I will repeat my point from earlier in this thread. I believe the whalers think they stand to gain from a day in court, even if they have to answer for a couple casualties. So ramming the SS ship is their way of saying “You either stop turning the blind eye to these vigilante clowns or we will make it so you cannot ignore it anymore”. Kill a couple clowns, go to court and finally put an end to SS harassment.
Who gives a flying fuck what the Australian public thinks, there’s about 4 times as many Japs, most of whom are quite into the killing of whales (at least as much as the typical Australian genuinely cares… I suspect you’ll find the overwhelming majority of both nations to be pretty apathetic when it really came to it) and the latter don’t even recognise the former’s claims to the water. The UK has land closer to the south pole than you lot ffs!
I tell you if I were PM of Japan I’d just shoot these nuisances. I understand the Japanese do not have a conventional navy, but a self defence force which makes the situation more delicate.
Well… it is time for them to exercise some self defence 
They most certainly are the aggressors. Australia has told them to stop. Period. The Australian PM Kevin Rudd has said:
So there’s that.
See above. I don’t know if Japan is in court now, but they’re going to be sooner or later. Well, they’ll blow it off I"m sure.
I’d dearly love to see that, and Australia’s response.
Not exactly. Whaling has been pretty much universally condemned except by the countries who engage in it and a podunk little country here and there no one’s actually ever heard of and that probably got paid off by Japan. Whaling is cruel, pure and simple. If cows were being hunted and slaughtered the way whales are, like harpooning them and dragging them around until they eventually are sort of dying while the hunters start slicing into them I’m guessing you wouldn’t be eating much steak. By the way, cows are farmed. Where’s the whale farm? And, don’t forget other whales like Humpbacks. They kill those too. Don’t get me started on the dolphins.
Cows are on dry land. Whales are not. Makes a big difference on how they are harvested.
Can’t vouch for the veracity of the wiki page, but here it is. Humpback Whale.
80000 whales and Japan said they’d take 50, but didn’t. They could take 50 a year and never make a dent in the 80000. So, what’s the beef?
Interesting you support firing on unarmed protestors, guess you supported use of the National guard in the Kent State Massacre and the Chinese firing on protestors in Tiananmen as well?
As I posted above, in this case IWC protection doesn’t apply to Japan. And while I understand that as an Australian you probably see things differently, most of the world doesn’t recognize Australia as having any authority in those waters.
As far as Humpbacks go, check Japan’s record, not just last year. I’m sure groups like Greenpeace & the Sea Shepherds have something to do with the fact they aren’t taking their usual variety and numbers of whales, endangered and not.
As far as cows go, if we’re going to chuck morals and ethics and intellectualize things, then I suppose aborted human fetuses make a delicious treat. As people, we get to decide what’s wrong and what’s not. In the case of whales, we’ve decided it’s bad. “We” as in the majority of humanity. Just the way it is. We’re still evolving culturally and many, many things acceptable 100 years ago are not so much these days. Not eating whales would seem to be part of our evolution. I’m on that boat. Japan doesn’t need whale products and the government subsidizes a rightfully dying industry. Let it die.
But it doesn’t work, since you don’t nail nations on technicalities when there are no enforcement mechanisms that can be brought to bear.
Pursuing the environmental impact angle is not going to stop whaling.
Have you ever noticed how closely a fetus that’s just a few weeks old resembles a shrimp? I’m just sayin’.
There are enforcement mechanisms, Australia has considered several of them. The reason they haven’t yet persued them is pretty clear from this page:
While Australia’s trade position is no doubt an issue, the simple fact is that Australia would always be very reluctant to take strong naval action in waters that it has no authority over outside of an internationally unrecognised, self declared jurisdiction grab.
If God didn’t want us to eat fetuses, he wouldn’t have made them the size of canapes.
How do you know?
What, you mean you don’t know that? Weird.
Um, the Antarctic Treaty is pretty well recognised, there’s two issues here, there is the Southern Ocean Sanctuary and the Australian Antartic Territory waters. Japanese whaling fleet has been recorded taking whales in AAT waters, and if Australia did take legal action it would be about whaling in AAT waters, not in the SOS.
Take note that the US, UK, most EU countries and Russia do recognise Australia’s claims to AAT.
list here:
Signing the Antarctic Treaty does not mean that you recognize any territorial claims on Antarctica.
Technically true but de facto it is the defining treaty for claims to Antarctica and there’s never been a challenge to it. Eg its the best we’ve got and no-one’s arguing.
No one typically argues with nations who make claims that will largely be ignored when it is convenient to do so. Not many people are afraid of the repercussions of maybe, slightly ticking off Australia. This situation is an excellent example of that.
Well, “doesn’t work” inasmuch as you cannot arrest a country.
That said countries generally try to abide by their agreements. They may be able to give the world the finger and walk away but diplomatically that is a last resort. Other countries may then pull out of some agreement with Japan that Japan cares about and say, “You do not abide by your agreements why do you think we should?”
Technicality or not Japan is a signatory to various agreements. It seems they could still go whaling if they did the appropriate environmental impact for having their ships there. Likely that would be time consuming and expensive so they do not do it but it is what Japan has already agreed to.
So again, whatever works. Can’t get them on one angle get them on another.
So did I miss the news story where Australia became a military dictatorship sometime in the recent past? If 80% of you really disagree with the govt’s response, why don’t you force your government to do something about it, or vote in politicians who will? Or is it one of those “Yeah, I disagree with what the government is doing in this one case, but it’s not actually important enough to actually drag my ass to the polls and do something about it.” issues?