My love/hate relationship with Whale Wars and the Sea Shepherds organization it documents continues. The latest episode had the crew of the Steve Irwin confronting the Nishin Maru, the main supply ship of the Japanese fleet.
So, there’s all this drama as they run a few drive-bys on the ship tossing stink bombs and some sort of flour while the Japanese toss flashbangs (nice exchange rate).
Towards the end of the exchange, the captain, Paul Watson, complains of a stinging sensation on his chest and reveals a bullet proof vest with a hole in it. They knife out what looked like half a ball that they claimed was a bullet. Cut to dramatic cuts as everyone’s saying “the captain’s been shot”…then later interviews as crew and his main henchmen talk about how much losing him would rock their world.
I don’t claim to be a ballistics expert but I’ve paid enough attention, watched enough documentaries, and been too much of a military buff to know that he did not get shot. If he did, it was with a BB gun at long range. If the bullet had gone THROUGH him, I’d understand why he didn’t get thrown back or knocked over. You see plenty of people hit with bullets at the ranges they were at (looked like a few hundred feet). They have nice big bruises and broken ribs.
What did the captain have? A pin prick from a pin he had on the shirt underneath the vest. Good God! Medic!
Now, I don’t doubt the Japanese would love to see Paul Watson dead but with all the video cameras on deck on both sides there is no way anyone is stupid enough to pull out a gun on the Japanese side and shoot him. The Japanese have taken GREAT measures to ensure their PR looks legal and positive (no flowers and rainbows but still), even if their main PR site for Whaling, The Institute for Cetacean Research, has the rotten stink of old-school Nazi or Communist propaganda.
And, besides, despite the comments of the Sea Shepherd crew about how bad the Japanese aim (I’d like to see them hit someone in the chest from several hundred feet away compensating for the pitch of two decks), the resulting PR campaign (“Oh my God, the Japanese are shooting at us!”) only helps the Sea Shepherds as far as the ignorant public is concerned (who’s going to doubt the white Captain versus the Japanese every knows hunts whales?).
In the end, though, those who are saavy and those who bother to pay attention will, like me, see some tarnish on the Sea Shepherds and their cause. If there’s anything I hate, it’s self-righteous melodrama designed to pep the organization’s limelight.
I’ll wager that vest was shot at on dry land and was something the captain kept as an Ace in the hole when he needed it. The other possibility is the curved piece of metal they pulled out was a fragment of a flashbang.
I’m more inclined to believe the latter only because I don’t want to believe the former. If I had to, then I’d have to come to the realization that die-hard fanatics can never be just due to their blind faith in their cause. And that would mean the meek really will inherit the Earth…what’s left of it anyway.
