If this is not an illegal attack at sea, I don’t know what is.
March 3rd, 2010
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Attacking a merchant, fishing, passenger, research or other non-military vessel at sea in any manner that intentionally endangers the vessel, crew or other vessels in the area is a very grave infraction of numerous international laws. If it is done by a properly flagged navy, it is an act of war. If it is done by a renegade vessel of no national navy, it is an act of piracy. If it is done by a vessel with the approval of the nation of registry, it is privateering. All equate to basically the same thing – it’s an act that, by necessity, is grounds for a lethal response by the vessel under attack or by any friendly force in the area.
If this does not constitute a direct attack of this nature, I’d like to know what does…
Ramming a ship is deadly serious – as serious as torpedoing it. In battle, when a ship has run out of ammunition or is too close to fire on an adversary, ramming can be a lethal move that will send another ship to the bottom. Even if the ship ramming the other is smaller in size, the reinforced, angled prow can cut through the broadside of another ship, potentially causing a sinking with loss of life. Make no mistake, the maneuver is intended to inflict potentially deadly damage, and in the remote and frigged waters of the Antarctic, it is all the more dangerous.
I’m continuously stunned by what this group (Sea Shepard) is able to get away with. If this were anyone else, they’d have been arrested and/or sunk by now.
One of these days, someone is going to get killed.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Culture, Enviornment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
With any luck it will be one of them. The unfortunate thing is, it will be one or more of the young stupid fools they have manning the ship, and not the executive who no doubt will rake in the cash from leveraging the dead kids as martyrs. And it’s going to happen, because these nitwits have gotten to the point where they have to raise the bar every time to get the media’s attention.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
While I don’t disagree with a thing you said about intentional attacks being criminal, you need to know that during the Icelandic Cod War (as the British termed it) the same angle of collision happened more than once.
It was, however, partially blamed on a natural Bernoulli effect of the fast moving water between the ships which pulled the trailing ship into the side of the other.
On the other hand, any competent captain should now be aware of that effect, and for such a captain to ignore it would also be criminally negligent.
I’m not saying that’s what happened here – but someone does deserve to lose their mariner’s licence.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 5:07 pm
The Ady Gil should probably be mentioned with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ady_Gil#Collision_with_the_Sh.C5.8Dnan_Maru_2_and_abandonment
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March 3rd, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Martin Audley said:
Well the Cod War very nearly did become an actual war between nations. That was a fairly crazy happening really, but that incident was a case where there was a dispute about the authority of a navy or coast guard to enforce a national ordinance at sea. The ships that were enforcing the claim were national ships under a naval flag and tasked with the enforcement activity. The dispute came down to whether the zone of exclusivity was recognized.
The Sea Shepherd ships are not naval vessels and they’re not enforcing a national ordinance. They’re actually registered as private pleasure craft (ocean-going yachts) in the Netherlands. Nor do they claim that the area is a zone of Governor rule.
Large ships should only come within close proximity of each-other in the ocean seas under some very specific conditions: Underway replenishment, passenger transfer (usually for medivac purposes) or rescue operations. These circumstances are narrow and even under the best conditions, they’re still dangerous.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Christ! If that ship had been going much faster, it would have gone up over the whaler ship and the two could have capsized. What the hell kind of idiots are up to this?
I can’t believe the comments on this video? The whalers are murders? Jesus Christ, I don’t like whaling either, but you can’t go around crashing into everyone you don’t like.
What is wrong with these people? They think it’s the whaler’s fault when they clearly are the ones plowing right into them? What the hell! They make the whalers look like the heros, these criminal bastards are going to kill somone if they keep this up.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 8:02 pm
DV82XL said:
They just keep pushing it, and if they get to the point where someone gets killed, I wonder if it’ll be seen as a good thing for them or not. They are pushing thing so far, I wish the world would wake up and realize this is not how civil countries deal with matters.
The Japanese would be within their rights to blow that ship to kingdom come. It’s a menace and a terror group. They might have to eventually. These idiots think they’re at war, but they have no idea what it would really be like. This is insanity. The politics can only cover their ass for so long.
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March 4th, 2010 at 2:20 am
Oh for ****s sake, bring along firearms. If they try to drag ropes into the propeller or collide with the vessel, open fire.
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March 4th, 2010 at 5:09 am
Soylent: I agree. Even an ordinary hunting rifle or two would be a serious deterrent.
The international community should divert some of the naval units currently hunting pirates off the coast of Africa to bring down these criminals.
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March 4th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Martin Audley said:
The crash was almost certainly deliberate. As many of you probably know, Sea Shepard make a TV show of their activism called Whale Wars, and in one episode the captain of the Steve Erwin vessel discusses the risk of the Bernoulli effect on camera, so he is most certainly aware of it.
I admit that I watch the TV show (my standards are, after all, pretty low when it comes to TV) but not because I’m a dedicated whale-hugger. There is some dark part inside of me that longs to see one of them die because of their blind stupidity.
The whaling topic is so controversial that I try to avoid discussing the show with anyone in real life, as most people have very solid opinions about whaling and/or the role the Japanese have in it, along with the actions of Sea Shepard.
