America's Most Active Terrorist Group Strikes

Osama? No, ELF.

The FBI suspects ecoterrorists, i.e., the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), in fires that destroyed 12 homes and damaged 29 more in Indian Head, Maryland. (here)

Here's some stats on ELF, from a talk I gave last year at the Pacific Coast Builder's Conference:

• ELFs carried out 75 construction site arsons in 2003
• ELFs attacked 45 pieces of construction equipment in 2oo2
• SUVs are favorite ELF targets. Watch out for Honda Insights with Earth First! bumper stickers parked at night by Hummer dealers.
• ELF claims $100 million in damages in their attacks since 1997.
• An ELF communique: "ELF realizes that the profit motive caused and reinforced by capitalist society is destroying all life on this planet."

ELF is hard to catch because it's not an organization. All you have to do is download instructions for an incindiary device, torch something, mark the site with the letters ELF, and ta-da, you're an ELF eco-terrorist.

These folks have no perspective. They liken any industrialism to Nazism, and see themselves as holy warriors in a jihad for Mother Earth:

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT's North American spokesman, Craig Rosebraugh['s] ... past comments offer proof of the fanatical nature of the organization. ... Mr. Rosebraugh said, "If we are vandals, so were those who destroyed forever the gas chambers of Buchenwald or Auschwitz." (here)

Teachers who have drumed unscientific environmental doomsday hooey into little minds from the day kids enter school are much to blame for these losers; it's time for more factual, less wildly sensationalistic environmental teaching in our schools and universities.