To reference another franchise Darth Vader led from the front and would not "order the troops to do something he would not".
Starfleet - war criminals? (Sisko and Starfleet Command)
- Thread starter Baxten
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The Maquis aren't conscripting the local population by force, they're a small group of volunteers. We see one of these Federation colonies in Preemptive Strike. There are men, women, and children, elderly, and BABIES!
Are you saying that Chakotay, an honorable, nice man, is training babies to kill? Cha-Ko-Tay would never!...
Boy, you just said it! He not only walks away clean, he is rewarded for his action. We should see what crimes Sisko is actually guilty of here:
- Fraud
- Conspiracy
- Murder
- Bribery
- Forging State Documents
- Sale and distribution of an illegal substance(A substance which will most likely be used to produce biological weapons.)
Sisko attacked a civilian target that had no way to defend itself. That is pretty much a war crime.
Nothing justifies a war crime in the end.
Moreover, if, as Picard said, Starfleet officers' first duty is to the truth, then Starfleet broke its own first duty, to commit a war crime of all things. That means Starfleet is an ugly lying scum and is not ever to be trusted.
Do you think it was justified when Nazis burned the Reichstag building, which was a symbol of democracy in Germany at the time, to pin the blame on communists?
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How can you be so sure of that?
Look, how about this analogy-
A captain of a U.S. Navy vessel decides- on his own- to launch cruise missiles against known insurgent-harboring villages in the ME (assuming the missiles could reach that far, of course- which some types could). He does so on his own volition.
What do you think happens to that skipper? Even if he was lucky enough to (somehow) avoid actually killing anyone?
I really and honestly don't see how this is any different than what Sisko did.
The defense that Starfleet skippers must act on their own isn't a defense. If he didn't have time to consult Starfleet Command and/or his local commanding flag-officer, he shouldn't have taken the action.
I think a better debate is this: If Captain Sisko were "real", knowing what we know about his character, would he have launched the bio-weapons against the Maquis planet? Because not to brek anyone's immersion, but ultimately, the character is simply a slave to the writers.
A captain of a U.S. Navy vessel decides- on his own- to launch cruise missiles against known insurgent-harboring villages in the ME (assuming the missiles could reach that far, of course- which some types could). He does so on his own volition.
What do you think happens to that skipper? Even if he was lucky enough to (somehow) avoid actually killing anyone?
I really and honestly don't see how this is any different than what Sisko did.
The defense that Starfleet skippers must act on their own isn't a defense. If he didn't have time to consult Starfleet Command and/or his local commanding flag-officer, he shouldn't have taken the action.
I think a better debate is this: If Captain Sisko were "real", knowing what we know about his character, would he have launched the bio-weapons against the Maquis planet? Because not to brek anyone's immersion, but ultimately, the character is simply a slave to the writers.
Coincidentally, The man who wrote For The Uniform, also wrote In The Pale Moonlight.
Peter Allan Fields.
He didn't write a ton of episodes for Trek, but he has a few notables:
The Inner Light(TNG)
Duet(DS9)
Necessary Evil(DS9)
Crossover(The DS9 Mirror episode I really like)
He gave the command TWICE. He implied in no way he was kidding.
General Order 24 appears to give the captain the right, without consultation, to commit genocide and omnicide.
I think the only penance he had to pay was either to join them/or Jadzia would die/or he wouldn't get that Bajoran farm he wanted or something.The Maquis aren't conscripting the local population by force, they're a small group of volunteers. We see one of these Federation colonies in Preemptive Strike. There are men, women, and children, elderly, and BABIES!
Are you saying that Chakotay, an honorable, nice man, is training babies to kill? Cha-Ko-Tay would never!...
Boy, you just said it! He not only walks away clean, he is rewarded for his action. We should see what crimes Sisko is actually guilty of here:
The episode promotes a very consequentialist idea as the only solution. It's a well done episode and a very interesting story, but there are no consequences. As has been shown other times, Sisko himself doesn't seem to ever have to face the consequences for his actions. The only time I can think of is when the prophets "require a penance." I dont remember if he ever had to pay that penance, but in that episode, he didn't actually do anything wrong.
