Maquis vs the Federation and Sisko.

[Dancing Doctor]

But if those planets are no longer under the control of the Federation, and are neutral or Cardassian, doesn't that mean that the obligation is on the Cardassians?

I had always interpreted the Demilitarized Zone as to mean that no Cardassian or Starfleet vessels could enter there (at least, not without both organizations represented)

 

[stj]

^^^Well, Federation citizens engaging in military activity is a violation of the demilitarized zone. Cardassian action against the Maquis is also permitted (and from their view desired) but it is not a legal obligation.

I would think Cardassia could agree to police action by Federations vessels. They could forbid it by the treaty, or treat Maquis activity as a casus belli (the true goal of the Maquis?) but they have a choice in how they pursue redress of a wrong against them.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

stj said:
^^^Well, Federation citizens engaging in military activity is a violation of the demilitarized zone. Cardassian action against the Maquis is also permitted (and from their view desired) but it is not a legal obligation.

But the people committing the military action still have to be Federation citizens. I'm not sure that their status was ever made clear beyond "supposed freedom fighters".

And it's all right for the Cardassians to go after the Maquis, but not the Federation? The situation you had set up is very specific and somewhat limiting.

I would think Cardassia could agree to police action by Federations vessels. They could forbid it by the treaty, or treat Maquis activity as a casus belli (the true goal of the Maquis?) but they have a choice in how they pursue redress of a wrong against them.

I think the Federation has as much a right to police and patrol the DMZ as the Cardassians do, to be honest. It's not just former (or current) Federation citizens fighting, it's also former (or current) Cardassian citizens taking arms.

 

[stj]

Well the Maquis may not have formally renounced Federation citizenship in the first place. Even if they did, the renunciation does not have to be accepted. Nor doe it matter. If Romulans were buying or stealing Federation weapons and ships for a private war in the DMS, the Federation would be obligated to act.

The treaty gave some planets to Cardassia and set up a DMZ. When the colonists refuse to demilitarize, they have unilaterally prevented the Federation honoring the treaty. Military personnel from Starfleet joining the Maquis compounds the violation.

The only relevant issue about sovereignty (and by extension, citizenship) is whether a minority (even a local majority) can exercise sovereign rights, which includes waging war. I think just asking the correct question makes it clear how extraordinary the Maquis claims are. The only way I can see people thinking them rational is if they are thinking that there cannot really be a peace with the Cardassians.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Daedalus12 said:

JM1776 said:

And yet the Klingon invasion, having occurred, was then reasonably factored into the subsequent Maquis strategy---a strategy that had already proven successful even before said unlikely happenstance. Thus, to say that the Maquis plan of action (now further bolstered by Klingon support) should suddenly be considered foolish because a debateably unlikely event (if we consider the period of Klingon quiesence a relative aberration, as it clearly is in light of Trek history) is then followed by an entirely unlikely event (the Dominion/Cardassian alliance) simply does not follow.

Cnsider the hypothetical scenario in which none of these two events happens since they are both unlikely and in the DS9 universe they were both engineered by the Founders.

Maquis's plan would still be foolish because it won't achieve peace in the short term and in the long term it can only lead to either their destruction (in the hands of Cardassians) or deportation (in the hands of the Federation). According the basic tenets of game theory such course of action is by all accounts foolish.

You're analyzing after the fact and attempting to apply a specious equational model for what occurred, as if the eventual result was inevitable. While the idea of a Maquis state existing perpetually in that form is indeed unlikely, a number of options other than their complete destruction at Dominion hands present themselves as distinct possibilities.

My point is actually based on the events before the Klingon invasion and Dominion alliance with Cardassia. The Maquis was stucked in a pertual fighting state. Any temporary stalemate they won was short-lived and they were facing two superior military powers with larger manpower and resources. In essence they were at the mercy of their neighbors. In the short run there might be some victories for the Maquis because of their tactical ingenuity and the clever usage of the badlands but eventually they'll run into a supply problem and that would be end of the Maquis.

If you don't want someone to make an observation about your comment, don't make said comment in the first place.

