Another weeks worth of interesting nautical history from Monkey Fist via gCaptain. This week there seems to be a concentration on Russia. There’s also some cool info about tattooing, sea monsters, sailing school ships and salty old restaurants. Enjoy. 🙂
With only the clothes on their backs, 881 Aleuts from nine different island villages were …
Source: Maritime Monday for February 27th, 2017: Spy Vs Spy – gCaptain
Russia Dismisses Dutch Legal Action Over Greenpeace Activists | gCaptain
Did anyone really expect anything different? I’m not sure what people are referring to when they say Russia “unlawfully detained” the Greenpeace activists. They invaded the 500 meter zone (that is illegal) after repeated warnings not to. They tried to board the Russian vessel. Some of them were actually doing it and the rest of them were helping, those are acts of piracy! It is totally and completely illegal under every maritime law of every country as far as I know.
I’m absolutely positive the US would have done the same thing. We probably would have charged them with conspiracy and a dozen other charges, or maybe just terrorism. That seems to be our fail safe lately, anyone we accuse of terrorism is pretty much automatically guilty and they don’t get to have a trial. The actions they took does make them guilty of those crimes under OUR laws (not that I am saying our laws are good ones in this case, they actually suck pretty bad as far as terrorism and conspiracy goes, everybody can be charged for pretty much anything).
Under international law, those people illegally boarded the Russian vessel, the Russians were within their rights to do what they did and actually I’m surprised they have treated them as well as they have.
I admire the Dutch for trying to help their people, but they should have been more involved in trying to stop them from acting against the Russians in the first place. That probably would have been a lot more helpful.
Russian Authorities Charge Greenpeace Activists with Piracy | gCaptain
Pirates or just ordinary criminals? Or possibly even peaceful protesters like Greenpeace insists?
OK, they are NOT just peaceful protesters like Greenpeace says. They invaded the 500 meter zone (that alone is a crime), and then ILLEGALLY BOARDED the vessel! THAT is an act of piracy! A PEACEFUL protest would have remained OUTSIDE the 500 meter zone!!!
Pirate = one who robs at sea. Technically, they DID act as pirates. By their actions, they cost the Prirazlomnaya oil platform millions of dollars. Those rigs cost hundreds of millions of dollars a day to operate. So, did Greenpeace commit an act of piracy? Yes, they did, they cost the oil company a TON of money by their intentional actions, so yes, they DID rob them.
OK, so they did not intend to cause harm. So what? Just by the fact of them invading the operations of the Prirazlomnaya, they DID cause harm and they knew they would! Maybe not much harm in the scheme of things, but they still disrupted the activities on board the oil rig. That costs time and that costs money.
Were the Russians doing anything illegal to board the Arctic Sunrise (the Greenpeace vessel), tow it to port and arrest the people on board? NO! Those people were ALL involved in criminal actions.
Nothing has come out about anyone on the Greenpeace vessel trying to prevent the boarding of the oil rig so no one is innocent. As far as I know, Russia does not have any Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech, or of protests, peaceful or otherwise. They’re lucky they DID get taken to jail instead of just shot! After all, they WERE caught in the act!
Greenpeace may have some great goals they’re working for. Even I don’t disagree with their goals. No one wants to see the oceans destroyed by oil spills. No one wants to see the environment polluted. Greenpeace is just wasting time and money on these stunts and also putting peoples lives and livelihoods in danger. That is NOT the way to accomplish their goals. They need to go fight their battles where they might actually do some good. Go to the courts, go to the legislatures, go to the people who are responsible for MAKING the RULES and get the rules changed!
Even better, or more effective in any case, they should spend their resources on trying to find some way to convince people to lower the population! To stop having so many babies! If we could/would lower the human population, then pretty much ALL of our problems would be solved, or at the very least minimized. THAT would be the greatest service to the planet, why don’t they go do THAT instead of trying to stop people from getting the resources they NEED to survive and to enjoy a decent standard of living?
Personally, I would like to see every person on this planet able to enjoy a GOOD life. I would like to see them have everything they need to live on and opportunities for enjoyable, fulfilling work. Not slaving away all day in dangerous conditions for barely enough food to get them through another day. Get people into a place where they are not so concerned about their own bare survival and they become a little more concerned about the rest of the planet around them.
Russia’s Imprisonment of Greenpeace Freelance Photographer Crosses the Line | gCaptain
I wasn’t there so I can’t vouch for what really happened, but from reading the news I would think that YES, the Greenpeace activists could and should be charged with multiple violations.
Yes, the photographer/journalist has certain rights (here in the USA- maybe not in Russia!). I think he knew very well what he was getting into. Greenpeace has done this kind of stunt before (and not only on the Disco)!
The Arctic Sunrise violated ALL the rules of maritime traffic. There are 500 meter security zones around drilling operations. Greenpeace surely knew that. The vessel captain and crew absolutely must know that! They’re even marked on the charts! It is illegal for ANYONE to enter that zone without asking and being granted permission from the rig.
The Arctic Sunrise at the very least helped the Greenpeace activists in their attempts to board the Russian rig. That boarding can certainly be seen as piracy. It is of course illegal even if they did not intend to harm anybody or steal anything. It is a dangerous place and could have resulted in a major accident (which of course would have been blamed on the drilling company).
Of course I don’t want to see the Arctic ruined by oil spills either. But I can’t agree with Greenpeaces’ tactics. Either they fight to change the laws so that there will be no Arctic drilling, or they fight to change peoples minds.
The ONLY way we are ever going to not NEED the oil is for people to limit the growth of the human population. Either that, or come up with some miracle energy source that is cheap, efficient and can replace everything we use oil for today. There is nothing even close to oils ability to provide the things we NEED to survive now.
Map: All the Countries John McCain Has Wanted to Attack | Mother Jones.
Personally, I think McCain got some serious brain damage when he was in solitary during the VietNam War and its coming out more and more. Too bad the people can never seem to vote out ANY incumbents, no matter how bad they are 🙁
Check out the article, the comments are especially ‘entertaining’.
Greenpeace Protest Ship Threatened, Leaves Kara.
I think Greenpeace does some good but they go overboard (literally) sometimes. I don’t think the Russians were justified to deny their entry into their waters. There is the principle of freedom of the high seas and we have always been allowed the right to sail freely from one place to another without interference. Apparently the USA has stopped standing up for any kind of freedom to travel, they prove this every day but forcing people to submit to a strip search just to fly somewhere (anywhere)! Since the US has so obviously given up defending freedom, I guess the Russians figure they can do it some more too. They probably just figure Greenpeace is going to cause a mess and they don’t want to deal with it so they stop it before it happens (prior restraint- we are doing a lot of that here too, although that is ALSO against all our principles).