Why did Kira call Innocent Cardassians who needed to be killed "Collaborators?"

"Collateral damage" Seems more appropiate to me

I Dont think bajoran laborers on DS9 were collaberators either they might have been acceptable collateral damage but...

Anyone who supports supports an occupying power would be considered to be serving that power. The Cardassians were not technically collaborators (and I don't think Kira used that language to described them), but they were all part of the apparatus of the occupying state. At the end of Schindler's List, Oskar Schindler rightfully described himself as a profiteer and a legitimate target of the Allied military justice system. The fact that he was not part of the Wehrmacht was immaterial. Silaran came to Bajor in order to support the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. His presence on Bajor was illegitimate. His presence helped to deepen and continue that occupation. It probably also had the secondary effect of changing the Bajor society. Similarly, Amon Marritza would have been a legitimate target of any attack by the Bajoran resistance. In the aftermath, any assistance he would give to identify agents of the occupation and document its actions would have been recognized by Bajor, leading to some form of leniency.

WesleysDisciple said:

Why did Kira call Innocent Cardassians who needed to be killed "Collaborators?"

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How 'bout a hint as to when she said it. I don't recall it, and we can't examine context without knowing what else was said.

In a way, it would be logical for Kira to use that expression, as it would further undermine the legitimacy of the Cardassian rule: they aren't even a united force, but a regime that commands but a small fraction of its citizenry, those who collaborate with the regime. (It then doesn't matter which Cardassians Kira murders, exactly: the dead ones can be labeled part of the brown-nose corps that support the regime, while the putative Good Cardassians enjoy Kira's sympathies and protection and further help her disguise her murderous role in the conflict.)

A somewhat more interesting terminological nuance is that the Cardassians themselves readily speak of their rule over Bajor as "occupation", as if stressing its temporary nature. They might simply be brutally honest: they were never there to stay, but only to pillage. Or they, too, might be spin-doctoring it, indicating that it's over and done with now, never was that much of a deal, they never intended to take the freedom of Bajorans away from them, etc.

Or then the Universal Translator is simply being politically correct or at least politically convenient...

Timo Saloniemi

I think I can understand her seeing it that way. As "unfair" as it might be to the average Cardassian just living their average life on Cardassia Prime and having little/no saying in what happens to Bajor (maybe not even having access to what actually happens on Bajor, considering the propaganda machine)
From her perspective all these people stood by and supported a state that murdered her people and strip-mined her world, when they could have risen up, taken up arms like she was forced to do and stopped what was happening.

Tosk said:

How 'bout a hint as to when she said it. I don't recall it, and we can't examine context without knowing what else was said.

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When she was working with the cardassian resistence to liberate cardassia from Dominion oppression.

Bajoran workers in ore processing on Terok Nor was slave labour, some may have sold out their fellow workers (who were plotting something or speaking out against the Cardassians) in order to get better conditions, but most do seem to be forced into it with no option for anything more.

The Cardassians on Bajor were part of the invading force. As Kira says in "The Darkness and the Light":
None of you belonged on Bajor. It wasn't your world. For fifty years you raped our planet and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths, and I don't care whether you held a phaser in your hand or ironed shirts for a living. You were all guilty and you were all legitimate targets!

I assume you are talking about the scene in "When It Rains..." (S7E21).

Rusot : Anorak Prime [[[which is weapons depot, as in "a military facility", not a civilian one which is a very important detail]]] is defended by a cardassian garrison!
Odo : That's correct!
Seskal : You expect us to attack our own people?
Kira : If necessary, yes!
Rusot : That's out of the question!
Damar : I agree. We'll limit ourselves to targets defended by the Jem'hadar and the Breen.
Kira : (to Damar and Rusot) "Believe me, I understand how you feel. During the occupation, I didn't want to attack any facility that had a bajoran working in it but I did it. Because they were collaborators. They were working with the enemy."

Now, first of all Kira is strictly talking about bajorans in that context, not cardassians. Any bajorans who were not slaving away in the ore pits or farming probably WERE collaborators, and they profited off of their own peoples misery at the hands of the cardassian occupiers. As such, I agree with Kira that these traitorous bajorans were all legitimate targets.

Second, this is a weapons depot we are talking about. The argument between Kira and the cardassian resistance members like Damar & company came about when talking about a military facility and its cardassian garrison. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of military facilities defended by garrisons comprised of "innocent civilians" (because only civilians have the right to innocence - if they aren't traitorous collaborators, of course; soldiers are not innocent and have never been innocent in the history of armed conflict; they are fully aware of their orders, of the actions they take during combat and outside of combat are fully complicit to any atrocities they are ordered to commit or any atrocity which they commit out of their own volition).

So where exactly is this claim of "innocent cardassians" in your OP coming from?

IS it coming from the theoretical, hypothesized scenario that Kira talked about later in that scene after the part I quoted above?

Rusot : We're not bajorans, we don't kill our own! [[[this was meant as an insult implying that bajorans have no conscience and kill indiscriminately; quite rich coming from a race known for its aggressive and militaristic tendencies with a record of committing atrocities]]]
Kira : Well then you might as well just give up right now. Because the minute that the Dominion realizes that you will not attack your own people, they will station a cardassian at every base they have.
Odo : She's right. The Founders won't hesitate to play your own people against you.
Kira : Anyone who is not fighting with you is fighting against you.

And Kira is again 100% right in everything she says here (including the last sentence which epitomizes the mentality and attitude that a resistance/guerilla member should have if they want to actually achieve anything other then throwing their lives away for nothing).

Take note that again - there is no clear indication that the "people" that Rusot and Kira are arguing about are "innocent" or civilians. Quite the contrary, the previous exchange seems to suggest that the entire argument is about attacking a garrison of cardassian soldiers defending a military installation. Not exactly the kind of people I have in mind when thinking of the word "innocent". Not deserving of death? Some of them, surely. But "innocent"? Soldiers willingly following orders? Never, as far as I'm concerned.

