Jason Allardyce reports in The Sunday Times today (15.01.06) that Morrissey[1] has publicly backed violent attacks by extremists against scientists and companies involved in medical research using animals.  He has gone further to single out chefs Jamie Oliver and Clarissa Dickson Wright as enemies of the animal rights movement.  He is reported to have remarked,

“I support the efforts of the Animal Rights Militia in England and I understand why fur farmers and so-called laboratory scientists are repaid with violence – it is because they deal in violence themselves and it is the only language they understand – the same principles apply to war.”

Resorting to violence to achieve one’s aims has a superficial attraction.  The fatal flaw of the idea is that it can be successful only when directed towards persons who for one reason or another cannot defend themselves effectively.  It is not unlikely that sooner or later fanatical animal rights activists will choose inadvertently an adversary who is just as willing to resort to unlawful violence as them.  They shall then reap the whirlwind.