Sea Shepherd antics
The mad captain of the Sea Shepherd is complaining that two of his crew have been detained after they forcibly boarded a Japanese whaling ship.
What the hell does he expect? It’s a serious crime and hostile act to board a foreign ship without permission or authority.
And even worse they had allegedly been trying to throw bottles of acid onto the deck, and also trying to entange the screw of the ship using ropes.
I’m no fan of the hypocrisy of the Japanese on the whaling issue, but I’m even less a fan of the Sea Shepherd and its captain.
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January 16th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I hope they leave them hanging off the front of the boat all night. What idiots.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Actually, it is piracy if performed by private persons and an act of war if undertaken by a state.
The penalty for piracy by international convention is death, although it isn’t necessarily enforced.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Yuk.
Hopefully the other Kiwibloggers out there can differentiate between the Sea Shepherd-ers and Greenpeace, and don’t take their actions of the ENTIRE fairly diverse ‘green’ movement. Can’t say i’m optimistic.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Agreed, the Sea Shepherd blokes are mad (hell they make Greenpeace seem perfectly normal). I would have thought making an unauthorised boarding of a ship is piracy and deserving of a fairly strong reaction.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:15 am
perhap he would have prefered them to be thrown back in the drink.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I certainly oppose whaling but the sanctimonious dangerous antics of the eco-terrorists in Antarctic waters is appalling.
I saw on Sky TV an interview with the leader of this group in the south, your rent a protestor,American loud mouth making statements that saeemingly cannot be verified.
1. How do they know the two hijackers were tied up on deck ?
2.What gives the right to these eco-terrorists to try and tangle up the propellors of the boat and speak as though they were heroes ?
I guarantee that if they got into danger the Sea Shepherd would be crying out for help from all sources,even the whalers
Trouble is that the majority of the population lose site of reality when they see blood gushing from a whale or the processing of whale meat. I don’t like that but for heavens sake, there is the rule of the sea , the rule of safety and sea conventions.
What do the Green people regard as the law?. Look at the Animal Liberationists.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:57 am
im with you. whaling sucks.. but these people are lunatics
January 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am
What I found funny was the Sea Shepherd crew complianing that they tied them to the railing.
Usual for Greenies you have to cut them free.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am
In fact I am not sure who is worse the whalers or the dangerous Sea Shepherd. In fact the Sea Shepherd people by their actions may well effectively nullify any legal success, as the Japanese will not wish to be seen to have been beaten by a bunch of eco-terrorists, whereas the legal action and general opprobium they face in the marketplace is more likely to wear them down and lead to internal pressure for change, for example recent statements by Toyota that is is not in favour of whaling. Economic pressure will be more telling, than stupid life endangering stunts by eco-nuts.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I wish Sea Shepherd and the Dompost whale petitioners were as active in defending the rights of unborn children in NZ.
And ,6 cops onto a guy that flicked his sons ear- no wonder so many NZers are leaving for Oz with this sort of pc moral bankruptcy
January 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am
“It’s a serious crime and hostile act to board a foreign ship without permission or authority.”
well its a crime to erect billboards knowingly breaking the EFA also.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I first heard about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in May 2007. The head of the organisation suggested reducing the world’s human population to 1 billion. I volunteered to help him lead by example, but got no reply.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:54 am
You know what annoys me most about these turkeys? That they make such a meal out of the fact that its whales. They are just another mammal group people. If we can eat cows, sheep, deer, whats the problem with whales (as long as it is sustainable).
Nutters like this are so convinced of the rightness of their point of view that they believe the ends justify the means.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
hypocrisy on all sides stinks up this entire issue
January 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
While Watson’s band of thugs are directly responsible for their actions, the governments of Australia and the Netherlands have also got to take a good look at themselves (the Dutch have flagged the SSCS vessel).
A government can not on the one hand claim to be against terrorism, but then where whaling is concerned not only turn the other way, but also (in Australia’s case) permit them use of ports despite their history of threats and violence, and finally have the gall to now demand the Japanese return the criminals back to the vessel from which they came.
