Did Sisko commit a war crime?

[Voth commando1]

Whatever you want. Is it Starfleet's responsibility to hand-hold former officers through their career ennui? I don't think it is.

Eddington would have been a former terrorists who just lost apparently the cause in life he had devoted himself to.

And no happiness is not entitlement that's why it has to be sought and sometimes fought for.

Also Eddington wasn't interested in the Maquis for their agricultural authenticity he had political motives for joining as well.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Also Eddington wasn't interested in the Maquis for their agricultural authenticity he had political motives for joining as well.

It was not the only thing that drew him to the fight, but his constant critique of the Federation was that it undermined authentic culture.

 

[Voth commando1]

It was not the only thing that drew him to the fight, but his constant critique of the Federation was that it undermined authentic culture.

He states the Federation was like and was "worse than the Borg" in their expansionist aims.

So it was a philosophical and political disagreement.

 

[fireproof78]

Eddington would have been a former terrorists who just lost apparently the cause in life he had devoted himself to.

And no happiness is not entitlement that's why it has to be sought and sometimes fought for.

Also Eddington wasn't interested in the Maquis for their agricultural authenticity he had political motives for joining as well.

But, his political aspirations seemed to be far in excess of political reality. His interventions in a political hotspot was not a way to resolve the situation, and his inexperienced showed through.

That's why I disagree with Eddington. He didn't think things all the way through and got people killed as a result of it.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

He states the Federation were like and were "worse than the Borg" in their expansionist aims.

"Assimilate," whether used in the real world or within the Trek universe when talking about the Borg, is not geostrategic, but cultural. Yes, there are geostrategic consequences to what the Borg do, but the arguments for assimilation are that what make you unique are unimportant, that everything can be subsumed by a gigantic collective identity.

Let's look at what Eddington says:

Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators because one day they can take their rightful place on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it.

He's also not talking about things that are geostrategic.

 

[Voth commando1]

"Assimilate," whether used in the real world or within the Trek universe when talking about the Borg, is not geostrategic, but cultural. Yes, there are geostrategic consequences to what the Borg do, but the arguments for assimilation are that what make you unique are unimportant, that everything can be subsumed by a gigantic collective identity.

Let's look at what Eddington says:

Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators because one day they can take their rightful place on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it.

He's also not talking about things that are geostrategic.

He's talking about a Federation ideological conceit-that everybody will join us eventually because we're awesome, good people, and our bubbliness, root beer and utopian state will entice others to stop opposing us and soon see the world as we do and join us together. Basically the Federation's ideological triump over its enemies is inevitable and unstoppable.

This is what he objects to.

 

[Arpy]

^ It sounds like he's throwing a temper tantrum because "the good guys" aren't siding with him and the Maquis, so he's trying to redefine things, if only for himself. "Fine, be all perfect, whatever. I now say that good is evil. I say that people choosing right, since everyone does it once they see it, is worse than evil, since not everyone chooses it, even after great temptation." Oh. Ok.

How about this. How about you realize that sometimes the reality on the ground is a crappy one, and that it's hard for the good guys to see good done? If you want to go off and become a terrorist for your cause, that's your morally dubious choice to make; but if you can't make it without having to vilify the un-villainous, then you're already off to a morally corrupt start.

It's crap like that that makes me less sympathetic toward Eddington. It wasn't that he was just a guy that believed in a cause. In "For the Uniform," you saw him enjoy beating Sisko time and again. He liked "playing revolutionary." Real revolutionaries, real heroes, like their causes but are angry to have to fight for them. I didn't sense anger in Eddington so much as obstinance. He liked showing off.

Maybe he was bored in his security job and sought a more genuine life for himself, but that's on him. The luddite chorus about real vegetables struck me as something someone looking for a cause would grab on to. Replicated food probably both tastes better and is more healthy, not to mention less cruel to the plants and animals, but, no, let's let the power of suggestion say that something called "real" is better. (This is, of course, complicated, given that today much of what passes as "real" or "low fat" or "healthy" isn't, and that much of the flavor of fruits and vegetables is lost due to modern growing practices, but that's a different matter.) No one betrays their country because they they found better local produce.

 

[DonIago]

I really do wonder how the Maquis would have felt if their aggravations had led to a full out war between the Federation and Cardassia. Assuming any of them lived to have feelings about it.

 

[FPAlpha]

^ It sounds like he's throwing a temper tantrum because "the good guys" aren't siding with him and the Maquis, so he's trying to redefine things, if only for himself. "Fine, be all perfect, whatever. I now say that good is evil. I say that people choosing right, since everyone does it once they see it, is worse than evil, since not everyone chooses it, even after great temptation." Oh. Ok.

How about this. How about you realize that sometimes the reality on the ground is a crappy one, and that it's hard for the good guys to see good done? If you want to go off and become a terrorist for your cause, that's your morally dubious choice to make; but if you can't make it without having to vilify the un-villainous, then you're already off to a morally corrupt start.

