What war crimes??? ('Waltz')

[Sec31Mike]

A war crime is any act of violence that is outside the agreed upon conventions of war. Thus Hitler's butchering of civillians during WWII was a war crime, and by proxy anyone who relayed or carried out those orders was guilty of war crimes.

 

[Timo]

Giving up their fed citizen status was their own idea, I think. It was basically them saying to the Feds "Okay, the deal is that we get to stay here and if we get into trouble you won't have to come in and cause a huge political problem."

There is some confusion here because we're talking about two different plotlines regarding Fed colonists near Cardassia.

There's the TNG "Journey's End" plotline where UFP citizens decided to become Cardassian citizens because they wanted to stay on a planet ceded wholesale to Cardassia. All this only concerned a single planet, Dorvan V.

Then there's the DS9 Maquis plotline where UFP citizens, Cardassian citizens and no doubt assorted others lived in the Demilitarized Zone, a region of space that contained both Federation-owned and Cardassian-owned planets but had a strict rule of keeping the military out of there. The UFP colonists there had not had their planets ceded to the Cardassians.

We don't know if there were more planets like Dorvan V. We never heard of one during the Maquis plotline. We don't know if the people of Dorvan V got involved in the Maquis movement, either; there could be all sorts of complications there. In the end, though, Eddington in "Blaze of Glory" makes it clear that the Maquis under his control (let alone the colonists spatially related to but not necessarily associated with the Maquis) were still UFP citizens, and had only been planning on abandoning citizenship when they were wiped out by the Dominion.

Thanks for the clarifications, stj!

For this reason, the remarks based on modern legal sensibilities are all wrong.

Two things to point out here:

1) My remarks on modern legal sensibilities concerned the legal aspects, not the practical ones. The US has denounced law, and the world acquiesces, so those two aspects are now separated for good.

However, since our discussion is about an aggressor being defeated and brought to justice, we could speculate on a scenario where the US is defeated and brought to justice. Legality (as agreed upon by UN signatories) might then become relevant again. As a wholly theoretical scenario, that is.

2) OTOH, of course modern legal sensibilities do not (necessarily) apply to the fictional 24th century. My remarks were only on how they might apply if the world of Trek were a closer analogy to the world of today.

The crucial difference there is that Trek does not feature anything comparable to the United Nations, an organization mutually supported (even if half-heartedly) by the Feds, Klingons, Romulans and Dominion alike. If there is anything comparable to "international law" there, it is bi- or multilateral agreements on single issues such as polaric ion tests or subspace weapons.

However, at least some of the Trek "nations" are signatory to something called the Seldonis Conventions on War Crimes, which suggests that the Cardassian element of the Dominion just might have legal points to be held upon, even if the Dominion at large is utterly "extralegal". Just food for thought: the Feds might hold Dukat on Seldonis charges even if Dukat himself argued that his "nation" had dropped out of Seldonis.

Stalin did not launch a war of aggression in 1940. Hitler started one in 1939.

The latter statement is correct. The former is incorrect regarding the Baltic states, which were forcibly occupied at that date, and somewhat obfuscates the fact that Stalin launched two wars of aggression in 1939 (against Finland and Poland), after abandoning plans on a war of aggression against Japan because the silly Japanese themselves had attacked him and proved themselves to be harmless as a threat. In no sense were these separate aggressions part of one larger whole, legally or militarily speaking: they were a succession of separate conflicts, only merging to a strategic whole when Hitler launched his all-encompassing aggression across the relevant territories.

Since the subject of this thread is legal bickering, Stalin's stance on the wars of aggression he launched warrants study. His attack against Poland was argued to be part of a "defensive" pact signed with Hitler, although that pact did not cater for the circumstances of Poland's occupation. His attack against Finland involved blaming Finland of initial aggression, via a needlessly elaborate ruse where an "incident" was carefully staged. And his attack on the Baltic states was obfuscated as peaceful takeover, even though the easternmost nations were taken as part of the aggression pact agreed on with Hitler, and Lithuania was taken in direct violation of that secret pact.

