 6, 2003 10:51 AM | TrackBack