Soylent said:
Wouldn’t that be like throwing a Molotov ****tail into a Greenpeace rally or something? Perfect media attention for them? If the Japanese captains ordered or allowed their crew to use firearms to protect the vessels, how would the international media respond and portray the Japanese whalers? I’d be willing to bet they’d look even worse.
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March 4th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Yeoz said:
Aim for the camera guy! But seriously, I do think it would stop them or at least hold them back if one or two of them got killed each time they take on a whaling ship.
Surely it would cause them to yell and cry about human rights abuse and violence and so on. The Japanese would still be fully in their rights to do it. I mean look at that video! Defending oneself is a legitimate reason to shoot when a big steal ship is repeatedly ramming into you!
I suggest that a statement be made ahead of time. “This year, our security forces have standing orders to shoot to kill if any ship threatens the safety of one of ours,” and just leave it at that.
The international media already kisses their ass either way.
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March 4th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
To turn the phrase around – Sunk ships have no lips. If a vessel is acting in such a manner as to present a clear and immediate danger to another, it is within the rights of the aggrieved party to do anything necessary to protect itself. If that entails sinking the attacking ship, so be it. Stick around and try and pick up survivors, who will probably be too busy trying to survive to worry about the video.
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March 4th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I personally don’t like whaling, but these Sea Shepherd clowns are just begging for someone to eliminate them from the gene pool. Indeed, they are very fortunate that no one has bothered to kill them all yet.
The Japanese Whalers need to scare up some RPG’s that seem to be everywhere else in the world, and start using them. Frequently.
Once the “Whale Whores” discover that the only video they are going to get is either them dying or wetting their pants in terror, all this nonsense will stop.
I would also like to send out a big F U to Bob Barker for bankrolling this idiocy, to the tune of 5 Million.
“The price is WRONG, Bitch!”
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March 4th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
TXMarko said:
Actually the whalers have been accompanied before by a Japanese Coast Guard boat or two, which are obviously well armed and could shoot back, but they never do. The Sea Shepherd ship even threw **** at the Japanese security/coast guard ship, and they didn’t fire back. They just tried to keep them away from the whaling ships (political probably)
I think there might be some legal issues with the crew of a merchant ship being armed and it losing its claim to being a merchant or whatever. I don’t know for sure, but it could have some ramifications. Plus, the crew is not trained for that, which is why they have a security boat and crew. Why the security forces don’t step in and use the kind of force they’re obviously being provoked to? I don’t know. Probably an order from higher up not to make an international incident (like they haven’t already!)
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March 4th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Agreed, Chem Geek Gregor, the desire to avoid an International incident is probably on the whalers minds. That, and the knowledge that such an incident would just call more world attention to their supposedly “legal” activities.
That being said, putting other peoples lives at serious risk on the high seas is no small matter. At some point, the whalers are going to figure out that their lost time, revenue, and repairs to vessels are worth shutting the political attention whores down.
A good friend of mine said he saw an episode of Whale Wars where the high-profile Captain was shot in the chest, and then dramatically dug a bullet out of his bulletproof vest he was wearing.
If this is true, the whalers are already to the point or righteous self-defense.
I’ll bet they learn from their experience and aim for his pumpkin next time.
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March 4th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
TXMarko said:
No that was entirely faked. One of the security crew on the whaling ship threw two “flash bang” grenades at the sea shepherd ship. Watson said “Holy *** I think I was shot” or something like that and then pulled a bullet out of a bullet proof vest.
Totally fake and a bad fake at that. If you’re shot with soft body armor, you don’t “think” you were shot. It knocks the wind out of you and leaves one hell of a welt behind. There have been body armor and ballistics experts some who looked at the footage and claims and went on the record to say that it is absolutely undoubtedly not a bullet hit and probably not even a part of a flash-bang grenade either. It was probably put there by him.
It wouldn’t make sense anyway for them to just on one occasion fire a bullet at someone like that and just happen to hit him right in the vest, just off camera like that. It’s a very obvious ploy.
Wattson is a coward and a terrorist. He advocates killing loggers and fishermen and he’s never worked a day in his life. He’s wanted for attempted murder and scuttling vessels in various countries and he’s not man enough to stand up to the charges. He’s a pathetic, soft, coward and a sick little bastard who runs around playing pirate with other people’s money they were stupid enough to give him.
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March 5th, 2010 at 1:15 am
Wasn’t the bullet that he pulled out of his jacket also intact, and not mushroomed as you would expect from a rifle round that has struck a bullet proof vest?
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March 5th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I personally did not see the episode (I never watch that crap), but I agree with the above comments that his “being shot” was certainly a ruse.
Although it was a poor job of fakery, I bet it was enough for Bob Barker and his brain-dead ilk to open their wallets again and donate to continuing this madness.
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March 6th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Ramming ships and attempting to foul props are illegal acts that violate maritime laws. It is illegal to detain a ship at sea without authority to do so. Shooting glass bottles of paint and acid at a ship full of working people is a criminal act as well. The Sheeple have no enforcement powers granted by the UN. Who would believe that the UN, created to solve disputes peacefully, would allow such violence to committed in their name. Watson was told by a Canadian judge in one of the numerous trials involving SSCS in the seal hunt, that the World Charter for Nature gave him absolutely no authority to do anything illegal. The jury was instructed to that effect in the trial. Watson should know better by now.
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