Had Stalin triumphed or lost in a limited war involving only Germany and the aforementioned victims, it would have been relevant for him to argue his legal basis for the aggressions. As matters turned out, no pretense of legality was necessary in the end, because the powerful USSR could go extralegal in the manner the US has gone today. But as a theoretical construct, the legal logic of aggression in that era, and its twisting at Nürnberg, could be relevant to the case of Dukat the War Criminal.

In any case, wars of aggression were launched all over in the thirties and early forties. Wars of defensive nature were less typical, but the British and French declaration of war against Germany in defense of Poland no doubt qualifies as one. But it should be noted that a war of aggression was not war crime as such in the 1930s yet - it was only defined as such in time to make it to Nürnberg, and the definition was by no means universally accepted.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania may have had formally tolerant nationality laws. The anticommunist laws were however quite intolerant and unfree.

And the antipedophile laws of many nations today are quite intolerant and unfree as well.

Nations have always reserved the right to decide what is criminal and what is not within their sphere of sovereignty. Certain aspects of communist activity were universally condemned as criminal in the interwar world. Such condemnation never truly lead to harassment comparable to the prevalent antisemitism, though; no Russian nationals in the Baltic nations would have been threatened by the anti-communist stance of those nations in any practical sense, unless they engaged in universally condemned criminal activity.

A war crime is any act of violence that is outside the agreed upon conventions of war. Thus Hitler's butchering of civillians during WWII was a war crime, and by proxy anyone who relayed or carried out those orders was guilty of war crimes.

But everybody and his second cousin butchered civilians in WWII. And many of the methods for doing so were outside preceding agreements because of advances in weapons technology, such as aerial bombing.

Could Dukat have done something that was new to the Alpha quadrant conventions on waging war? It is difficult to imagine what that could be. His forces did not possess new methods of war (the subspace-transmitted bioweapon of "Chain of Command" was but a ruse). And his cruelty, no matter how boundless, would probably have precedent in Klingon cruelty in the many conflicts fought by that evil empire.

So this still makes me think that Dukat's crimes were more related to the fact that he waged war in the first place than to the means by which he did so. But given the deliberate Nazi analogies relating to Cardassians, it would by no means be impossible to think that Dukat introduced something analogous to death camps and gas chambers, and even the Klingons lost their lunch over that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[stj]

One note on war crimes proper, as opposed to crimes against peace or crimes against humanity. There are international conventions that define actions that are criminal even in war time. There is always that legal justification for charges against nationals of signatory nations in those cases. Success in the pursuit of justice for war criminals is another question entirely.

It appears that the main result of these conventions is that aggressor nations refuse to declare war. That custom also permits the refusal to accept surrender but wage war without mercy.

Of course, the US Congress has explicitly declared that such conventions are null and void if it so legislates. This is in support of the executive claims of similar powers. This is unconstitutional, by the way. However, conservatives dominate the judiciary. Being men and women without integrity they will not challenge this illegality. Since Cardassia is not the US analogue, Gul Dukat is guilty until proven innocent.

Stalin's actions were not comparable to Hitler's. Conventional wisdom attempt to equate Stalin and Hitler but this is simply propaganda, no matter how popular it is.

In 1938, UK, France and Poland broke the collective security agreement called the Little Entente. Poland, in addition to blocking Soviet aid to Czechoslovakia, also seized territory from Czechoslovakia, the Teschen district, which as I recall was not ethnically Polish, but carried mineral resources and strategic railways. These aggressive actions are far more of a threat than mere possibility of possesssion of powerful weapons, which is today a casus belli.

When Hitler turned his attention to Polish territory (officially ethnically German lands,) UK and France did not wish Soviet assistance. The UK negotiators it seems deliberately took a sea voyage to delay even beginning negotiations.

Soviet-German cooperation had been in place since the treaty of Rapallo in the twenties. Nonetheless, the Nazi regime's long term intentions were quite clear. The UK/France resistance to Nazi depredations upon Poland gave Stalin an opportunity to put enemies at each others' throats.