But even if this particular situation that Kira and the cardassian resistance are arguing about here doesn't seem to concern anything other than garrisons of soldiers guarding military installations, I personally believe the writers intended to also draw attention to the difficult decision and internal turmoil that any resistance fighter is faced with when the occupation you are fighting against is willing to use civilians stationed in military installations (presumably under coercion and threat of violence) as a deterrent of resistance attacks upon those military facilities.

It's exactly the kind of tactic that a ruthless oppressor like the Dominion or the cardassians would use; and playing into their hand (by not attacking military targets just because civilians are forcefully held on the premises) is exactly the way to doom a resistance movement before it has any chance of gaining any traction. Even as former soldier (up to that point) loyal to the Central Command and Cardassia, Damar was wise enough to realize that what Kira was saying was completely true and that the only chance the resistance had was for all of them to stop thinking like soldiers and start thinking like a resistance fighter (outmanned, out gunned, always short on supplies and fighting constantly fighting against the odds against a much stronger opponent who starts from the position of already having the upper hand).

Both Kira and Damar knew that there was no such things as "innocent" when you are fighting a war (the only innocents being civilians and only those who decided not to betray their people just to save their own skin or worse yet - profit from their oppressed countrymen's misery like the bajoran collaborators did). And both of them have stated that they have done things they aren't proud of (well, Damar didn't state it directly, but the murder of his family seems to put his own murder of Ziyal - and the other wrong things he might've done during his soldier career - into perspective).

This to me makes Kira and Damar more alike than either of them would probably like to admit.

The Bajorans she called collaborators were more than just the Bajorans doing forced labor. It was the ones who joined the Cardassians' Bajoran police force, the guy who brought women to Dukat, the ones who were actively taking Cardassian jobs in exchange for perks.

WesleysDisciple said:

When she was working with the cardassian resistence to liberate cardassia from Dominion oppression.

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As Shadowboro explains in detail above, she never calls Cardassians collaborators in those episodes.

Mr. Laser Beam said:

You're not suggesting Kira would have considered Cardassians on their own homeworld to be legitimate targets, are you?

(to the extent that it might be possible for the resistance to target Cardassia itself, which of course would be zero)
Cardassians living on Bajor, yes. I can see where the resistance would target them. But average citizens who never leave Cardassia? What could they possibly have to do with this? (Apart from the military, of course.)

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I have no trouble believing that if the Bajoran resistance could have struck Cardassia, including it's civilian population, they would have done so. And I very much believe that Kira would have both been on board with it, and would have taken part in such operations if given the chance/order. Throughout the series she was very sober and honest about her activities as a resistance fighters and how far she was willing to go to liberate Bajor.
Their hope in doing so would have likely have been to scare and disturb the Cardassian population into forcing their leaders to withdraw from Bajor.

Mr. Laser Beam said:

Easier said than done.

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I know, that's why I said it was unfair towards them, but Kira was forced to fight since childhood and had her life and family taken away from her, so I don't see her as being very understanding towards people who live in peace and happiness and just watch as her people are being slaughtered.

Sorry if I Called them civilians didnt mean to, was just saying that soldier manning garrisons are collateral damage not "Collaborators"

Kill them if you must but dont pretend they deserve it.

WesleysDisciple said:

was just saying that soldier manning garrisons are collateral damage not "Collaborators"

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Yeah but as it has been pointed out, no one called them collaborators.

Kira going to help the Cardassian resistance fighters makes it kind of full circle but it also shows how much she has progressed over the years. She can still dust off that 'who is not for us is against us' mentality when circumstances require it, but she no longer is that person to her core, which she still very much was in season one. (To be fair, of course this also isn't her fight directly, she's merely involved as an instructor.)

Kira killed people that Kira had provide with a label that made it perfectly alright for Kira to kill. The label made it easier, Kira could even feel good about the deaths.

Kira was just killing gooks.

Its weird because I wouldn't call them collaborators because they're part of the Cardassian occupation.

It would be innocent Bajorans who worked with the Cardassians.

but do you see why Collateral damage seems more accurate to me?

Tenacity said:

Kira killed people that Kira had provide with a label that made it perfectly alright for Kira to kill. The label made it easier, Kira could even feel good about the deaths.

Kira was just killing gooks.

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"Cardassian" is not a perjorative term; Cardassians use the same term to describe themselves. And "collaborators" describes people's actions that they chose, not their race. "Gooks" on the other hand is strictly a racial perjorative, a nasty name to call someone of a certain race that they would not use themselves, and that is not based on their actions.

People who are in combat do tend to dehumanize their opponents to make it easier to kill them. That's one of the reasons war is a thing to avoid.

Orphalesion said:

I know, that's why I said it was unfair towards them, but Kira was forced to fight since childhood and had her life and family taken away from her, so I don't see her as being very understanding towards people who live in peace and happiness and just watch as her people are being slaughtered.

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From what we've seen of daily life on Cardassia...I can hardly believe that the general population ever lived in peace and happiness.

Under the thumb of the Obsidian Order, no one is ever happy or safe.

As for Kira: I honestly don't believe she would have advocated, or participated in, a direct strike against Cardassia itself. Just like Chakotay: his Maquis cell would not go that far either.

Although, since neither the Bajoran resistance nor the Maquis ever stood a chance of actually carrying that out (they didn't have anywhere close to the resources), I guess it's a moot point anyway.

I wonder why Kira was called, and called herself, a terrorist.

The Cardassian occupation machine was military in nature. An attack on a military installation or force is not terrorism. It is asymmetric warfare.

A better term for Kira and her people was "guerilla".