Rose=Rose, Spade=Spade,

Terrorist=terrorist. The Rocky Mountain News calls it right here: the members of the "Earth Liberation Front" who caused $40 million in property damage in 20 attacks over a six year period are terrorists. No amount of semantic gymnastics can change that. The people being sentenced in Federal court for those crimes are finding out the hard way that their actions are going to send them to prison for a very long time – sentenced as terrorists.

Lawyers for the people who pled guilty and are now being sentenced for a crime spree that included the 1998 Vail Mountain arson naturally argue that their clients are not terrorists, no indeed.

"KEVIN TUBBS IS NOT A TERRORIST," Tubbs' lawyer wrote in melodramatic fashion in a court brief (the capital letters were his). The given reason: Tubbs' violence was motivated by a love for animals and an "overwhelming feeling of despair."

Tubbs, a supporter of the Earth Liberation Front, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Eugene, Ore., to more than 12 years in prison.

Chelsea Gerlach's attorney argued that Gerlach's name didn't belong on a list of terrorists that included Timothy McVeigh, among others. She and William Rodgers, another member of the ELF cell that called itself the Family, carried out the Vail attack, but they didn't intend it to kill or hurt anyone – as if the fact that other terrorists are worse is some kind of excuse.

Gerlach's sentence, handed down Friday, is for nine years. A third defendant, Stanislaus Meyerhoff, received 13 years at his sentencing Wednesday.

The difficulty with these arguments is that the legal definition of the federal crime of terrorism does concern motive, but not in the way these criminals mean. Terrorism is "an offense that is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and is a violation of several different offense categories, among which is arson."

Members of the Family have entered guilty pleas in more than 20 attacks carried out from 1995 to 2001 that caused more than $40 million in property damage in five states. Targets included both private property and facilities belonging to government agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

Note to Tubbs' lawyer: YES HE IS. And he'll have 12 years to get used to that, won't he? It does not matter that nobody died in the attacks, it is literally only a matter of time until someone does if these kinds of actions continue. Maybe, just maybe, some wannabes thinking of following in the footsteps of these thugs will have second thoughts when they realize how long they might go to prison for.