At the same time, it would have been a terrible gamble for Stalin to hope that the same states that rejected collective securtiy would give meaningful aid in a war with Germany. Indeed, many would rather have allied with Hitler against Stalin. Hence, the non-aggression pact.
After war began, the Soviet army entered eastern Poland.

Unlike the Teschen precedent, there was open war and the territorial seizures were primarily ethnically Russian territories (Byelorussian and Ukrainian too---at this distance they're all Russians.) The alternatives then would have been either to allow the German army to race up to Soviet borders or to enter the war on the losing side on behalf of an enemy. This would be madness.

Finland, an ally of Hitler, refused minor border rectifications aimed at permitting defense of Leningrad. Stalin's war against Finland has never been forgiven. I think people dreaming of Hitler victorious think that if Leningrad had fallen, the troops tied down in the siege could have turned the tide on the eastern front. The point that this is one of the few instances (only?) when in wartime that a territorial cession might have been vital to a nation's survival is never considered.

There was no war against the Baltic states, because they were never truly independent. When their master Hitler kicked them aside, they were whipped dogs. Unlike foreign nations after WWII, they were incorporated into the USSR because they had been part of Russia for centuries. In other words, there was an element of border rectification, just as I said originally. When their beloved master Hitler returned, they were happy to resume their loyalty.

The notion that these states were reincorporated, as opposed to conquered, is supported by the fact that the Baltic states had possibly the highest standard of living in the USSR. When Puerto Rico has a higher standard of living than Connecticut, or Belfast is better of than London, I'll muster a little more indignation on the Baltic states behalf.

The essential point is not approval of the principles or execution of Stalin's policy. The essential point is that these actions simply are not equivalent to Hitler's.

Nations have always reserved the right to decide what is criminal and what is not within their sphere of sovereignty. Certain aspects of communist activity were universally condemned as criminal in the interwar world. Such condemnation never truly lead to harassment comparable to the prevalent antisemitism, though; no Russian nationals in the Baltic nations would have been threatened by the anti-communist stance of those nations in any practical sense, unless they engaged in universally condemned criminal activity.

There wass no unverseally condemned criminal activity that was a certain aspect of communist activity. If nowhere else, all aspects of communist activity were approved in the USSR. On the other hand, there were certain aspects of communist activity, like trade unionism, that were universlly abhorred in dictatorships.

 

[Timo]

Now you have lost me again. What relevance is there to the facts (correctly enumerated by you, no disagreement there) that Stalin's wars of aggression were fought from different starting points and motivations than Hitler's? Or Churchill's or Roosevelt's, for that matter?

There is no doubt that Poland hated Russia's guts. And that Russia hated Poland's. And that the British hated the French, only they hated the Russians more. That's what politics in the early 20th century was all about: morally corrupt leaderships populistically drumming up old hatreds, yearning for return to some abstract sort of status quo that was defined in truly antedeluvial terms.

The world was at war in many places when Hitler invaded Poland. Japanese extremists were attacking Russia, having initiated a long war against China earlier on. The US was strangling Japan. Spain was a battlefield. And by the time Stalin invaded Poland, yes, Poland was at war as well. That does not make Stalin's aggression any less an act of aggression, however.

Sure, it was rational policy for him, just like it would be rational policy for the US to turn the rest of the world into a glass plain for security. It was also opportunistic policy: as said, Stalin had no plans of world conquest in readiness as of 1939 (he was betting on 1945 at best), and only took what was offered.

Yet there is no other difference between Stalin's attack on the already-attacked Poland and Hitler's declaration of war on the already-attacked United States but the fact of the former being a strategically sane action and the latter an insane one.

There was no war against the Baltic states, because they were never truly independent.

You mean that there was no war against the United States in 1812 because it was never truly independent? That, had the British joined the Confederacy cause in the 1860s, there would have been no war because the US was but a British colony?