It's crap like that that makes me less sympathetic toward Eddington. It wasn't that he was just a guy that believed in a cause. In "For the Uniform," you saw him enjoy beating Sisko time and again. He liked "playing revolutionary." Real revolutionaries, real heroes, like their causes but are angry to have to fight for them. I didn't sense anger in Eddington so much as obstinance. He liked showing off.

Maybe he was bored in his security job and sought a more genuine life for himself, but that's on him. The luddite chorus about real vegetables struck me as something someone looking for a cause would grab on to. Replicated food probably both tastes better and is more healthy, not to mention less cruel to the plants and animals, but, no, let's let the power of suggestion say that something called "real" is better. (This is, of course, complicated, given that today much of what passes as "real" or "low fat" or "healthy" isn't, and that much of the flavor of fruits and vegetables is lost due to modern growing practices, but that's a different matter.) No one betrays their country because they they found better local produce.

For me Eddington was sort of a loser.. his Starfleet career didn't seem to take off the way he wished so he was maybe a lttle pissed which may have planted the seed of discord. He meets the Maquis and sees a group that's pissing off the Federation and gives him a way to let out the resentment and anger he feels towards the Federation.

With any monstrous organization like the Federation or basically any organization there will be people who may lose out in the process whenever decisions are made.. the government needs your land for some infrastructure or security purpose and If you're lucky you live in a country that will try to find a way to reimburse you.. either buy your land (and by law you have to sell) or find you an appropriate piece of land elsewhere. That doesn't mean you have to like it, especially if you don't want to move but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.. it's reality.

The Federation went out of their way to accommodate the settlers and it didn't work so they turned to terrorism as a last resort. You can try to turn it any which way but it remains terrorism in the end.. it's not noble to kill people who had nothing to do with the decision and just have to enforce it, it's not romantic in the vein of "Us vs them" like it is when people rise up against an unlawful and cruel government (you think the Cardassians would have taken lip from their settlers if it were reversed? They'd roll on with the fleet and bomb the crap out of them).

It's always difficult for such people to adapt.. as a group they're too small to have an effect on the government legally (as in get elected in numbers to the government to be able to affect real change in policy), too small to have any kind of significant military impact. It's just stubborness mingled with the fact that their arguments are also very valid but they are sort of crushed under the wheels of the masses who have decided that they need to lose out in order for the masses to profit. Unfortunately that's also life when you're part of a large organization and you may get unlucky someday and find yourself on the wrong side of it but it still doesn't give you the right to resort to killing and destroying.

 

[Arpy]

I didn't see him as a loser. He got to the top security position at one of the most important stations in half the galaxy. He then maybe "turned the tide" of the Maquis resistance (not backed by a government) against the Cardassian colonies that were. He also bested the two Starfleet starships and captains charged with dealing with the Maquis. Apparently the only way for Sisko to stop him was for him to betray his uniform.

I also have some sympathy for the Maquis. The situation was too dangerous for me to say that I'd stick around if it were me in the DMZ, especially when the Cardassians didn't stick to their part of the treaty (why DIDN'T the Federation start a war or impose sanctions over that? We don't know what went on beyond the little part of the conflict we saw). But if the Maquis could defend themselves, so be it. They were not in the wrong having to do so. But when they started endangering or ending the lives of innocents on the other side, again, I was out. I would not be turned into the thing that I hated.

Eddington seemed like he had been living up to someone else's expectations his whole life, then didn't know how to pick a good one. He latched onto one that seemed like a romantic one at the time, with the aforementioned luddite bent, and lost himself in it. If anything, I find him an example of just how dangerous the "pursuit of happiness" can be. But I feel like if he'd been less of a "winner" when he was younger, maybe he'd have had more experience with gaining better perspective in choosing a different path when he finally did.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

a Federation ideological conceit-that everybody will join us eventually because we're awesome, good people, and our bubbliness, root beer and utopian state will entice others to stop opposing us and soon see the world as we do and join us together. Basically the Federation's ideological triump over its enemies is inevitable and unstoppable.

I'm having a hard time disagreeing with this, to be honest.

This is what he objects to.

Actually I think he's just objecting to peace.

As a terrorist and a revolutionary, Eddington wants war. Everlasting war. War that he gets to lead. Terrorists never want peace, all they ever want to do is fight. And they'll always find an excuse to fight.

 

[Voth commando1]

I'm having a hard time disagreeing with this, to be honest.



Actually I think he's just objecting to peace.

As a terrorist and a revolutionary, Eddington wants war. Everlasting war. War that he gets to lead. Terrorists never want peace, all they ever want to do is fight. And they'll always find an excuse to fight.

IU-I'd agree with the Federation. The Federation's utopia is marching onwards and soon everybody will see its benefits outweigh any negatives. But Eddington disagrees that this ideological evangelization and conquest is a good thing,

He presents a far more ideological challenge that just blowing things up and killing people.

