Terrorism is wrong, from either side of environmental fence

By Todd Wilkinson
regional columnist and author

Today you can go on the internet and find a press release from the Animal Liberation Front proclaiming its "accomplishments" for 2001.

The list includes physical damage caused to 10 fur stores, five research laboratories, four meat shops, three McDonald's restaurants, three Dairy Queens, three Burger Kings, three factory farms, two Pizza Huts, one Kentucky Fried Chicken, a hunting shop, a pet store, a wild horse facility, and a circus animal train.

The organization, which claims to have no central office, no mailing address, no membership list, and operates only in clandestine "cells" while exchanging information via "communiques", boasts of breaking approximately 150 windows or doors, damaging 11 vehicles, a yacht and setting four fires.

At the same web site, you can read from the resume of ALF's sister entity, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Since 1997, ELF claims that its cells have carried out dozens of attacks resulting in over $40 million in damage, including the torching of a chalet at the Vail Ski Resort.

"As the ELF structure is non-hierarchical, individuals involved control their own activities," the web site declares. "Individuals who choose to do actions under the banner of ELF are driven only by their personal conscience or decisions taken by their cell while adhering to stated guidelines. Who are the people carrying out these activities? Because involved individuals are anonymous, they could be anyone from any community. Parents, teachers, church volunteers, your neighbor, or even your partner could be involved."

In their guidelines, ALF and ELF assert that property destruction and "economic sabotage" are justified if carried out in "nonviolent" ways to stop environmental degradation and exploitation of all living creatures.

This week, U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis of Colorado will preside over Congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. on the troubling rash of so-called "eco-terrorism" incidents.

Obviously, there are no words strong enough to express how incredibly wrong-headed, socially disgusting and sinister such actions are. Violence, whether directly or indirectly committed against humans, has no justification, even if done in the righteous name of halting violence against nature.

As the Unabomber case attests, people already have gotten hurt.

But if Congressman McInnis is sincere in wishing to investigate the issue of terrorism as it relates to natural resources, he ought to broaden his definition to include reprehensible activities emanating from both the extreme political right as well as the far left.

Not long ago, McInnis wanted mainstream environmental organizations to publicly renounce eco-terrorism. Most groups refused -- not because they don't vehemently condemn terror but because they are insulted by McInnis's insinuation that they are somehow connected to groups like ALF and ELF.

In response, they say McInnis's demand is the equivalent of asking government-bashing politicians, as well as loggers, miners and Wise Use groups to prove they had no connection to the bombings in Oklahoma City by publicly condemning the actions of Timothy McVeigh.

One of the few conservation-oriented witnesses being called to testify before McInnis is Montana resident Gloria Flora, the former Forest Service supervisor who watched several members of her staff on the Toiyabe-Humboldt National Forest tormented by residents of Elko, Nevada.

During the 1990s in Nevada, bombs also were planted near the offices and vehicles of federal employees, in addition to dozens of cases in which public servants wearing their uniforms on behalf of citizens felt their personal safety threatened by goonish land users.

If McInnis is sincere in wanting to confront violence, he ought to condemn such behavior. He ought to ridicule the antics of radio commentators who refer to conservationists as eco-Nazis and members of the "Fourth Reich" and who use a language of thuggery to stir up hate.

He ought to also call forth Montana Gov. Judy Martz and ask for her definition of intimidation. A few weeks ago, Martz attended a logger's rally and after egging on the audience by calling all environmentalists "obstructionists," and dividing her state into two kinds of people, "us" versus "them", she tauntingly implored any conservationist in the room to come forward.

The governor, who has routinely spewed incendiary rhetoric against the federal government and citizens she doesn't agree with, looked into the crowd for any sign of conservationists and mockingly said, it's okay, "No one will hurt you."

Just as it is glaringly wrong for a logger to face the possibility of being permanently maimed by slicing into a tree laden with a spike, so, too, is it equally deplorable for a federal employee or citizen, who challenges a timber sale or wants federal regulations enforced on a livestock grazing allotment, to confront intimidation.

No matter what direction it comes from, terrorism and hate, whether from the left or right, is wrong.

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Todd Wilkinson lives in Bozeman and writes for a number of national magazines. He is also author of Science Under Siege: The Politicians' War on Nature and Truth that chronicles the struggles of conservation-minded government scientists.