- Fraud
- Conspiracy
- Murder
- Bribery
- Forging State Documents
- Sale and distribution of an illegal substance(A substance which will most likely be used to produce biological weapons.)
For all its talk of the rough and gritty DS9 and Sisko never face the consequences of their Machiavellianism.
Relevant does not equal "the subject of the thread".
The thread asks if starfleet are war criminals, not if the British were. Stop derailing the subject when you are being out debated.
What is war crime? How has it evolved? How has the determination been made? HOW CAN IT APPLY TO ACTIONS DEPICTED IN STAR TREK?
Without references to real life, the argument has no import. We must compare to what we know has happened in the past.
True but not the point.
You said:
I replied:
British war crimes (and by admission of no less than Her Majesty the Queen Dresden was exactly that) are relevant, but they are not the subject of the thread. You were derailing the subject much as you are doing now, by treating the analogy as being the issue itself.
Reference to real life does not require moving the goalposts to a debate ABOUT real life.
You are parsing my argument. I used the Blitz/Dresden to point out something specific that might be applied in the FTU scenario: that "he did it first" often excuses questionable behavior. That is the context.
BTW, it was another poster who brought up a theoretical scenario about the US in Afghanistan (that bit to which I was originally responding) . I notice that you are not trying to rake him over the coals for mentioning something not directly drawn from the episode. I would prefer that you shelve your duplicity.
@TheSublimeGoose 's post didn't actually contain anything that would qualify as "tit for tat" (which you claimed), it referred to inhumane overkill, genocide as an opt out for dealing with a local problem, plus the post was clear that it was being used as an analogy, not claiming it was the focus of the discussion.
I'm not sure what you mean by "excuse" here. Are you saying people wrongly use that framework to justify their actions, or that it actually excuses those actions? We may have a case of lost in translation as I read your post as meaning the second.
I'm not sure what you mean by "excuse" here. Are you saying people wrongly use that framework to justify their actions, or that it actually excuses those actions? We may have a case of lost in translation as I read your post as meaning the second.
Regarding Sisko's actions in "For the Uniform", notables include
1) Sisko gave advance warning - to Eddington, who is unlikely to have forwarded it, and Sisko would have realised as much.
2) Why would the Maquis evacuate? Because invisible dust falls from the skies? Evacuation would probably only commence after there had been considerable death.
3) Then again, if this really were a "Maquis planet", it might indeed be at constant readiness to evacuate - indeed, it would expect (Cardassian, or perhaps Klingon or even Federation) bombardment at all times. But bombardment by invisible agents would not sound the alarms, unless the poison were very slow-acting and would manifest as alarming readings on generic colonial (or special Maquis) sensors before killing anybody.
Unknowns include the possibility that Sisko cleared his actions with Starfleet beforehand. After all, what he did sounds like something he always intended to do. But also like something he'd keep from his own crew till the last moment.
Would Starfleet say "Go ahead and religiouslyneutralspeed to you"? The bombardment might escalate things - but OTOH catching Eddington might stop all Maquis interest in continued bombardment, and the Maquis issue no longer was a political hot potato in terms of Cardassian reaction anyway, what with Cardassians having been beaten to irrelevancy by the Klingons.
As a step taken by an individual field commander, Sisko's attack is without direct precedent. But it's not as if we have strong counterprecedent, either.
Timo Saloniemi
1) Sisko gave advance warning - to Eddington, who is unlikely to have forwarded it, and Sisko would have realised as much.
2) Why would the Maquis evacuate? Because invisible dust falls from the skies? Evacuation would probably only commence after there had been considerable death.
