In a Sunday editorial, The Washington Times denounced the anti-food-choice Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) as “key links in the web of violent environmental groups — an eco-al-Qaeda.” Noting that ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh called such groups “one of the gravest threats of domestic terrorism,” the paper says these eco-terrorists adhere to “a fanatical ideology and a twisted morality” and run “online training camps” that teach terrorist wannabes how to start fires with electrical timers, among other tricks.
“Astonishingly, few members of ELF or ALF have ever received the justice due their actions,” the Times opines. “Clearly, they should, as such groups have openly declared war on the West. In a shocking statement, ALF press officer Robin Webb declared, ‘Animal liberation is not a campaign… It’s a war. A long, hard, bloody war.'”
Still, some animal rights activists deny the guerillas in their midst. Responding to an anti-animal rights terror op-ed that appeared in The Oregonian last week, one self-described PETA member asks, “When did plain, old-fashioned harassment” — which she favors — “become ‘personal terrorism’?”
