OldDog/NewTricks
Well-known member
An affront to democracy
July 4, 2005
The Ottawa Citizen
A10
It is unfortunate, if understandable, that Canaccord Capital Inc. has, according to this editorial, resigned its role as broker to a British biotech company in response to a terrorist attack by the London-based Animal Liberation Front.
The editorial explains that Canaccord executive Mike Kendall had his car fire-bombed by the front in May, because of links between the biotech company, Phytopharm ,and another company, Huntington Life Sciences, which conducts research on live animals. In resigning the account, Canada's largest independent brokerage says its first priority "is always the safety and protection of its partners and professionals."
That, perhaps, is as it should be. But as any law enforcement agency will attest, giving in to terrorists only emboldens them, leading to further acts of sabotage and violence. So what's a private firm like Canaccord to do?
A better question is, what's the British government and its security forces doing to stop "eco-terrorism" (of which animal rights terrorism can be viewed a subset) and maintain a safe business environment?
The editorial says that the answer, clearly, is not enough, given that the Animal Liberation Front proudly lays claim to hundreds of "liberation actions," and has been linked to everything from vandalizing homes to attacking executives with baseball bats.
One has to wonder if MI5 wouldn't be taking these incidents more seriously if the perpetrators were political extremists, rather than animal rights activists -- if, in other words, it was the IRA instead of the ALF terrorizing innocent victims. Indeed, authorities everywhere have tended to treat eco-terrorism, if not exactly with kid gloves, at least more leniently than terrorism aimed at the state itself.
It's perhaps not surprising, since people who fire-bomb cars in the name of eco-terrorism are perceived as less dangerous than those who fire-bomb cars in the name of regime change or political autonomy.
Yet in many ways the former group is the more contemptible: adventurers and hobbyists who pick easy targets, put themselves to little hardship or danger, and clothe themselves in moral indignation and the expectation that, if caught, they'll be dealt with as misguided idealists rather than terrorists.
Consider the case of American Ryan Lewis, awaiting trial under arson and conspiracy charges for his alleged role in fire-bombing Sacramento building sites in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a sister organization of the ALF. Despite a preponderance of evidence that Lewis was acting as part of an organized cell implicated in a series of ideologically motivated arsons, his family insists he's just a kid with a conscience.
"In the '60s, events such as those that Ryan is being accused of would have been considered 'protesting,' but now it is being labelled 'terrorism,'" his aunt wrote in a letter to the editor of a U.S. newspaper.
Well, yes, it is terrorism. The United States is increasingly coming to terms with this reality. Britain would do well to follow suit.
July 4, 2005
The Ottawa Citizen
A10
It is unfortunate, if understandable, that Canaccord Capital Inc. has, according to this editorial, resigned its role as broker to a British biotech company in response to a terrorist attack by the London-based Animal Liberation Front.
The editorial explains that Canaccord executive Mike Kendall had his car fire-bombed by the front in May, because of links between the biotech company, Phytopharm ,and another company, Huntington Life Sciences, which conducts research on live animals. In resigning the account, Canada's largest independent brokerage says its first priority "is always the safety and protection of its partners and professionals."
That, perhaps, is as it should be. But as any law enforcement agency will attest, giving in to terrorists only emboldens them, leading to further acts of sabotage and violence. So what's a private firm like Canaccord to do?
A better question is, what's the British government and its security forces doing to stop "eco-terrorism" (of which animal rights terrorism can be viewed a subset) and maintain a safe business environment?
The editorial says that the answer, clearly, is not enough, given that the Animal Liberation Front proudly lays claim to hundreds of "liberation actions," and has been linked to everything from vandalizing homes to attacking executives with baseball bats.
One has to wonder if MI5 wouldn't be taking these incidents more seriously if the perpetrators were political extremists, rather than animal rights activists -- if, in other words, it was the IRA instead of the ALF terrorizing innocent victims. Indeed, authorities everywhere have tended to treat eco-terrorism, if not exactly with kid gloves, at least more leniently than terrorism aimed at the state itself.
It's perhaps not surprising, since people who fire-bomb cars in the name of eco-terrorism are perceived as less dangerous than those who fire-bomb cars in the name of regime change or political autonomy.
Yet in many ways the former group is the more contemptible: adventurers and hobbyists who pick easy targets, put themselves to little hardship or danger, and clothe themselves in moral indignation and the expectation that, if caught, they'll be dealt with as misguided idealists rather than terrorists.
Consider the case of American Ryan Lewis, awaiting trial under arson and conspiracy charges for his alleged role in fire-bombing Sacramento building sites in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a sister organization of the ALF. Despite a preponderance of evidence that Lewis was acting as part of an organized cell implicated in a series of ideologically motivated arsons, his family insists he's just a kid with a conscience.
"In the '60s, events such as those that Ryan is being accused of would have been considered 'protesting,' but now it is being labelled 'terrorism,'" his aunt wrote in a letter to the editor of a U.S. newspaper.
Well, yes, it is terrorism. The United States is increasingly coming to terms with this reality. Britain would do well to follow suit.