American Terrorists

Did you know that America has it's very own home-grown terrorists?

This bunch is not Islamo-fascists. It's called the "Animal Liberation Front", or ALF.

Here's a sampling of their terrorist activities:

Vandalized a business in Pennsylvania (see story HERE). As a so-called "terrorist action" this one was almost a laugher, as Linda's Fashions and Fur Salon hasn't actually sold fur in twenty years.

Nobody has been charged in the attack on Linda's Fashions and Fur Salon in Geistown, a tiny suburb of Johnstown, a former steel town about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh best known for catastrophic floods in 1889, 1936 and 1977. The Animal Liberation Front took credit for the attack on June 14, saying the business was visited about 4:30 a.m. "under cover of night by masked activists," according to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office Web site, which is linked to the ALF's site. The group claimed a cinderblock was thrown through a front door and the letters "ALF" were spray-painted on the building. Geistown police Cpl. Terry McGrath confirmed those details and said he's heard the activists were taking credit for the attack. "I think these people assume they sold furs, which they didn't, as far as I know, for the last 20 years," McGrath said. The business now sells only dresses and other fashion accessories, McGrath said. Store owner Linda Mowry did not return a call to her home. Mark Mowry, who identified himself as a relative, said that she hasn't sold furs in years and simply didn't bother changing the name of the store when she stopped. Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon who serves as spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office in Woodland Hills, Calif., blamed the business for advertising itself as a fur salon, but said he had no firsthand knowledge about what was sold there. "I think they just put themselves in the line of fire" by calling the business a fur salon, Vlasak said. "It would be unlikely that they would call themselves a fur salon if they didn't have anything to do with fur." Vlasak said the activists who targeted the building might have made an "error", but said it was "unlikely someone would risk jail time without doing a little research" about what the business sold. Vlasak explained that the North American Animal Liberation group acts as the media liaison for underground groups like the ALF. Vlasak said the press office has relied solely on an anonymous communique from the ALF about the attack on the store. "I don't know anything firsthand about what goes on at Linda's Fashions and Fur Salon," Vlasak said.

Note that Dr. Vlasak blamed the terroristic activity on the victim. Also note that ALF didn't even bother with the most cursory of recon.

HERE you can find a little more about Dr. Vlasak, and also a bit more about the activities of ALF.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that a bomb was discovered outside the Westside home of Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum, the chief of pediatric ophthalmology at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute. The car bomb failed to explode, despite apparent attempts to detonate it. In 2003, two bombs exploded at biotech firm Chiron's Emeryville office. Agents believed the second bomb was timed to go off when first responders arrived. - - - - - - So far, animal-rights activists have not killed anyone in the United States, but that does not mean Americans should not fear these extremists. In October 2005, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a Southern California trauma surgeon who is a leader of the North American Animal Liberation Front, testified before the U.S. Senate and defended killing researchers in order to stop research using animals. "I don't think you'd have to kill -- assassinate -- too many," Vlasak opined. "I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million or 10 million nonhuman lives." The threats of violence and intimidation work. Last year, UCLA researcher Dario Ringach sent an e-mail to Vlasak in which he proclaimed, "You win" -- he would stop research with animals. Vlasak sent out a triumphant press release.

You can draw your own conclusions about Dr. Vlasak. I call him "terrorist". Fortunately, his friends in the ALF don't appear to be terribly competent terrorists, at least not yet.