Eddington seems to support a more restrained live by the sweat of your brow and defend and love your home and hearth sort of worldview.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Eddington seems to support a more restrained live by the sweat of your brow and defend and love your home and hearth sort of worldview.

Yep, his johnny-come-lately authenticity.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Eddington seems to support a more restrained live by the sweat of your brow and defend and love your home and hearth sort of worldview.

Then he should have gone off and lived that life, and not keep attacking the Federation.

Despite Eddington's neuroses, the Federation does not force anyone to join, nor does it prevent worlds from leaving. Even if the DMZ is no longer an option, there would have been plenty of other, safer worlds where the population of the colonies could have lived whatever life they wanted. But Eddington wanted everything his own way NOW, NOW, NOW.

Indeed, the very fact that Eddington was so militantly anti-Federation showed that he was essentially insecure in his own feelings. If he had been confident enough in the Maquis' manifesto, he wouldn't have spent so much time ranting. Deep down he feared that the Federation was, and is, right all along.

 

[Voth commando1]

I'd disagree that Eddington is a loser-as previously mentioned "he turned the tide", bested at least two star fleet captains, and was an excellent security officer during his time on DS9. It's just that his heart and soul weren't in the Federation.

That happens-people with successful careers and lives throw that away because they find the bland careerism and hedonism ultimately unfulfilling.

Eddington joined a cause he believed in, led men and women into battle, and put his latent talents as a commander to use.

He almost succeeded and furthermore he was an underdog. And underdogs are always worth rooting for.

 

[Lynx]

I watched this episode yesterday and I must admit that Sisko did lose a few points in my book here.

He acted like an obsessed moron, not like a responsible Starfleet officer.

And yes, what he did was a war crime, an act of terrorism.

One can always state that he did what the Maquis were doing to the Cardassians. But as I see it, the Maquis had at least some excuse for doing that to the Cardassians because the Cardassians started the conflict with the settlers in the DMZ.

Sisko had no excuse at all, other than his personal hatred for Eddington.

In fact, Eddington is actually the good guy here, a freedom fighter.

He joined the Maquis because he wanted to help the settlers in the DMZ who were terrorized by the Cardassians. He wasn't a kiler, something he did show over and over again in this episode. He avoided to kill civilians, he even gave Sisko the chance to save the Cardassians in that evacuation ship.

And he was actually right when he told Sisko that the Federation should stay out of that conflict. The Maquis had no conflict with the Federation, only with the Cardassians.

I must also state that I dislike Federation policy in this matter.

First they sell out the colonies in the DMZ to get "peace in our time". Then they side up with the Cardassians against the Maquis who are only fighting for the rights of the settlers on those planets in the DMZ.

Not to mention that they started to support the Cardassians against the Klingons, actually an ally to the Federation, thus creating a totally unnecessary conflict with the Klingons.

And what they got for that was Dukat seizing power and the Cardassians joining the Dominion-against the Federation.

Now that's what I call bad politics!

If I had been President of the Federation, I would never had sold out the colonies in the DMZ in the first place.

If I had been elected after the sell-out, I wouldn't have attacked the Maquis. And when the Klingon-Cardassian conflict broke out, I would have taken the opportunity to incorporate the planets in the DMZ into the Federation again, thus solving the Maquis problem and let the Klingons deal with the Cardassians.

As for Sisko, this is a pity because I really started to like the guy during the seasons I've watched so far. Hopefully he will get his points back in my book during the coming episodes.

 

[Tenacity]

the Federation does not force anyone to join, nor does it prevent worlds from leaving

However the whole Federation - Cardassian War shows that the Federation is willing to engage in combat in order to acquire territory.

The episode Errand of Mercy shows the same thing.

Also, did the Baku have the option of leaving Federation space?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

However the whole Federation - Cardassian War shows that the Federation is willing to engage in combat in order to acquire territory.

The Federation didn't fight Cardassia to conquer it. They fought for the same reason they fight all wars: to prevent themselves from being conquered.

The episode Errand of Mercy shows the same thing.

Again, the Federation never intended to force Organia to become a member. They were there to stop the Klingons from annexing it.

Also, did the Baku have the option of leaving Federation space?

There was never any indication that the Ba'ku had starships which could carry them away. They did have (hidden) technology, but no actual ships of their own.

That said, the Federation (and the Son'a) were only interested in the planetary rings. Not adding the population itself to Federation membership. If the Ba'ku had chosen to leave, nobody would have cared.

 

[cultcross]

The first war, I imagine, is what @Tenacity is referring to. We don't know why that was fought, but we know that it led to territorial disputes along the border which ultimately gave rise to the Marquis. It seems likely that the Federation were colonising planets the Cardassians saw as theirs.

 

[DonIago]

I like that everyone talks about the Cardassians beating up on Federation colonists but nobody talks about the fact that "The Maquis" two-parter makes it clear that the Federation colonists were giving as good as they were getting.