Scott Tibbs
blog post
July 18th, 2005

Back to Archived blog posts.

"Animal Rights" fanatics continue their jihad

Mark Blumberg relays how he was harassed and stalked by "animal rights" extremists who have declared a jihad against him and his lab.

When I was in college, I co-founded the Student Alliance for Responsible Research (with help from several other concerned students) because of unfair and nasty attacks on Indiana University faculty by the extremist Animal Defense League.

While the ADL did not break into labs at IU, they did personally harass professors. Professor George Rebec had his photograph, home address and home phone number published on flyers posted all over campus. (The flyers were made to look like Old West style "Wanted" posters.) Professor Preston Garraghty had his office phone and university e-mail address posted on similar flyers. Both flyers encouraged harassment against the two men because the ADL did not approve of their research.

This was during the 1997-1998 school year, well before Osama bin Laden sent his henchmen into the United States to take down the World Trade Center and brutally slaughter 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Before al-Qaeda escalated the War on Terror, we did not take domestic terrorism as seriously as we should have. We still don't, but 9/11 woke some people up to the need to fight domestic terrorists with the same vigor we fight international terrorists.

I would hope that, in the post 9/11 world, that Indiana University would react much more forcefully against such harassment were it to occur today. September 11 permanently changed the stakes of terrorism, and we cannot afford to treat terrorists with anything less than an unyielding determination to shut them down and put them behind bars.

As to the jihad against Blumberg, It is despicable that Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) would not take terrorism seriously, especially given the criminal harassment perpetrated by the Animal Liberation Front. Can you imagine what would happen if Senator Rick Santorum pooh-poohed harassment and terrorism directed at abortion clinics, and then declared himself a "baby lover"? The Senate should censure Lautenberg for his comments and the voters of New Jersey should fire him from his job.

What is it going to take for this country to realize how dangerous "animal rights" jihadists are? Is the ALF/ELF axis of evil going to have to kill someone before we come down on them with the same vigor directed at Islamic terrorists? Or will it be enough for "animal rights" jihadists to attack and brutally beat a scientist conducting biomedical research, as they did in the United Kingdom?

We can't afford to wait. The ALF/ELF axis of evil must be included in the War on Terror now.