3) Then again, if this really were a "Maquis planet", it might indeed be at constant readiness to evacuate - indeed, it would expect (Cardassian, or perhaps Klingon or even Federation) bombardment at all times. But bombardment by invisible agents would not sound the alarms, unless the poison were very slow-acting and would manifest as alarming readings on generic colonial (or special Maquis) sensors before killing anybody.
Unknowns include the possibility that Sisko cleared his actions with Starfleet beforehand. After all, what he did sounds like something he always intended to do. But also like something he'd keep from his own crew till the last moment.
Would Starfleet say "Go ahead and religiouslyneutralspeed to you"? The bombardment might escalate things - but OTOH catching Eddington might stop all Maquis interest in continued bombardment, and the Maquis issue no longer was a political hot potato in terms of Cardassian reaction anyway, what with Cardassians having been beaten to irrelevancy by the Klingons.
As a step taken by an individual field commander, Sisko's attack is without direct precedent. But it's not as if we have strong counterprecedent, either.
Timo Saloniemi
In the 'Moonlight' episode they a losing a war in which their civilization was a stake. This warrants a "state of exception" were in the face of an existential crisis one does what one will to survive. This is the reality of a struggle to the death, normal rules and mores of behaviour are put into a abeyance. There's no point in adhering to values if you're subsequently not around to extol those values.
"For the Uniform" is a different question. If Sisko is deliberately killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of civilians that guy should get a charge sheet. End of. He seems however simply to be forcing an evacuation of a relatively small number of people. If my reading of that is correct, then there's nothing there that can't be forgiven. All Sisko needs to do is infer that they are Maquis bases, the politics of how embarrassing the Maquis are to Starfleet/Federation brass will see them overlooking Sisko's activities.
"For the Uniform" is a different question. If Sisko is deliberately killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of civilians that guy should get a charge sheet. End of. He seems however simply to be forcing an evacuation of a relatively small number of people. If my reading of that is correct, then there's nothing there that can't be forgiven. All Sisko needs to do is infer that they are Maquis bases, the politics of how embarrassing the Maquis are to Starfleet/Federation brass will see them overlooking Sisko's activities.
The interesting thing is, in both cases, it's a field commander taking action seemingly on his own. Sisko had plunged headlong into his "plan" to cheat the Romulans before any mention of checking with superiors came up, and all the later actions went without evident supervision as well. This is not how you conduct a successful disinformation operation in practice, but it's also another case of a lowly Captain exercising considerable powers.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I'm not saying wrongly or rightly, only that it does get excused or justified even though it ought to be considered morally problematic. In most cases, it is because raison d'etat trumps rule of law. In others, it is because some conditions would be seen by some to minimize what is problematic about the action taken: there is forewarning, the effects are targeted, the policy is faulty, force is being met with equal force, use of tactics or weapons has been mainstreamed, etc. When it comes to ITPM, some will decry Sisko's actions, other will excuse it as a necessity. What the episode explores is the personal moral problems that arise from actions taken in the interest and with the approval of the state--rightly or wrongly. It's power is that is shows how difficult it is to resolve the dissonances between morality and state. On the other hand, FTU deals in conditions and exceptions that make problematic actions tolerable, even excusable--rightly or wrongly. Sisko's attack features many things that would make it far less than indiscriminate killing. Some of those things are admittedly built on the contrivances of the story, like weapons that affect single species. However, it is far less than what he could have done as a SF captain empowered by General Order 24. Subsequently, Sisko's actions in both episodes end up being controversial, offering no consensus about their morality, but also making them less likely to be seen as war crimes.
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I disagree - the Maquis were in violation of a treaty the Federation signed with the Cardassian Empire.
The Cardassian culture and mindset could not comprehend that there would be a group of Federation citizens that would disobey the directives of the Federation - therefore, to Cardassian eyes, the Maquis were nothing more than a covert attempt by the Fed to take back territory from the Cardassians or otherwise destabilize the fragile peace between the two powers.
The potential damage to the quadrant would be staggering, that's why it was so crucial to put a stop to it.
