You were arguing semantics, when people say he made the planet uninhabitable they obviously mean "uninhabitable for the current maquis population", saying people distort the facts feels disingenuous. The problem with Sisko's actions is that he endangered the lifes of many people and the episode overlooks that and throws in a "people are starting to evacuate" line as if that makes it better.
Imagine someone sets fire to a house and then someone else looking from a distance says "people are beginning to run out of the back door" ... does that make it okay? Even if no one is trapped by the fire or falls and is trampled to death during the panic that's still a crime and no one would excuse it by saying "They traded homes with the smokosians, they like their houses charred, no one's homeless"
The problem I have with his episode is that Sisko went way too far and there were zero consequences, in the end everyone acts like it was no big deal and then it's never brought up again.
Given the number of people who say "Sisko poisoned a planet!" without providing the significant clarifier, I'm
not comfortable making assumptions as to what people mean, and in legal/moral matters, semantics can make a hell of a difference. I've freely allowed for the possibility that people may be speaking carelessly, or may genuinely misremember the episode, but do you really think nobody's ever been intentionally hyperbolic about this?
If you can't say what you mean, how can you be expected to mean what you say?
As I've said since I started talking about this, evaluating the legality/morality of Sisko's actions here is outside the scope of the point I'm trying to make. But, on that front...
Personally I think Sisko's actions were rather extreme, and possibly illegal, but Eddington and by extension the Maquis did attack a Starfleet vessel (the
Malinche), and then we have this line...
SISKO: When you attacked the
Malinche you proved one thing, that the Maquis have become an intolerable threat to the security of the Federation...
It's unclear whether Sisko himself is making that determination, or whether it came from someone higher-up on the ladder, but it seems entirely possible that Sisko is describing a change in legal status with regards to how the Federation views the Maquis, one that may free him to do things that Federation law/Starfleet regulations would have proscribed under normal circumstances.
Your analogy about setting fire to a house would be more comparable if the house was filled with people who'd been formally declared as terrorists, or at least people harboring terrorists.
