I always found it amusing how Quark was obviously so smitten by her and she could only barely tolerate him. Also remember when he said "I'll have you dancing on the table." It was so presumptuous yet so cute at the same time.
No it is not. Hand phasers are one thing, photon torpedoes are another. The Maquis were NOT aided by the Federation like the Cardassians were....I wish we knew more about the Cardassian colonists. I wish we saw Cardassian civilians more. Were they unified under a different name, like the "Maquis"? Were they truly civilians, or were there Order operatives in there aiding/forcing civilian action?
Maybe not explicitly but these sort of things require being able to read between the lines and use a little imagination. You don't think some disgruntled Starfleet intelligence officers or admirals who were unhappy with the treaty with the Cardassians and so covertly supplied arms? I can't imagine that not being the case. Though I think the Cardassian support of their proxies was far more enthusiastic, concentrated, and consistent than any support the Maquis received.
I'm actually with Voth on this one. I find it irksome when people are content to blame the Cardassians for (unofficially) arming their colonists while being willing to assume that the Federation (also unofficially) never did anything of the sort. Both sides at best failed to keep the situation from escalating and at worst passively (or in the Cardassians' case potentally implicitly) encouraged it. I would say the only difference is that the Feds were more outspoken against doing such and that the government didn't even implicitly support doing so...but also didn't crack down on it as hard as they might have.
Like I said Cardassian support was probably an official government policy albeit not a public one, federation support was probably carried out by digruntled officers, defecting captains, and star fleet intelligence agents and maybe some civilian manufacturers, and criminal elements throughout the AQ. But this support was more than likely erratic, inconsistent, and I imagine it was occasionally cracked down on. I'm glad we can find some common ground!
I'm glad you're making the distinction between official but secret Cardassian involvement and unofficial, though I'd say nonexistent, Federation involvement. At no point during any series did we see any mention of the Federation supplying the Maquis with weapons, including from the Cardassians who'd be the main accusers. Defectors may defect, but they don't have steady access to materiel. Civilian manufacturers can be prosecuted. Criminal elements might have supplied both sides with whatever they could pay for.
The fact is that the Federation implicitly enabled the Maquis by never (that we saw) making a real effort to deal with them. From a Cardassian standpoint, I could see how it could be construed as essentially supporting them, given what we know of the general Cardassian mindset. On the other hand, there were probably Cardassians who were wondering why they weren't doing more to deal with their own colonists who were causing problems. There wasn't a good answer and there was never going to be a good answer.
"Someone should make a frontier style space opera with Civil War analogues..." Yep, someone should. Oh, wait...
Back to the war crimes question... War crimes is not a general concept. The actions that constitute war crimes are specific and there are a few that could be apply to what Sisko did: "intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities" "employing poison or poisoned weapons" "employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices" "intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians . . . or widespread, long-term and sever damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated" "employing weapons . . . which are inherently indiscriminate" These are all real crimes in international law - we can assume that Starfleet would be subject to similar rules.
I don't see it as being disgruntled officers, I just see them providing covert aid as its the only logical thing the Federation can do. It may just be intel, possibly weapons, or Maybe other resources. Starfleet might find it conducive to use a third party. There's so little we know about SF intelligence, but the hints we get here and there on TNG and DS9 make it clear that the behave the same way all intelligence agencies do. If the Maquis got out of hand though (at least, in their eyes) they might carry out a different policy. Either way, The powers that be aren't just sitting around allowing a terrible risk of war and conquest move along unimpeded. They also aren't gonna rely on idealistic SF ship captains to handle these situations.
Well I'd say out of all the show captains Picard is the most "idealistic". And that's a good thing in my opinion-he isn't cynical, or devious, or cruel, or petty. He is a paragon of federation virtue, intellectualism, compassion, and integrity.
Im not saying its a bad thing. I think Sisko is an idealist as well. But if they were in fact assisting, leading, facilitating, or whatever , the Maquis. They aren't going to use someone like Picard. Picard may even have enemies at SF Intelligence after the whole Pegasus thing.
Picard would go directly to Romulus and through his speech and diplomatic skills convince the Romulans to join the war on their own interests. He would succeed with a clean conscience.
Garak "...one criminal, and the self respect of one star" Picard "Not Good Enough, Damnit! Not Good Enough!"
You know, it might be murky whether or not The Sisko committed a crime stopping Eddington, but there are other things he could potentially hang for, like ordering the death of Head of State of an Ally. How come no one ever brings that up?
Didn't he have approval from HQ for that one? Heck, in ITPM HQ approves his plan in the broad strokes, it's just strongly implied that they don't know any or very few of the damning details of it. But they at least know he planned to bring the Romulans into the war.