This is the second year running that the Japanese have come under attack by this organization, and whether you agree with their ends or not, the means they use are unacceptable in decent human society. The Japanese should not be expected to tolerate these actions which clearly risk the welfare of their sailors, and they would be well within their rights to take these guys back to Japan and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
The Netherlands should revoke SSCS of their right to fly the Dutch flag, and the Australian government should cease their implicit support of this terrorist outfit, and then the governments should take this issue to court.
20 years of talking hasn’t resolved it, so take it to court, and then be a mature, respectable and responsible world citizen when the court’s decision is made.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
What defines piracy?
January 16th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I’m not in favour of whaling.
This is culture clash on so many levels. Ist there is jananes culture versus western liberal culture. Secondly there is a culture of vilence versus a culture of pacisfism. Thirdley a culture of political activism versus one of business and commerce. Then there is maritime culture, in which you do not invite yourself onto another’s boat unannounced. There is the culture of hypocracy on the part of the ’scientific researcher’ whalers versus the ‘integrity-laden’ protesters. Then there is the culture of hypocracy of the ’scientific whalers’ who are really whalers.The real culture clash came when you had some spoiled eco-warriors boarding a whaler to present a petition to a bunch of hard-bitten mariners getting a bit of a roughing over.
The other culture clash is evident in the descriptions of what happened. The intruders became labelled ‘hostages’ the rough treatment by the whalers became labelled ‘torture’.
I mean, what did the ‘eco-warriors’ expect? Did they think they would be welcomed with open arms, perhaps a hot cup of saki and a nice warm meal while they waited for the captain to mull over the petition and discover the error of his ways?
Then they could all shake hands, and go home and the world would be a better place for it.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
If the captain’s so bad, how come after 30 years of doing that, he’s never been charged with a crime?
January 16th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I watched those Sea Shepherd plonkers on the news. Yes, two of them clearly illegally boarded the Japanese whale ship, yes they did throw bottles, not acid , but stink bombs, but they were GLASS bottles. Bloody stupid, bloody dangerous and does their cause no good.
The only people I can think of who are as stupid as the Sea Shepherd cretins would be the Japanese whalers and the Japanese foreign ministry who don’t seem to release how much they are pissing their Western friends and allies off. Considering the continuing rise and growing influence of China the Japanese will need the West now more than ever. Pissing friends and allies off over whale meat that they don’t need is so stupid and pigheaded.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:23 am
The really basic problem with whaling is that the Japs have precedent on their side.
You see the japs and the eskimos and quite a few northern hemisphere groups have long eaten whate and seal and various other sea mamals. They would argue that they have been eating these red meat mamals longer than western peoples have been eating land based red meat mamals – like beef and goat.
In fact i think that if this sort of thing went to the UN, the UN would have to come down on the side of tradition and culture – as they have with the indigenous peoples thing last year.
And the claim that some whales are threatened doesnt hold much water either – I dont recall anyone being too worried about the extinction of various types of land mamals when they are food sources.
The anti whalers will have to come up with better reasons than “whales are nice creatures” to get the japs to stop – or the eskimos to stop or the scandinavians to stop , etc.
Boarding boats is just plain stupid and would be in line for a darwin award if someone was killed.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:27 am
My only question is this – why did the Sea Shepherd not take Valerie Morse and Tame Iti to perform this act of piracy? After all, both have the pedigree!
January 17th, 2008 at 9:12 am
My head is telling me that these guy’s shouldn’t have boarded without permission…. my heart tells me the Japanese pro-whalers are cynical pricks scoffing at international law with complete bullshit justification they don’t even believe themselves.
Whales are high functioning mammals that are seriously endangered and to send a fleet half a globe away to piss into someone else’s ocean is worthy of total contempt.
My dark side applauds Sea Sheppard’s actions.. my light side calls for restraint.
Go Sea Sheppard! I’m not even a socialist.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I take the devil’s advocate position that the anti-whaling protesters would be better off buying an old ex-Soviet diesel-electric submarine (I’m sure the right bribe would ensure a fair number of torpedoes were ‘accidently’ left on board) and go hunting the whalers. Appeals to my fairly dark sense of humour.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Richard Hurst > China also supports whaling at the IWC, and it may not be long before they want to get in on the action too.