Did Sisko commit a war crime?

[Voth commando1]

It is made clear throughout For the Uniform the Maquis are on the offensive, the cardassians are reeling and close to breaking, and the federation desperate to prevent both Cardassian collapse and total Maquis/Klingon victory.

Eddington tells Sisko he had the Cardassians on the run. Had the dominion not intervened their empire would have collapsed the Klingons may have even reached Cardassia itself and the Maquis would have state in the DMZ.

Triumphantly showing Eddington prevailing against all Maquis enemies. That victory was in sight.

 

[at Quark's]

You need to get over Picard. He had nothing to do with this episode.

We don't know that there wasn't an inquiry after the events of the episode...

Hmm... couldn't help thinking of a scene where Picard was a member of that inquiry board.

Picard: 'What you have done is unconscionable. It goes against the principle of Starfleet, the very core of our tenets. You jeopardized the lives of defenseless colonists!' <all this with classic Picard inflections, of course>
Sisko: Whatever you say, Locutus.

 

[Ithekro]

Triumphantly showing Eddington prevailing against all Maquis enemies. That victory was in sight.

Bull. If the Klingons won the war, they would take the DMZ themselves as a prize and if the Maquis contested it, they'd get the same treatment the Cardassians got. Remember the Klingons were also basically at war with the Federation too. They would take the DMZ as a new border region to lead assaults at Deep Space Nine so they could secure the wormhole and prevent the Dominion from entering the quadrant. This I think is what happened in the alternate timelines where Sisko is removed. The Klingons take over the Bajor sector and later part of what use to be the Romulan Neutral Zone and are antagonistic with the Federation again by the turn of the 25th century.

If Starfleet has General Order 24, than Sisko had the authority to decimate the planet. He picked the method that actually allowed the population to leave and the planet to be habitable within what was probably the original conditions of the treaty signed with Cardassia....that several worlds would change hands between the two power and there would be a stable border. But no. Some colonists got overly sentimental over worlds they likely haven't been on for more that three generations near a hostile interstellar power. None more than two hundred years unless they started off as one of those random 22nd century lost colonies that basically fled Earth either just before or just after the formation of the Federation. They created this problem by not following the treaty and instead caused this DMZ to exist in the first place. They became that one frontier squatter that refuses to leave their failing farm on the route of a railroad, or the family that refuses to move when their home of thirty years gets reposed because their country lost a war and the land their home is on will be part of another country in a week. Instead the colonists refused to move, nearly restarted a war, and as a compromise, agreed to become Cardassian citizens because they were now on that side of the border. The DMZ was setup as a anti-forced relocation protection. To keep both the Cardassian High Command and Starfleet from forcing their new citizens to move out for more of their own peoples. Yet war still happened locally. The colonists, on both sides, are to blame. That Eddington escalated the issue by taking advantage of the Cardassian's weakness is the final straw. He went too far. Causing what amounts to a rebellion against two major powers and involving himself in an already three way war to try to become a fourth party in the conflict....that is too far. Defend your own home colony. That is one thing. Expanding into your neighbor's colonies and then fighting their defender and what had been your defenders while taking up allies with the enemies of both powers (the Klingons), is too far. Siding with the Klingons at that point is basically a declaration of war against the Federation as well as the Cardassian Union. It is high treason at the very least.

The planet is perfectly fine for non-human settlement. Just like the worlds Eddington bombed are perfectly fine for non-Cardassian settlement. Sisko had the option to just obliterate the colony with phasers and torpedoes. That would be legitimate under General Order 24.

 

[Arpy]

@Arpy, I appreciate the response, but I gotta go back to this:

What would you expect the Maquis to do with the colonists in the DMZ who refused to join them? Because if the situation was as "diverse" as you suggest, there must have been those living in that region who simply didn't want to fight. What do you think their fate would be?

I think we may disagree on what the situation looks like. The colonists were permitted to remain in the DMZ on both sides only if they kept the zone demilitarized. The Maquis did not form their own state with its own military and citizenry. Presumably the overwhelming majority of colonists on both sides were bystanders while covert groups within caused trouble. If everyone who remained was breaking the treaty, the Cardassians could have, by the treaty, forced the Federation to clear out their colonies entirely, leaving no "known Maquis worlds" or any others on their side inhabited at all. "Maquis worlds" were just ones known to have heavy Maquis sympathies and maybe gave Maquis cells warning before sending the local authorities after them.

 

[Arpy]

It is made clear throughout For the Uniform the Maquis are on the offensive, the cardassians are reeling and close to breaking, and the federation desperate to prevent both Cardassian collapse and total Maquis/Klingon victory.

Eddington tells Sisko he had the Cardassians on the run. Had the dominion not intervened their empire would have collapsed the Klingons may have even reached Cardassia itself and the Maquis would have state in the DMZ.

Triumphantly showing Eddington prevailing against all Maquis enemies. That victory was in sight.

