Thursday, April 22, 2010

Between the Devil and the Blood Red Sea

A small group of anti-whaling nations, including the United States, is currently attempting to broker an agreement that would limit and could potentially end whaling by Japan, Iceland, and Norway. The agreement would allow these three countries to continue whaling for another ten years. The quid pro quo is that they would agree to reduced quotas, restrictions on targeted species, and stricter monitoring, including global DNA tracking of whale products. As is always the case among your kind on matters of critical international importance, the negotiations have generated heated debate and discord as extremists on both sides of the issue are quick to criticize the work of the negotiating committee but slow to offer practical alternatives. Opponents argue that the agreement will 'open the floodgates' to the slaughter and not guarantee the end of whaling after a decade. Proponents say that it is a reasonable first step in the process of ending this barbaric practice forever. The brutal fact is that all efforts to stop whaling to-date have failed, including brave but divisive acts on the high seas, and bluster and bombast on the safe side of the shore. And as this acrimonious debate continues among nations, my kind is caught between the devil and the blood red sea.

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