It truly alarms me that your facts on this issue reflect such extreme bigotism. All the three Baltic states were de facto and de jure independent (insofar as a non-superpower can ever be independent) between the World Wars. All lost their independence in 1940 and, for the duration of the communist reign, were subjected to cruelties surpassing whatever Hitler could muster during the brief Nazi reign.

This would also have been the fate of Finland, regardless of whether it agreed on Stalin's 1939 demands or not - there remains no doubt whatsoever, on the level of Soviet documentation, that Stalin intended total conquest of Finland and the Baltics as of 1939. (Indeed, protection of Leningrad would absolutely have required that, as anybody at the time could see.) Moves against the Balkans and central Europe would have followed in the next decade.

The essential point is not approval of the principles or execution of Stalin's policy. The essential point is that these actions simply are not equivalent to Hitler's.

I see no essence in these points whatsoever. In the first place because the preceding discussion seeking analogies with Dukat's plight was not about Hitler/Stalin - it began as Hitler/Churchill, or Nazis-at-Nürnberg, where the dubious charges discussed were not Stalin's doing, but Truman's. And in the second place because, despite your denials, your attempt to demonstrate that Stalin's actions are not comparable to Hitler's comes off purely as approval of Stalin's actions. Which is a legal standpoint to hold, I guess, but should not be disguised as anything else.

There wass no unverseally condemned criminal activity that was a certain aspect of communist activity.

Depends on what one means with "communist activity". After all, "communism" from the European point of view was "Russian leftist activism", which was seen to follow (and did follow) the century-old Russian activism traditions of anarchism and nihilism. The French remembered the Commune of Paris; Eastern Europe remembered the early expansionist attempts of Soviet Russia. Where communism did good, like in Spain, its victors were quick to red-paint it, at best pointing out its inherent weaknesses against a rightist dictatorship, at worst blaming it of atrocities (many of which were sad reality). Outside Russia, therefore, nearly every nation in Europe incorporated anti-communist legislation, or more exactly, anti-activity legislation.

Whether said nations then succumbed to rightist dictatorism went case by case. The Baltic coast gives us a full spectrum: no such thing in Poland, possible sympathies kept closely under the lid in Sweden, an amateur fascist rebellion quelled in Finland, openly rightist-dictatorial government established in Estonia. However, this did not really manifest in extremities of legislation, except in the hatemongering Germany and its conquests.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[stj]

One clarification: There was no war in the Baltic states in the sense that they did not put up a fight. Their master in Berlin did not order them to.

Another: The aggressor is the one who starts the fighting, first and foremost the literal fighting. That was Hitler. In the sense of starting the seizure of lands and the deliberate disruption of collective security, why, that was Germany, Poland, UK and France.

And, it is kind of peculiar to talk about aggression after war has already broken out! That is why no one could think for a second that the planned English invasion of Norway would have been tolerable in 1938, but some could in 1940 (if I recall the year correctly.) The situations simply are not comparable.

Many of your socalled facts are no such thing. They are merely crackpot ideology.

Example: The US naval forces were already engaged in battle against the German navy before Pearl Harbor. Hitler's mistake was in removing a minor political obstacle, the official US declaration of war by Congress.

Example: The Baltic states

lost their independence in 1940 and, for the duration of the communist reign, were subjected to cruelties surpassing whatever Hitler could muster during the brief Nazi reign.

This is not true. This whitewashes the Nazis in favor of slandering the Soviets. This is simply vile.

Example:

The French remember the Commune of Paris; Eastern Europe remember the early expansionist attempts of Soviet Russia.

The Commune was not a product of Russian anarchism and nihilism. It was the creation of the native Parisians. It is true that Marx approved and learned from its example and defended it, but he didn't create it either. It is not possible to honestly confuse the Poles' near conquest at the hands of the Red Army after they invaded Soviet Russia with an expansion attempt.

Example:

no such thing {dictatorship} in Poland

Poland was ruled by a cabal of colonels with the democratic sensibilities of the Greek colonels of the Sixties. The foreign minister, Col. Jozel Beck, in his memoir Final Report exposed himself inadvertently by retailing his efforts to find a Jewish homeland in Madagascar.

