Earth’s Marauding ‘Saviors’

In a week when the federal government executed the worst domestic terrorist in U.S. history, the FBI quietly continues its investigation into what one official calls “one of the nation’s most dangerous terrorist groups.” The Earth Liberation Front is a shadowy band of arrogant environmental vigilantes that has spent several years hopping about the country setting bombs and starting numerous fires, so far with virtual impunity, to destroy targets it deems threatening to the Earth--that is, its Earth.

The homes, the resort, the vehicles, the tree farm, the offices and research library destroyed by the group do not fit into ELF’s Earth equation. So they must be erased. Damage from the attacks amounts to many millions of dollars; no one has been killed--yet.

As usual for eco-terrorist and similar groups that hold patents on virtue, ELF attacks at night. ELF’s “media spokesman,” a position required in modern America in order to claim responsibility for and seek fame from sneak attacks, is Craig Rosebraugh of Portland, Ore., who claims not to be a group member.

Of course, burning down homes and tree farms and offices will accomplish no real purpose except to earn long prison terms someday. Three New York members pleaded guilty to arson charges last winter. But the continuing string of largely unanswered attacks, along with the group’s recent publication of detailed bomb-making advice on its Web site, underlines the chilling and haunting fragility of the peace and social order that we all know is always there--until, as we learned so suddenly in Oklahoma City, it isn’t.

Through its spokesman or crime-scene graffiti, the group professes opposition to development and genetic research, which it says violate Earth’s natural order. Its own secret councils decide what facility to target. And its guerrillas go to work.

“The Earth isn’t dying,” said one statement from our self-appointed protectors. “It’s being killed. And those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

How is this lawless insanity different from, say, the destructive lunacy of the Unabomber? Such thinking and actions are morally reprehensible to everyone in a law-abiding society. This isn’t civil disobedience; it’s nothing more than terrorism. The legislatures of Oregon and Washington are toughening penalties for eco-terrorism.

The FBI, which has appeared disorganized and sloppy if not downright bumbling in recent spy cases and legal efforts, has professed to have been investigating ELF for five years, so far with little apparent success. One suspects that such a durable investigation might really be the product of a low priority that could--that should--be reexamined by the new attorney general and a new, as yet unnamed, FBI director.

The reason for more urgent concern is simple: In a society of laws, extremism in the defense of alleged virtue is an unacceptable vice.