UK Letter Bomber Uses Animal Rights Messages as “Smokescreen”
Oct 14th, 2007 by Will Potter
A man who sent letter bombs in the UK apparently used hype and fear around “eco-terrorism” as a “smokescreen.” When news of the letter bombs first broke back in January, there was a lot of talk about the fact that one of the envelopes had the words “Dr Barry Horne, RIP” (the name of a “notorious animal rights terrorist” who died on a hunger strike, according to the prosecutor) along with a small Animal Liberation Front logo.
Whadda you know, it looks like the crimes turned out to have nothing to do with Barry Horne or the ALF. From the BBC:
During the four-day trial, Cooper told the jury his anger at the country’s authorities had intensified when his father Clive was unable to have DNA samples removed from the police database, even though he had been cleared in 2003 of assault.
“I felt my father had been used and I felt unable to do anything about it,” he said.
Cooper had also earlier told the court the letters he sent containing explosive devices were intended to cause fear rather than harm.
They were sent, he added, to organisations he believed were connected to government control, surveillance and monitoring.
Sounds a lot like the Boston pet shop that burned down, and had “No more exploitation of animals” spray-painted on the storefront. Turns out the owner was trying to use fear of “animal rights extremists” for an insurance scam.
Or, like when a UK fish farm owner blamed animal activists for poisoning fish.
That’s one of the dangers of all this “terrorism” scare-mongering. It’s all about opportunism. Corporations, industry groups and politicians are pushing the T-word to protect their own interests, with a reckless disregard for the civil liberties implications of it all. And individuals and smaller businesses see what’s going on, and they jump on the bandwagon to take advantage of the blame game as well.
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speaking of this sort of thing…
so, i was perusing the Oregonian yesterday during lunch and saw an interesting article. no, i’m serious. stop laughing. it was an interesting article – at least for awhile. it was talking about how all the things in george orwell’s, “1984″ have all come into reality and exist in 2007. it started off to be a very informative and fascinating piece until the end when it suddenly turned into propaganda. here are quotes:
“9-11 was real, as the recent videos by Osama bin Laden confirm now more than six years after he attacked us. However, that fact does not allow playing on our fears and increasing our paranoia about our personal safety. Sen. Joseph McCarthy tried that with Communism in the 1950s. The administration has tried to condition the American people, just as Pavlov did with his dogs.”
and
“Al-Qaida hates Americans of all creeds and races and will do whatever it can to destroy us and our way of life. James Madison warned, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” With the mightiest military and strongest technology on Earth, democracy can stand up to terrorism without becoming the mirror of our enemies.”
wow! so, according to the author, not only was 9/11 absolutely real (cause the tv said so. by the way, answers to unasked questions are FABULOUS), but “al qaida” hates americans and wants to destroy our way of life! who would ever want to destroy our life of SUVs, cheeseburgers and reality television?! blasphemy! oh yes, and one other thing, we have the mightiest military and strongest technology on earth. except for china. but we won’t talk about that. and hey, let our democracy stand up to terrorism so we don’t become “the mirror” of all those useless arabs!
i sat there and sadly laughed to myself. i wonder which governmental agency this guy secretly works for. FBI? CIA? ATF? Al Qaida? who knows. but i figure it’s only a matter of time before they start talking about “eco-terrorism” in the oregonian. but i promise, i’ll never read it again.
- lantz.