Today I would like to talk about the very controversial animal rights activist group the Animal Liberation Front or ALF. This group has been responsible for a number of acts against meat packing plants, animal production and research facilities. These terrorist cells use a direct action approach to handling any mistreatment they see. They are a known terrorist organization that is destroying people’s lives for animals and here are some facts about them.
A brief history on the ALF from their website begins with the groups beginnings in England in the 1970’s with it being officially named Animal Liberation Front in 1976 after Ronnie Lee originally from the Band of Mercy was released from prison for the first time. “Taking shape in the mid-1990s, the numerous anti-vivisection struggles provoking controversy in England can be seen as a second wave of direct action, following the first wave that began in the 1960s with the actions of hunt saboteur groups. The new struggles often overlap with the ALF, but they are also independent of it. Whereas the ALF is an underground movement pursuing illegal tactics such as property destruction” (Front, Animal Liberation Front History) . The group migrated to the US in the 1980’s where it has taken hold of twenty countries worldwide. This group has been a part of terrorizing the economic stability of a country by any way possible which includes arson and explosives. “Thus, contemporary direct action movements for animal liberation are diverse, powerful, and effective, and they are growing in sophistication and strength. In Britain, animal liberation movements now threaten the viability of the multi-billion dollar vivisection and pharmaceutical industry and therefore pose a serious economic threat.” (Front, Animal Liberation Front History) .
They seem to encourage the US and British Government to try and shut them down just like the US tried so hard to stop Al Qaeda. They state “Whatever actions animal exploitation industries and governments take against the animal liberation movement, they will no more stop it than US soldiers were able to quell North Vietnamese armies or the resistance movement spreading throughout Iraq, or the Israelis can stop the Palestinians in their efforts to achieve their goals.” (Front, Animal Liberation Front History) . The ALF are antagonizing the governments just as Al Qaeda did after September 11, 2001. They also like to boast their so called achievements of effectively being able to cost American tax payers money which in essence could be going to help rebuild the economy. “According to FBI testimony to Congress in Feb 2002, since 1996 the ALF and ELF have committed over 600 "criminal acts" that caused $43 million in damage to animal industries.” (Front, Animal Liberation Front History) .. They are in full support of causing as much destruction and damage as possible to any company having animals for their business. “The Animal Liberation Movement is a loosely-associated collection of cells of people who intentionally violate the law in order to free animals from captivity and the horrors of exploitation. As activists in one cell do not know activists in another cell, their non-hierarchical structure and anonymity prevents legal authorities from breaking up the organization. Animal Liberation activists break into any building or compound - be it a fur farm or university laboratory - in order to release and/or rescue animals. They also destroy property in order to prevent further harm done to animals and to weaken exploitation industries economically” (Front, Animal Liberation Front History) . They have been effective in their philosophy to a point; the FBI instated Operation Backfire to help capture a set of eco-terrorists as the FBI calls them. Since the operation has been set into effect they have been successful in solving “…more than 40 criminal acts ranging from vandalism to arson have been solved. Seventeen individuals have been indicted, and 15 of them pled guilty and were sentenced in 2007 to jail time ranging from 37 months to 188 months” (Investigation, 2008) . After reading the some of the attacks that the FBI reported on their website I was sick to my stomach. On January 3, 2000 “At approximately 1:00 a.m., on January 3, 2000, unknown suspects set three separate fires on the grounds of the Rancho Veal Corporation in Petaluma, California. Subsequent investigation determined that an accelerant, believed to be diesel fuel, was used in the attack. The fires damaged office space, two trucks, and an equipment storage facility, resulting in an estimated $150,000 in damages. On March 16, 2000, the North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office released a communiqué stating that a cell of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a terrorist animal rights movement, claimed responsibility for the fires. A similar act of attempted arson had been claimed by the ALF against the Rancho Veal Corporation in February 1997” (Investigation, Reports and Publications, 2001) . I found this really upsetting because it is close to where I grew up as a child for so many years. I also found that another attack happened on January 15, 2000 at the Petaluma Farms processing plant. It was disturbing to think that an industry that is local company that supports our local economy in a relatively small community was targeted by this terrorist group so close to my home. I buy eggs from Petaluma farms regularly when at my parent’s house and I never imagined a terrorist group trying to destroy such a local business where family friends work for their company and could have had their jobs affected by these absurd actions. Instead of helping animals they are just being trying to cause damage and be reckless to those in any animal business. Their focus is to “save animals from cruel situations” but how is burning a truck saving anything but the satisfaction of the rush of adrenaline they get by committing a crime. They did say that destroying property was to weaken the company economically expect they must not realize that burning some trucks really only is a nescience to the company because it only slows down transportation not production. So really the ALF members that did these acts are just idiots that just want to have fun destroying property. They seem to almost need a reason to do it and they found one through the ALF.
We have seen these sorts of actions before as I explained in past blogs Paul Watson of SSCS fabricates his own reality so he can sleep at night when he commits illegal acts. This group I feel does mostly the same thing by not only committing crimes but they also think they are helping the animals and the world by doing this. They also have five ways that animal liberation helps human rights on their website to try and lure people into their cause. These five ways are “Less abuse and less exploitation of vulnerable human beings, less world hunger and starvation, a healthier population, less destruction of the planet, and fewer dangerous drugs being tested on humans.” (Front, How Animal Liberation Will Benefit Human Rights) . These are explained further with little to no facts backing them up. They seem just to make statements that sound good to an average person that has no knowledge of the topic. One of their claims are “A driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit” (Front, How Animal Liberation Will Benefit Human Rights) this has no references to back up they simply just put this so called fact on their website without supporting it with any data. This tells me that the ALF has zero conception of reality because they slap so called facts up there hoping people will believe them. They may have had their claims be supported in the past but they certainly don’t have them all supported now. This terrorist group has shown that they just allege statements that they think will bring in another person willing to commit illegal acts to support their cause, even if that is destroying property instead of saving animals from murder and abuse. ALF is a terrorist organization that is working in the US and affecting local economies near you and needs to be stopped so someone doesn’t end up losing their life because of their acts.
References
Front, A. L. (n.d.). Animal Liberation Front History. Retrieved may 2011, from Animal Liberation Front: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Premise_History/ALF_History.htm
Front, A. L. (n.d.). How Animal Liberation Will Benefit Human Rights. Retrieved May 2011, from Animal Liberation Front: http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/Health/ALbenefitsHR.htm
Investigation, F. B. (2001). Reports and Publications. Retrieved May 2011, from Federal Bureau of Investigations: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/terrorism-2000-2001/?searchterm=ALF
Investigation, F. B. (2008, November 19). Stories. Retrieved May 2011, from Federal Bureau of Investigation: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/november/backfire_11908
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