In case you missed it, the ATF and the FBI went before the Senate panel today and basically announced that, after Al Qaeda, environmental groups were on the top of their list of concerns among terror organizations. They mentioned that these "terror" groups had connections to PETA.
No kidding. To the mouth-breathing mass of CNN and Fox News headline readers, liberals and environmentalists are now considered terrorists.
More after the jump.
The full article can be seen on the front page of CNN's site at
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/19/domestic.terrorism/index.html. Note the web address link to domestic terrorism...
Apparently, we now have some of the biggest shots in the FBI and ATF gunning for environmentalists:
Violent animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists now pose one of the most serious terrorism threats to the nation, top federal law enforcement officials say.
Senior officials from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) and Explosives told a Senate panel Wednesday of their growing concern over these groups.
Of particular concern are the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, said animal and environmental rights extremists have claimed credit for more than 1,200 criminal incidents since 1990. The FBI has 150 pending investigations associated with animal rights or eco-terrorist activities, and ATF officials say they have opened 58 investigations in the past six years related to violence attributed to the ELF and ALF.
In the same period violence from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and anti-abortion extremists have declined, Lewis said.
The ELF has been linked to fires set at sport utility vehicle dealerships and construction sites in various states, while the ALF has been blamed for arson and bombings against animal research labs and the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry.
No deaths have been blamed on attacks by those groups so far, but the attacks have increased in frequency and size, said Lewis.
"Plainly, I think we're lucky. Once you set one of these fires they can go way out of control," Lewis said.
ATF Deputy Assistant Director Carson Carroll agreed with Lewis' assessment.
"The most worrisome trend to law enforcement and private industry alike has been the increase in willingness by these movements to resort to the use of incendiary and explosive devices," he said.
The FBI also identified a British-based group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, as a U.S. terror threat. The group targets Britain's Huntingdon Life Sciences Laboratory, which has an American facility in East Millstone, New Jersey.
As if that weren't enough, Republican Senate Environment Committee Chairman James Inhofe compared PETA to funding organizations for Al Qaeda. You heard that right. Environment and animal rights activists = Al Qaeda. According to Inhoffe:
"Just like al Qaeda or any other terrorist movement, ELF and ALF cannot accomplish their goals without money, membership and the media," the Republican senator from Oklahoma said.
Inhofe said there was "a growing network of support for extremists like ELF and ALF," and he singled out People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for giving money to members of both groups.
In case you were wondering whether or not this was an official salvo aimed at taking the culture wars to new extremes of patriotism versus terrorist treason, John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, took special care to note that:
"In the same period violence from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and anti-abortion extremists have declined"
DO THEY STOP AT NOTHING? What we are seeing here is nothing more than fascism--and it's got to be OK to say it at this point.
Many in this country have seen by now the latest Star Wars movie (or at least the trailer), and can now recall the point in Revenge of the Sith where, in the name of Galactic Security, the evil Emperor now declares "every single Jedi an Enemy of the Republic." We are there, people. Environmentalists, animal rights activists, and soon liberals of every stripe will be painted--OFFICIALLY--with the terrorist brush by these pshychotic extremists.
If we don't start calling a spade a spade, and start using the words fascism and totalitarianism; if we do not recognize that their final intent is to label every Progressive Value akin to treason, and that it is taking place OFFICIALLY, not just in the words of Savage and Coulter, we are doomed to suffer the Evil Empire.
I myself am no huge fan of PETA, but this is nothing short of the beginning of the end. We need letters to the editor about this. We need to contact our senators and representatives, state by state.
We need to have a member of congress send a public letter to Mr. Inhofe demanding an apology for these caustic and irresponsible remarks equating a large, peaceful organization to "terrorist" activities by crazed members of small groups that have never caused death or injury.
Because if we don't draw the line here, the line will be pushed even farther until all is lost.
We need to counter this sort of language, and do it now.