I'd have to rewatch the episodes as I haven't in ages, but maybe the Maquis were on the offensive against the Cardassian colonies (can you trust Propaganda "The Federation are Worse Than the Borg" Eddington), but there's no way they're threatening a proper military. And IIRC the only reason the Klingons didn't make it to Cardassia Prime is because Sisko forced them to turn back and fight at DS9.

Hmm... couldn't help thinking of a scene where Picard was a member of that inquiry board.

Picard: 'What you have done is unconscionable. It goes against the principle of Starfleet, the very core of our tenets. You jeopardized the lives of defenseless colonists!' <all this with classic Picard inflections, of course>
Sisko: Whatever you say, Locutus.

No, really, let Picard go. Sisko was showing his ignorance being angry at Picard for what Locutus did. The Borg rape your soul into subservience. He was a victim of theirs as Jennifer was.

Bull. If the Klingons won the war, they would take the DMZ themselves as a prize and if the Maquis contested it, they'd get the same treatment the Cardassians got. Remember the Klingons were also basically at war with the Federation too. They would take the DMZ as a new border region to lead assaults at Deep Space Nine so they could secure the wormhole and prevent the Dominion from entering the quadrant. This I think is what happened in the alternate timelines where Sisko is removed. The Klingons take over the Bajor sector and later part of what use to be the Romulan Neutral Zone and are antagonistic with the Federation again by the turn of the 25th century.

If Starfleet has General Order 24, than Sisko had the authority to decimate the planet. He picked the method that actually allowed the population to leave and the planet to be habitable within what was probably the original conditions of the treaty signed with Cardassia....that several worlds would change hands between the two power and there would be a stable border. But no. Some colonists got overly sentimental over worlds they likely haven't been on for more that three generations near a hostile interstellar power. None more than two hundred years unless they started off as one of those random 22nd century lost colonies that basically fled Earth either just before or just after the formation of the Federation. They created this problem by not following the treaty and instead caused this DMZ to exist in the first place. They became that one frontier squatter that refuses to leave their failing farm on the route of a railroad, or the family that refuses to move when their home of thirty years gets reposed because their country lost a war and the land their home is on will be part of another country in a week. Instead the colonists refused to move, nearly restarted a war, and as a compromise, agreed to become Cardassian citizens because they were now on that side of the border. The DMZ was setup as a anti-forced relocation protection. To keep both the Cardassian High Command and Starfleet from forcing their new citizens to move out for more of their own peoples. Yet war still happened locally. The colonists, on both sides, are to blame. That Eddington escalated the issue by taking advantage of the Cardassian's weakness is the final straw. He went too far. Causing what amounts to a rebellion against two major powers and involving himself in an already three way war to try to become a fourth party in the conflict....that is too far. Defend your own home colony. That is one thing. Expanding into your neighbor's colonies and then fighting their defender and what had been your defenders while taking up allies with the enemies of both powers (the Klingons), is too far. Siding with the Klingons at that point is basically a declaration of war against the Federation as well as the Cardassian Union. It is high treason at the very least.

The planet is perfectly fine for non-human settlement. Just like the worlds Eddington bombed are perfectly fine for non-Cardassian settlement. Sisko had the option to just obliterate the colony with phasers and torpedoes. That would be legitimate under General Order 24.

I haven't seen the pertinent eps of TOS in a while either, but IIRC General Order 24 was to kill all life on a planet. Not all hostile or intelligent life, but all life altogether. I think Kirk threatened Eminar with its use as a bluff. The Order doesn't strike me as standard operating procedure when the Feds are at war, nor would its counterpart be when most baddies are at war either. Why would you kill all the trees too? It sounds like a sterilization order when a planet's been corrupted by some dangerous agent or something. Fundamentally, the Federation, or any even half-civilized nation, does not genocide as a matter of course.

What were the "altered timelines where Sisko is removed"?

 

[at Quark's]

No, really, let Picard go. Sisko was showing his ignorance being angry at Picard for what Locutus did. The Borg rape your soul into subservience. He was a victim of theirs as Jennifer was.

First of all, I wasn't being serious.

Secondly, I think it is perfectly possible Sisko understood that rationally very well and still resented Picard for it. After all, he's only human (at least, at this point in the series). If I were to 'blame' Sisko for anything, it would not be for his resentment toward Picard, but for seeming to have get stuck mentally at that point in time - which is exactly what the prophets do later in the same episode. His enduring resentment to Picard would only be a logical consequence of that. It would have been interesting to see his attitude towards Picard at the end of DS9, when his adventures and his interaction with the prophets had changed him profoundly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

IGeneral Order 24 was to kill all life on a planet. Not all hostile or intelligent life, but all life altogether. I think Kirk threatened Eminar with its use as a bluff. The Order doesn't strike me as standard operating procedure when the Feds are at war, nor would its counterpart be when most baddies are at war either. Why would you kill all the trees too? It sounds like a sterilization order when a planet's been corrupted by some dangerous agent or something. Fundamentally, the Federation, or any even half-civilized nation, does not genocide as a matter of course.

I'm still not convinced that there ever really WAS a General Order 24. I think it was just a bluff, designed to scare the Eminiar council.

