Expert Not Ready to Attribute Recent Arson to ELF

Just because it walks and quacks like a duck doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a duck, says one nationally renowned biosecurity expert concerning the recent arson of three luxury homes in a suburb near Seattle.

While the fires have been widely attributed to the Environmental Liberation Front, a radical environmentalist group known commonly as ELF, Dr. Robert Norton, a biosecurity expert and Auburn University poultry science professor, is still reserving judgment.

While some of the evidence recovered from the scene reflects some of signs of ELF, including a bed sheet left behind bearing the group’s initials, Norton still is not yet prepared to pass off the fire as another ELF-related action.

“We need to very cautious about saying this was an ELF-related arson,” he says.

One reason why Norton isn’t yet prepared to accuse ELF is because of the current state of the U.S. housing market which, conceivably, at least, could be a motive for setting fire to unsold structures and then penning the blame on someone else, such as radical environmentalists.

“The housing market has tanked in some parts of the country, and the fact that some high-end houses are sitting dormant and catch on fire is not necessarily because an eco-terrorist group decided to burn them down,” he says, adding that the FBI already has considered this possibility in the course of its investigation.

“The fact remains that people can do things for their own motivations and claim it as an ELF operation,” he says.

It’s also the murky nature of radical groups such as ELF that also make it hard to assign blame following a violent event,” Norton says.

Much like al Qaeda, ELF is based on the concept of leaderless resistance, a strategy in which small groups act independently to challenge established authority.

“It [ELF] is this nebulous organization — more of a philosophy or approach to life,” Norton says.

Leaderless resistance typically involves people acting independently and then attributing it to ELF and other fringe groups. Groups such as ELF encourage this, Norton says.

“They are telling people that if they do things that are oriented toward their beliefs then they should claim that they are part of ELF,” he says.

Nevertheless, Norton still urges caution.
“Yes, it has some of the characteristics of an ELF operation but we can’t confirm it,” he says. “It’s difficult to say until we have more information.”

Whatever the case, Norton says Alabamians can at least take comfort that ELF-related acts of violence are no more common in the Deep South than acts related to similar leaderless resistance groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front.

“It’s a cultural difference,” Norton says. “It doesn’t mean it can’t happen here but that it’s less likely to happen here.”

The suburban homes burned down earlier this week were between 4,200 and 4,750 square feet and some were priced as high as $2 million.

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that the homes were promoted as “green” structures because of several techniques used in their construction including water-pervious sidewalks, super-insulated walls and windows, and products, such as carpet pads, constructed partly from recycled materials.

Arson investigators speculate that a desire to protest this claim may have been the motive behind the burning of these houses. The sign left behind bore the phrases “Built Green? Nope black!” and “McMansions in RCDs r not green,” a reference to rural cluster developments.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at March 6, 2008 10:16 AM