By Captain Paul Watson

William Hogarth appears to be the Neville Chamberlain of Cetacean Conservation. In order to save the whales he wants to let Japan kill them.

This week, member nations of the International Whaling Commission are meeting in Rome to discuss a proposal by the United States that would allow Japan to legally slaughter endangered whales in the North Pacific in exchange for a reduction in the quota of whales that are presently being killed illegally in the Southern Ocean.

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The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as the world's leading activist opposition of illegal Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Oceans, condemns this proposal of appeasement and calls upon President Barack Obama to remove William Hogarth as the United States Commissioner to the IWC.

The United States has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists and they should not be negotiating with poachers. The Japanese whaling industry is a criminal organization that targets endangered whales in an established international whale sanctuary.

To allow Japan to legally kill whales in the North Pacific is to reward Japan for illegally killing whales in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific as they have been doing since 1986.

Hogarth's proposal is so milquetoast and weak it does not even demand an end to Southern Ocean whaling and allows this criminal activity to continue. The United States will be betraying the whales and marine conservationists if they allow Hogarth to advance this shameful proposal of appeasement.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society would like to request an investigation of William Hogarth by the Justice Department to see if there are other unknown factors motivating Mr. Hogarth to sell out the whales to the outlaw whalers of Japan. 

Japan, Norway and Iceland are criminal whaling nations and their unlawful activities must be shut down. This approach that William Hogarth is proposing in the name of the United States is like telling bank robbers that they can still rob banks but this time they can do it legally as long as they rob the bank in the North and only partially rob the bank in the South.

What is it that these politicians and bureaucrats don't understand about the words "whale sanctuary"? What is it they don't understand about the word "endangered" and what is it they don't understand about the word "poaching"?

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been forced to confront the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Oceans every year because international conservation laws are not being enforced.

If the IWC sees fit to legalize this illegal whaling activity the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will continue to confront and oppose whaling by the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean by citing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the Antarctic Treaty. We will be allowed to intervene in accordance with the United Nations World Charter for Nature, and as such we will still be acting to enforce international conservation law.

If the IWC legalizes the slaughter of endangered whales it will have abandoned all moral and legal authority that it presently has and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will consider it as an ineffective body bought and paid for by the Japanese government.

William Hogarth should rent a movie called the Untouchables. It is pathetic that a representative of the United States would compromise on the law and kowtow to a bunch of Yakuza controlled poachers.

The man is a disgrace to conservation and a disgrace to our nation.