 

[kkt]

I'm still not convinced that there ever really WAS a General Order 24. I think it was just a bluff, designed to scare the Eminiar council.

I like that interpretation. Starfleet, even in the old series, didn't go around sterilizing entire planets often enough to need to order it by number. I can just see some rookie captain, "You killed the entire planet? I meant General Order 23, 'Shore leave for the entire crew'. My bad."

 

[fireproof78]

It is made clear throughout For the Uniform the Maquis are on the offensive, the cardassians are reeling and close to breaking, and the federation desperate to prevent both Cardassian collapse and total Maquis/Klingon victory.

Eddington tells Sisko he had the Cardassians on the run. Had the dominion not intervened their empire would have collapsed the Klingons may have even reached Cardassia itself and the Maquis would have state in the DMZ.

Triumphantly showing Eddington prevailing against all Maquis enemies. That victory was in sight.

That would have ended in tragedy for Eddington, with the Maquis "victory" being swallowed up by the Klingons.

And this assumes that Eddington is an accurate reported, which I can safely say that he is heavily biased.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I'm still not convinced that there ever really WAS a General Order 24. I think it was just a bluff, designed to scare the Eminiar council.

Just keep in mind that it is a pet theory.

 

[fireproof78]

Just keep in mind that it is a pet theory.

It was always treated seriously in every Star Trek encyclopedia, concordance, novel and the like I've ever read.

 

[Ithekro]

What were the "altered timelines where Sisko is removed"?

"The Visitor". I sort of think that TNG's "All Good Things" is also this timeline, as is possibly the timeline of Admiral Janeway who going to get her ship home twenty years or so early, since all three of those timelines are roughly consistent, yet all should be nullified by events within either their own series, or events in other series and films that make those events more or less impossible.

 

[Mattadd]

I just remembered that Sisko was actually taken off the mission to hunt down Eddington. So he wasn't even the field commander and thus had absolutely no authority to deal with the situation. Therefore it's virtually certain what he did was criminal since he just went rogue. Man that losses me off even more now since there were no consequences for him.

 

[Mattadd]

Pisses me off* stupid autocorrect and me not being able to edit my posts.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I If everyone who remained was breaking the treaty, the Cardassians could have, by the treaty, forced the Federation to clear out their colonies entirely.

I wonder if that was ever attempted in court. Sounds like Cardassia *and* the Federation both had a case for removal, under those grounds.

 

[Prax]

Sisko probably resents Picard because of the Borg thing, and probably because Picard is always being hailed in the news as a hero.

Once he acquired his own glory and fame, he got over it.

 

[Jono]

I just remembered that Sisko was actually taken off the mission to hunt down Eddington. So he wasn't even the field commander and thus had absolutely no authority to deal with the situation. Therefore it's virtually certain what he did was criminal since he just went rogue. Man that losses me off even more now since there were no consequences for him.

A biological attack on a Cardassian colony by the Maquis would probably be more than enough justification allowing for Sisko to go back out there. The bigger issue in that situation is probably the state of the Defiant and whether it was fit to undertake the mission. Plus you could add in Sander from the Malinche handing over the assignment back to Sisko after the Malinche is put out of action also murkying the waters.

 

[Arpy]

First of all, I wasn't being serious.

It is a continuing theme among Niners though, isn't it -- injecting Picard into conversations, when TNG fans rarely ever do Sisko? To the joke at Picard's expense (first for putting him in the Inquisition against Sisko, then for, what, actually having a clear grasp of the situation?), you make Sisko forget, like he did in "Emissary," that Picard did no such thing that Sisko accuses/snickers at him, and that Sisko is essentially making fun of someone for being mind-raped and killing 11,000 people. ...Chip, remove thyself from shoulder.

 

[Voth commando1]

Eddington only attacked Federation ships because the federation wouldn't let the Maquis prosecute their war against the Cardassians.

 

[Prax]

It is a continuing theme among Niners though, isn't it -- injecting Picard into conversations, when TNG fans rarely ever do Sisko? To the joke at Picard's expense (first for putting him in the Inquisition against Sisko, then for, what, actually having a clear grasp of the situation?), you make Sisko forget, like he did in "Emissary," that Picard did no such thing that Sisko accuses/snickers at him, and that Sisko is essentially making fun of someone for being mind-raped and killing 11,000 people. ...Chip, remove thyself from shoulder.

Sisko Snickered at him? I thought Sisko sounded really butt hurt when Q says "Picard never hit me."

Eddington only attacked Federation ships because the federation wouldn't let the Maquis prosecute their war against the Cardassians.

It seems more like Sisko wouldn't leave Eddington alone. When Sisko contacts the other ship and asks for help catching a Maquis ship, the other captain is like "Maquis? What do I care? And Sisko says "eddddiiinggton." and the captain responds "Ahhhh, everyone's favorite traitor."

I've always had the feeling that SF was clandestinely supporting the Maquis. Maybe SF intelligence was supplying them with resources. It makes sense. The Cardassians thought this and they aren't stupid.

Sisko's hunt for Eddington was a personal vendetta. That's why he was told by SF to leave it alone, and the Malinche would handle it.