Kerre Woodham: Pirate having a whale of a time
I imagine Sea Shepherd's Pete Bethune is as happy as a little Southern Ocean squid aboard the Shonan Maru 2.
Oh, the digs wouldn't be all that flash on a Japanese whaling ship and he wouldn't have much in common with the rest of the guys on board, but the publicity that's resulted from him striding the moral high ground to board the Shonan Maru and attempt a citizen's arrest of the vessel's captain should keep Sea Shepherd in the headlines for weeks to come.
Publicity is the oxygen of any advocacy group and given that the treatment of pirates is a lot more civilised now than it was 200 years ago, surely Pete Bethune won't mind taking one for the team.
The worst he can expect is cramped accommodation and dodgy food.
I'd hate to think what's in his soup, given the strong feelings whaling crews have for protesters.
If I was Pete, I wouldn't be chewing the lumpy bits.
The Japanese will be quietly pleased, too, I imagine.
A real, live protester that they can take back to Japan to prosecute will send a message to the Japanese people that no one bosses the Land of the Rising Sun.
Sea Shepherd and whalers working together for their own goals - who'd have thought it?
Time will tell as it did with Anti-tour protesters that those that do nothing and worse those that write smarmy articles ridiculing such politically conscious people will be seen for what they are.
Heartless with no respect for life.
Sea Shepherd are a bunch of violent thugs who are prepared to endanger human life in the name of soliciting publicity and donations. They have an extremist ideology that they are prepared to commit acts of violence to acheive. In this sense they are no different from Al Qaeda.
The species of whale in question aren't even endangered. THis issue has nothing to do with conservation or environmentalism. It is animal-rights lunacy at its most ugly extreme.
If the media continue to portray Sea Shepherd's illegal and brutal ways as heroic, it will only encourage them to escalate their violence. This pattern of behaviour has only one end point, and that is human tragedy.