Example:

an amateur fascist rebellion quelled in Finland

Francisco Franco did not let the Falange Party have its own way either. The thuggish Mannerheim, butcher of the civil war, did not run a free country.

There is no possibility of discussion about such lies.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

stj said:
Plus we'll write in that the Dominion was planning aggression all along.

If you asked Gamma quadrant species, they'd say the Dominion was aggressive. Does devastating a planet's infrastructure and creating a plague for the survivors ring a bell? Committing genocide again New Bajor colony, when clearly the overwhelming Dominion military could've probably forced them out with less casualties.

The paranoia and the superiority complex of the founders guaranteed they'd react badly to the "solid" empires in the alpha quadrant. The only cure for the changlings' arrogance was/is maybe Odo. (and I have my doubts about that)

 

[stj]

^^^Yes, they definitely wrote the Dominion as aggressive all along.

 

[FordSVT]

Turtletrekker said:

Jamee999 said:
Just a note - but the wormhole DOES NOT open in Dominion space. It's like shouting at those darn kids... on the other side of the road.

Exactly. And don't tell me that the unprovoked destruction of the New Bajor colony and the bombing at Antwerp weren't acts of war on the Dominion's part.

Also, the Founders explained to Odo that the very existence of the Federation and the chaotic nature of the Alpha Quadrant was a threat to them, which is why they weren't willing to just blow up the wormhole and cut the Feds off. They thought that even if it took hundreds of years, a more advanced Federation would eventually expand into their quadrant and be a problem. If it was just a case of "leave us alone" they could have easily cut them out. Hell, they probably could have just told the Federation to stop going through the wormhole and they would have stopped, they aren't pushy about being in places they aren't wanted.

They wanted to conquer the Alpha and Beta quadrants in order to suppress them and eliminate them as a possible threat now or in the far future. Regardless of the actions of the Federation, the moment the Founders learned of this advanced population of chaotic solids on the other side of the Galaxy I believe an invasion was inevitable, even if it took longer than it did.

 

[Timo]

One clarification: There was no war in the Baltic states in the sense that they did not put up a fight. Their master in Berlin did not order them to.

Clarification noted. That, however, does not mean there was no invasion. One could well say there was no war in Denmark, either, given how fast the nation caved in. (How many shots would be required for a war? This question may even have more than academic significance in some contexts.)

The factual master the Baltics were obeying sat in Moscow, though. None of the Baltic leaders entertained any hope of German military aid at any point, having been thoroughly disillusioned in twenty years of trying to organize some sort of an alliance with anybody willing to take. They knew their nonaggression deals weren't worth the paper they were written on, regardless of whether the signatures were in Cyrillic or Blackletter. (Both kinds of deals were in existence as of 1940.)

The aggressor is the one who starts the fighting, first and foremost the literal fighting.

Granted. However, one must be very careful not to bunch up separate conflicts into one, and then assign blame on the basis of the first conflict involved. This risk of centuries-long Sicilian vendettas is the very reason the UN conventions on what consists a war are formulated the way they are.

Who started the fighting in the 1930s? Japan did - its was the first significant military conflict whose inception date was in the 1930s, and that conflict carried over until 1945. But the roots of the European fighting run much deeper, and one would be equally correct in blaming the original Barbarossa or the later crackpot who launched a campaign in his name.

The UN rules cut through the blame game very efficiently. The world is full of bad guys and worse guys, of guilty parties and guiltier parties. But there is only one aggressor per each conflict - the one who decides "my reasons for launching a war now outweigh my capacity to abstain".

In relation to the Norwegian campaign, this is a rather central point. Both Germany and Britain were heavily involved in a mutual conflict at the time they began planning for invasion of Norway. It was part of their ongoing war in every strategic sense. However, from the viewpoints of both, Norway as of 1940 (nothing wrong with your facts) still remained a neutral country, invasion of which was against custom - although perhaps not completely illegal even in League of Nations terms. Both sides were prepared to unleash ex-post-facto propaganda to the effect that Norway had forfeited its neutrality, being actually still concerned about the international (read: US) reception!

