British sailors held captive

[CMKMStephens]

Originally Posted by Herr Doktor

I think the French method of dealing with protestors is good. Rainbow warrior, anyone?

Anyone that supports the French in their actions across the Pacific is human Scum.

[Krylo]

Yeah, just, no.

[greed]

Okay normally I avoid Discussion like the festering legion on the forum it is, but I''d like to add that one of those taken hostage was Australian so technically it's Australian and British sailors taken hostage. Also Greenpeace has taken over watching the whaling fleet and has refused to give Sea Shephard the coordinates for the fleet after they lost them due to stopping to pick up their crew members, saying that they're too extreme.

Originally Posted by EVILNess

If this had happened in a legal environment I'd say more power to the whalers, but they are doing an illegal whale hunt and took hostages, and are then making demands with those hostages. That's wrong.

I know my argument may be a bit all over the place so again I'll try to summarize, I side with the hostages on this one. If what the whalers were doing were legal, I would side with them, but it isn't.

This pretty much summarizes my views, whaling's wrong and financially unsustainable(it's only through massive govt subsidies due to the extreme social conservatism in Japan that it survives at all) but Sea Shephard went too far. However because the entire hunt is illegal and in Australian waters the Whalers have legal position at all.

[Lady Cygnet]

Originally Posted by greed

This pretty much summarizes my views, whaling's wrong and financially unsustainable(it's only through massive govt subsidies due to the extreme social conservatism in Japan that it survives at all) but Sea Shephard went too far. However because the entire hunt is illegal and in Australian waters the Whalers have legal position at all.

Doesn't Australia have some sort of Coast Guard or Navy? If the Japanese whalers were hunting in an illegal area, Australia's maritime law enforcement needs to enforce the law. Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd have no business playing police and putting their people in harm's way.

[greed]

We have a pretty impressive navy actually. But we're talking International Law, diplomacy and lots of money here.

It's a grey area, our govt doesn't want to directly confront Japan(who doesn't recognise our authority there, considering our Antarctic territory claim invalid) for trade reasons(they're our second biggest trading partner) but arresting Greenpeace or Sea Shephard would be very bad publicity at home so our govt won't interfere with them either. Japan is also unwilling to deploy their our own maritime forces(which can only be deployed in Japanese waters anyway due to the post WW2 sanctions) to not offend us, again for trade reasons(we're their biggest trading partner now, I think we overtook the states a few years back).

The new govt has said they're gonna start monitoring Japan themselves and put them in front of the international court for the whaling, and the destroyer they deployed for that is the one that diffused the hostage crisis. So we may be starting to do something now. Personally I doubt it though, Japan's worth too much money.

[Mordrorru]

The story I heard is that the anti-whalers followed them around for a while, even tossing bottles of chemicals onto the deck.

Then at some point they boarded the vessel (a BBC video shows them cheering) and then having boarded the ship, claimed to be held captive and hostage...

Personally, I think they enjoyed every minute of it.