Of course by all means you can make all that comment about me as I don't really care. I was just replying to your reply which said that you were just taking advantage the vulnerable position that I set for myself even though this is just an internet debate between only two of us. There is simply no audience behind for you to take advantage of the sympathy card.

Unless of course, it works---which, like it or not, admit it or not, it had been. Can't argue ... or, rather, can't argue credibly ... against results. The Maquis were hit by a bolt from the blue; until then, they'd survived and prospered. That trumps any other argument.

Sure they were still alive but they were also in a state of constant fighting which to me shows that the plan is hardly working. Believe or not carrying the intermittent guerilla warfares for 10 years is not the best way of live. They could've had 10 years of peace if they just moved out of the planets in the DMZ initially.

Note that it was neither of the three predictable powers that caused their demise, but the unlooked-for arrival on the scene of a fourth. Again, it's not "thick-skulled" to fall victim to an entirely unpredictable circumstance.

What part of long-term do you not understand. Eventually the Maquis semi-state is going to die even without Dominion interference. There was no way that they can take the war to Cardassia and that is going to eventually bite them in the ass. The Federation throughout TNG/DS9 seemed only interested in assisting the Cardassians to stop the Maquis. Essentially the Maquis are surrounded.

We're not going to see eye-to-eye on this. I suggest we agree to disagree.

You do have a bit of wild frontier spirit in you. Kind like the Maquis actually. Rather going down fighting for you land than taking the easy way out.

This whole disscusion reminds me of a popular song by Michael Jackson (and boy, do the lyrics fit) ;

Beat It-Michael Jackson

They told him don't you ever come around here
Don't wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it

You better run, you better do what you can
Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man (Uh)
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong it's your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it

Uh!

They're out to get you, better leave while you can
Don't wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man
You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
So beat it, just beat it (Uh)

You have to show them that you're really not scared (Uh)
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare (Uh)
They'll kick you, then they beat you,
Then they'll tell you it's fair
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it (beat it), beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong it's your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

CHORUS
Just beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong it's your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it


Beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong it's your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
(Oooh, right!)
(Wooohooo)

Just beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated (Oh, lord)
Showin' how funky (Eeh, eeh) strong it's your fight (Eeh, eeh)
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated (Oh, no)
Showin' how funky (Eeh, eeh) strong it's your fight (Eeh, eeh)
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it (beat it) beat it (beat it)
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky strong it's your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right (Who’s wrong)
Just beat it (beat it) (Wooohooo)
Beat it, beat it, beat it
====================================================

I hope that the song's intent comes out as clear as ever.

 

[Hermiod]

stj said:
^^^Sorry, I take Dorvan V as the precedent setting case.

Anyhow, the demilitarization of the demilitarized zone means Maquis activity violates the treaty, imposing the obligation to suppress it upon the Federation.

Yes it does. However, we all know that the Cardassians violated the treaty first by arming their colonists.

In the poll, I voted that any defensive action the Maquis took was justifiable. I do not blame people for protecting their families and their homes.

 

[Timo]

Not all homes are worth defending, though. In most cases, an abhorrent ideology can only be uprooted by hurting the homes of the leaders and followers of that ideology.

Certainly the Maquis would see their actions as justifiable defensive ones. But so would the Nazis, or the Southern slavers, or the Mongol hordes. Bank robbery is home defense, too, in the economic sense. Different parties to the act of home defense are simply always going to have different views on it, and the UFP would appear to be a democracy where the majority would be opposed to the home defense of the Maquis minority.

The argument of "hell, no, we won't go" is especially facetious in the case of Trek deep space colonization. The very fact that these people could build homes where they did is proof that they could do it elsewhere just as well; and their claim to their "home turf" is ridiculous to begin with, as that turf is the topsoil of another planet! Would we think fondly today of the old conquistadors who declared entire hemispheres as their sovereign property by planting a flag or a cross on a remote beach? Clinging onto land is an understandable obsession, but I find it strange to the extreme that the 24th century folks who shun obsession with possession would tolerate such a thing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

As pretty much every other sci-fi show except Star Trek likes to point out, humans build communities. They should not be expected to uproot everything just because somebody signed a piece of paper.

