Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts lately. I had to back away from the site because I’m trying to get another project rolling–cross your fingers on that one, and hopefully I’ll have exciting news to announce in coming months.

Fortunately for GreenIsTheNewRed.com, though, the “War on Terrorism” is a bit like a case of herpes: it never really goes away. I can step away from the site for a few days and come back to festering sores like this one, from Fox News:

For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism.

The torching of luxury homes in the swank Seattle suburb of Woodinville earlier this month served as a reminder that the decades-long war with militant environmentalists on American soil has not ended.

“It remains what we would probably consider the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, because they have successfully continued to conduct different types of attacks in and around the country,” said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko.

Way down in paragraph seven we learn that, “So far, no one has been killed.” (Minor, inconvenient detail, huh?)

From the statements of the FBI and government officials, it looks like they have two reasons for this never-ending war on “eco-terrorism.”

The first is that, unlike bank robbers or pedophiles, environmentalists that commit crimes are not motivated by selfish interests. Members of the Earth Liberation Front are motivated by what they see as a higher purpose: stopping destruction of the planet. As a result, “every time a fire breaks out and somebody takes a spray can and writes ‘ELF’ or ‘ALF’ on there, then everybody gets all excited that ‘Oh this movement has started back up,’” said Bob Holland, a retired arson investigator. “The movement never really left.”

The second reason, it seems, is that the underground groups are smarter than the Feds. According to federal investigators, the only reason the government was able to round up and charge environmentalists with serious property crimes, as part of “Operation Backfire,” is because some of the defendants cooperated with the government. The lead arsonist, Jacob Ferguson, agreed to wear a wire and entrap his friends in exchange for a reduced sentence (yet to be determined, but it looks like nothing), and many of the defendants agreed to cooperate soon after their arrest. It’s chilling to think that the biggest roundup of so-called “eco-terrorists” in history, a roundup trumpeted in press conferences and sound bites, was only made possible by pressuring defendants to turn against each other. Holland said: “In Operation Backfire, we saw a sophistication that we’ve never seen in any type of a radical organization, and frankly, if somebody hadn’t turned, we wouldn’t have enjoyed the success we’ve had with that.”

In light of that, I really loved this “Artifacts From the Future” artwork by Paul Davidson in the latest issue of Wired. (Click the image for a much larger view). It’s an updated version of Risk (sponsored by CNN) for 2027. Global warming has put much of the world under water. But if you look closely under the “nationless combatants” section, it includes the “eco-liberation front.” I don’t know what’s more depressing, the fact that the war on eco-terrorism may still be going on, post-environmental collapse, or that the “sentient robot legion” receives more armies per turn.

It reminded me of that annoying children’s song, which I took the liberty of upgrading to fit this political climate:

“This is the war that never ends,
It just goes on and on my friend
Some people started fighting it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue fighting it forever just because—

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Tags: Funny, Media