Many of your socalled facts are no such thing. They are merely crackpot ideology.

I take objection to this, until you specify the points of contest, as with the one out of supposed many that is dealt with below.

Example: The US naval forces were already engaged in battle against the German navy before Pearl Harbor. Hitler's mistake was in removing a minor political obstacle, the official US declaration of war by Congress.

This is not a point of contest. The USN was engaged in an unofficial battle against the Germans prior to Hitler's declaration, bending the supposed rules of escort. (Hitler's forces weren't directly attacking USN assets at that point yet, though.) But we both fully agree on this. De facto hostilities also preceded the event I compared this with: Stalin's exploitation of the war between Germany and Poland.

Example: This is not true. This whitewashes the Nazis in favor of slandering the Soviets. This is simply vile.

I'm again speaking from the practical point of view here. The Nazis were the "benign" liberators of the Baltic states only because their reign of terror there was cut short. Stalin's reign of terror was not cut short. Both had their concentration camps and mass deportations to exile or to execution pits. Both had their racist-paranoid policies regarding ethnic groups. But Hitler had just a couple of years to deal with the territory swept by his northern force, while Stalin kept at it until 1953.

The issue of whitewashing is admittedly often a pressing one - the world tends to be so black that any shade of grey there shines all too brightly. Factually, the Nazi monsters were seen as liberators in half a dozen nations that could afford nothing better, morally price-tagging. Not because the Nazi ideology was welcome (for one, it wasn't, even in the falsely archetypal Norway; for another, "ideology" is too glorious a name for the hodgepodge of slogans that was used as accompaniment for the Nazi conquest marches). But because the Nazi Panzerfausts and 88mm AA guns were.

I hope we can agree to actually agree on this issue, since I see no contradiction between your viewpoint and mine here. I can understand why you could see it differently, though, and I can merely assure that I intended concensus rather than confict.

The Commune was not a product of Russian anarchism and nihilism. It was the creation of the native Parisians.

Here I would beg to differ, while admitting that my "factual claim" was something short of. The traditions of rebellion in France during the first half of the 19th century did not really cater for something like the Commune. The traditions of Russia, especially via the Polish emigrant influence, were much closer to what happened. Had the Commune operated on the usual basis of an "agenda" and a "policy" directed at forcing the had of the legal rulers of the nation, things might have gone very differently. This was the first act of rebellion for rebellion's sake at a time of national-military crisis, though, and the major fear of any conservative European government from there on - conservative here meaning democracies, monarchies and dictatorships alike.

It is true that Marx approved and learned from its example and defended it, but he didn't create it either.

Indeed, we seem to agree that Marxism was not a major influence in the forms of communism witnessed in the 20th century...

It is not possible to honestly confuse the Poles' near conquest at the hands of the Red Army after they invaded Soviet Russia with an expansion attempt.

...Principally because of the separation in time. Which also is relevant in the Polish attempt at "re-expansion" - the motivation was to correct post-Napoleonic wrongs and 1868, something that the modern UN sensibilities most definitely would not allow.

Poland was ruled by a cabal of colonels with the democratic sensibilities of the Greek colonels of the Sixties.

Again the disagreement seems to be in what was being agreed on... Poland had a conservative and undemocratic government, and had had this since time immemoriam. What it did not have was a dictatorship leaning towards Germany, whereas Estonia definitely had one, specifically created in wake of the rise of German dictatorship.

As for antisemitism, this is a political hot potato in just one respect today: the Germany vs. Israel axis. Back then, it was quite a bit more multifaceted, because antisemitism was the prominent policy of all major combatants in WWII save for the US and Italy. Being antisemitist did not reflect one's position on the right-left axis - rather, the ability to blame the jews for all of the world's woes was welcome relief from the conservative vs. revolutionary thinking of the past century.

Francisco Franco did not let the Falange Party have its own way either.