They weren't clinging on to land as a possession, they were clinging on to the community that they had built.

The Federation never should have put colonies that close to Cardassian space (although in Dorvan V's case it was unavoidable).

 

[Nebusj]

Hermiod said:
As pretty much every other sci-fi show except Star Trek likes to point out, humans build communities. They should not be expected to uproot everything just because somebody signed a piece of paper.

Maybe the Federation would have avoided the endless wars of the 24th century if the treaties they signed were worth the paper they were printed out on.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

I think most everyone in here agrees that the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2369/2370 was a shameful, tragic piece of work.

 

[Nebusj]

Admiral Valeris said:
I think most everyone in here agrees that the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2369/2370 was a shameful, tragic piece of work.

I'm sorry, I'm not fully up on proper names and dates. Is that the treaty which Captain Maxwell decided to ignore so he could launch pirate raids against the Cardassians, or is that the treaty that Admiral Whatsername chose to ignore, sending Picard in to destroy the Cardassian Weapons of Plot Destruction that they just happened to not have at all? Or was it the treaty setting Federation/Cardassian boundaries that Federation citizens decided wasn't worth following because it inconvenienced them?

 

[Dancing Doctor]

The latter one, although it would appear that any treaties involving the Cardassians were crap until the Treaty of Bajor which ended the Dominion War.

 

[pookha]

one of the things about the maquis to me is that you are talking about people who have only lived there around about 20 years not for generations and generations.
people on this planet every day have to give up homes for freeways ect some with generational ties to the land.

here they were in an obvious dangerous situation and had been offered similar safer planets to settle on.

 

[stj]

War is shameful and tragic.

 

[Hermiod]

Nebusj said:
Maybe the Federation would have avoided the endless wars of the 24th century if the treaties they signed were worth the paper they were printed out on.

The Federation acts in good faith.

That's more than I can say for the Romulans - setting up Alidar Jarok to draw the Enterprise across the Neutral Zone so they can capture it.

Or the Cardassians - planting false intelligence so they can capture Picard and get the information they need to invade Minos Korva.

Or the Klingons - lying to their closest and most powerful allies about their intentions towards the Cardassians and then having the gall to call them dishonourable and cowards when they refuse to go along with it.

Nebusj said:
I'm sorry, I'm not fully up on proper names and dates. Is that the treaty which Captain Maxwell decided to ignore so he could launch pirate raids against the Cardassians, or is that the treaty that Admiral Whatsername chose to ignore, sending Picard in to destroy the Cardassian Weapons of Plot Destruction that they just happened to not have at all? Or was it the treaty setting Federation/Cardassian boundaries that Federation citizens decided wasn't worth following because it inconvenienced them?

As far as Maxwell goes - one lunatic does not set policy, even if he is right (and he was). Perhaps the Federation should have gone to war with the Ferengi over the actions of some of their DaiMon's over the years ? Attacking the Stargazer ? The Hathaway ? The Enterprise ?

When the Federation sent Picard to destroy the fake Cardassian biological weapons, they did so based on false information that the Cardassians intended for them to find so they could capture Picard and invade Minos Korva.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have very little sympathy for the Maquis. I view them as arrogant pricks with delusions of revolution, who couldn't take the time to move to any number of thousands of available (some of them probably even uninhabited) worlds. The Maquis are, effectively, no different from those colonists in TNG's "The Ensigns of Command" who stubbornly refused to leave in the face of a certain Sheliak invasion force.

"But they didn't want to abandon their homes," people will say. Well, there's bigger and more important forces at work here. Their homes don't mean squat! They can always find NEW homes, at any rate. If I know that a tornado is headed towards my house and will destroy it, I'll move. I won't stay and try to drive the tornado off. And there's also eminent domain: the government can take my land in order to build a highway, or a hospital, or anything which benefits the greater good. Do I have a choice? No. I'll take the payment and get the fuck out. As is my obligation.

