Why should the Japanese not be allowed to kill whales? Why do you feel differently about the death of a whale and the death of hundreds of thousands of cows?
Personally, I really think whaling stinks. There really isn’t a painless way to kill whales, they generally die slowly and painfully. The whole thing is rather awful.
However, I feel pretty much the same way about the deaths of many other animals. Chickens and ducks are often cooked whilst alive, sometimes when livestock are slaughtered to feed us, it takes them minutes to die. Pigs which are bred to make your delicious bacon and ham are tortured for their entire lives. They are locked in tiny cages filled with shit and hundreds of other pigs. They can’t move, they can’t do anything except eat and be forced to have sex. Chickens are put in batteries to make your meat and eggs. They have their beaks and claws sliced off, and they are so crowded and stressed that they rip each other’s feathers out, and sometimes kill each other.
All of this is far more disgusting than whaling, so why single whaling out? How many whales are the Japanese killing? Is it anywhere near the number of pigs that the western world torture every day? Nope.
The Japanese whalers probably should not have been ramming the protest boats, but hey, put yourself in their shoes… you are doing your job, and you are constantly followed by a bunch of screaming intolerant people who take every opportunity to get in your way, wouldn’t you be a little pissed off? Ramming the boat was not the right thing to do, but the protesters also (in my eyes at least) are not doing the right thing.