Clearly, the Japanese government lost face when they gave a suspended sentence to the last anti-whaling pirate to board a Japanese flagged vessel after ramming it with his boat in an effort to sell it to the insurance company.
Because of their politeness and charity, their courtesy is now being abused, and is being used to insult the Japanese people.
Therefore, these pirates should be punished to the full extent of Japanese law. To do otherwise will result in similar or perhaps worse affronts.
There’s another interesting aspect to this, and one where the leftists may have shot themselves in their collective feet.
Japan maintains a significant number of counter-terrorism squads, riot police, and associated intelligence organs — all of which have budgets, bureaucrats and operators to justify.
But things have been quiet these days.
The 60s-era “revolutionaries” are getting long in the tooth and have been reduced to occasionally firing glorified bottle rockets (they laughingly call “mortar bombs). Those things do no damage, cause no injuries and seldom rate more than a Page 2 mention.
I would imagine the above-mentioned law enforcement/counter-terrorism groups would be desperate for a piece of the whaling industry’s fight because if they do not get involved in something that justifies their collective mission, they’re not going to be able to replace the men who are retiring.
What that tells me is not all of the people on the security ship are whalers. They’re are bound to be “observers” at the very least. They might even have Japan Coast Guard police aboard that are empowered to make arrests.
Like I said above, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for those guys. They are not having fun right now.
But I bet some cops are...