And don't even get me started on Eddington. What an asshole. He was so full of complete and utter SHIT as to be completely worthy. "No one leaves the Federation"? As Sherman Potter would say: Horse-hockey! I'm sure planets have been kicked out of the Federation since it started. And the Federation is not "worse than the Borg". Give me a fuckin' break already.

The Maquis might conceivably not have *wanted* a war with Cardassia, but their actions would have led to one. As it stands, the Federation is fully within its rights to do whatever it has to do in order to preserve the peace.

That being said: One of my absolute favorite scenes in the entirety of DS9 - perhaps in all Trek - was in "For the Uniform" (I think that's the ep) where Sisko fires trilithium bombs at the Maquis colonies in the DMZ and makes it perfectly clear that he will, if necessary, obliterate each and every one of them. Sisko PWNED the Maquis with one stroke. :thumbsup:

 

[Timo]

...Of course, we have only his word that the targets were Maquis. Until that point, the Maquis had been an organization operating within the DMZ colonies (as well as a few other locations). Suddenly, everybody sharing a planet with that organization is a target. How about nuking all of Oklahoma to get the likes of McVeigh? That'll show them...

I'm sure planets have been kicked out of the Federation since it started.

Never heard of one, though. Not even when said planets practice racist slavery like Ardana. And even people who colonized planets before there was a Federation are held to UFP standards of conduct whenever a hero starship pays a visit. Perhaps we only see the stick in these episodes, and fail to see the giant carrot that UFP membership offers; nevertheless, UFP certainly likes to rule over its citizens just as much as every other empire in the 'hood.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Timo said:

I'm sure planets have been kicked out of the Federation since it started.

Never heard of one, though. Not even when said planets practice racist slavery like Ardana.

To be fair, nobody knew about that until Kirk and crew showed up there. (FWIW, one of the things Manny Coto wanted to do for ENT's fifth season was a visit to Stratos.)

And even people who colonized planets before there was a Federation are held to UFP standards of conduct whenever a hero starship pays a visit.

Explain.

Perhaps we only see the stick in these episodes, and fail to see the giant carrot that UFP membership offers; nevertheless, UFP certainly likes to rule over its citizens just as much as every other empire in the 'hood.

The Federation is not an empire. It doesn't conquer by force, it doesn't enslave the weak, it doesn't force planets to join that don't want to. (Simply offering them membership and pointing out the benefits thereof, is not a bad thing.)

 

[Timo]

The 24th century treatment of pre-Federation colonies would best be seen in "Up the Long Ladder" or "Masterpiece Society", where the local governments appear less than sovereign. Why, our officers even gun down a couple of locals in true African or Pacific explorer style, without any repercussions!

The Federation is not an empire.

Well, in the scifi context the word is usually used pretty liberally. An emperor is not necessary, let alone an evilly cackling one.

It doesn't conquer by force, it doesn't enslave the weak, it doesn't force planets to join that don't want to.

It does engage in gunboat diplomacy of the Perry/East Indian Company sort: "Eminians or bust", "Melkots or bust"; they just won't take no for an answer...

This happens from the very beginning, really: Kirk's pressing on past the First Federation sentinel in "Corbomite Maneuver" is justified by him saying "The mission of the Enterprise is to seek out and contact alien life". A bit different from actual conquest, but still a matter of imposing their policies on foreign societies.

"Hiya there, Melkots, we blasted our way through your gates in our warship to tell that we'd like to talk - at your convenience, in your terms, in all friendliness. We come in peace - set phasers to kill."

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Babaganoosh said:
The Federation is not an empire. It doesn't conquer by force, it doesn't enslave the weak, it doesn't force planets to join that don't want to. (Simply offering them membership and pointing out the benefits thereof, is not a bad thing.)

But it does actively seek to persuade other cultures to abandon values that it finds objectionable and to adopt Federation values. (Riker in "The Last Outpost," for instance.) And, indeed, it's been largely successful at that -- look at how the Ferengi turned into a sexually egalitarian, capitalist-socialist hybrid only 11 years after first contact with the UFP! And at how the last two Chancellors of the High Council of the Klingon Empire were installed by Starfleet officers!