by Don Peterson
Timber Harvesting April 2002
On November 7, 2001 two bombs were found on the campus of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan near the University's Forestry Building and a United States Forest Service's Engineering Laboratory. The bombs were defused and no damage was done, except in the sense of affecting the security and safety of residents of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This remote, heavily forested portion of Michigan, which is larger than seven eastern states, has fewer residents than the number of seedlings in a ten-acre aspen clear-cut.
It is suspected that this area was targeted because of the genetic tree research that is going on at these facilities. In the articles that I have read on this incident, it is mentioned numerous times that it is suspected that an "Environmental Group" or "Eco-terrorists" were responsible for placing the bombs.
A friend of mine helped turn the "light bulb" on for me. She asked me "Why are these people being allowed to be separated from other terrorists?" The people responsible for the September 11th hijackings and crashes are not referred to as "Religious terrorists." They are plain and simply terrorists, as are the people who perpetrated the terrorist act in Upper Michigan.
Whether the reason for an attack is religious, political, or because of a disagreement with specific industries, it is an attack on this nation and the way we live our lives. Whether people are killed because they work in a financial center, at the Pentagon or in a university forestry building, they are nonetheless citizens of this country. But, nobody died at the university you say. That is correct to date.
Obviously, the way Americans view terrorism has totally changed since September 11th. Were the atrocities of September 11th the first acts of terrorism by those responsible that day? No, but previous acts were either somewhere else, or of a small enough scale for us not to pay much attention to them. One lesson to be learned from September 11th is; the act or people that just send threats or vandalize today, can escalate or be the same people who change our way of life and/or commit mass murder tomorrow.
When you get the chance, educate the media and others that those who vandalize logging equipment, spike trees, send threats to forestry facilities or companies, and place bombs are "terrorists" (one who uses terror and intimidation to gain one's political objectives) not "environmentalists" (one dedicated to the preservation of the natural environment).