Quite correct, and Spain would clearly lie more in the middle of the axis of Axis sympathizers than near the Estonian end. Indeed, had Franco had deeper sympathies with his militant allies at home and abroad, he could have led Germany to triumphs in the Mediterranean - and was well aware of this.

The thuggish Mannerheim, butcher of the civil war, did not run a free country.

Again we are in perfect agreement, because Mannerheim did not run any country, free or otherwise. There had been a brief period after the civil war where he held official position under one of those pretentious First Citizen -style titles, but after the first presidential elections, he did not register even as a "grey eminence" in the Finnish political scene. He was far too much a liability in that respect. (The second elections were free in every possible sense of the word, perhaps the freest in the world at the time; the third and fourth held before the war did not differ from that pattern. Had the nation wanted a communist-racist-anglophile female immigrant from Indochina at the helm, there would have been no objection.)

During the war, Mannerheim led the military. His influence on politics remained minimal, to his great and oft-expressed frustration. The civilian government actually moved from right to left as the war progressed, there never having been a moment where the socialists or communists would have been excluded from the affairs of the state - or having expressed sympathy for Stalin.

Eastern Europe in the 1930s is rife with such balancing acts between red or white dictatorship and democracy, with antiquated forms of ruling, with old scores to settle. Such petty concerns were swept aside in 1943-45, though. It is perhaps remarkable that little of this was commented on in the postwar trials: the charges pressed by Stalin against Hitler's allies centered on the actual mechanics of aggression, and the political purges that followed were part of a general assimilation policy rather than artificially legitimized acts of punishment. The more interesting arguments in the trials generally came from the western victors...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Hell, they probably could have just told the Federation to stop going through the wormhole and they would have stopped, they aren't pushy about being in places they aren't wanted.

I'd say the entirety of DS9 seasons 3-7 stands proof against this!

Pushiness was the norm in TOS already, though. Kirk pressed on, although under orders and with misgivings, against the explicit warnings-off of the First Federation, the Eminians, the Melkots... One look at his logs would convince any Founder that theirs was the correct opinion on the UFP threat.

What do you think, did the Founders reassess that threat as the result of the joining with Odo in "What You Leave Behind"? Even Odo himself seemed to have deep doubts.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Odon]

CaptainHawk1 said:
What war crimes? Not to support Dukat or anything, but as far as the Dominon War is concerned, what war crimes did he commit?

My understanding was that Sisko was referring to crimes Dukat had committed during the occupation of Bajor (it's been a while since I saw this episode).

 

[cwalrus2]

one thing that occurs to me in Waltz is that Dukat's crimes were against Bajor during the ORIGINAL occupation yet they make it seem as if he was going to be put on trial by the Federation. Why wasn't he put on trial by Bajor since his crimes were really against them? The Federation had no right to try him. He should have been put on trial by the Bajoran government but of course that would have not have been helpful to plot and he wouldn't have escaped if all they had to do was bring him to Bajor.

 

[Hofner]

This begs the question of why the Bajorans didn't try to arrest Dukat before. In "Duet" Kira felt free to arrest a Cardassian simply because he'd been at that labor camp.

Robert

 

[Odon]

I assume the reasons were political. Before he was an official representative of the cardassian govt and presumably had some sort of diplomatic status on his visits to DS9. Then when he's bumming around as a freighter captain he's on their side, so they turn a blind eye. As for the Federation putting him on trial, I assumed that was the equivilent of the International Criminal Tribunal putting someone on trial for war crimes in Rwanda. It's not that Bajor couldn't try Dukat, it's more that the Federation captured him and now wants to send a message to the Cardassians and other species.

 

[Timo]

Agreed on the message-sending theme, definitely. The Feds would want to obfuscate the fact that Bajor still refrains from joining them, so they wouldn't miss a single chance to play up their role as the de facto protectors and landlords of Bajor.

But I wonder why the Bajorans felt they could prosecute the man they thought was the Butcher of Gallitep when he seemingly stumbled on the station in "Duet". Wouldn't this celebrated Cardassian hero (aka war criminal, with a well-explicated list of crimes under Bajoran law) also enjoy the protection of his government?

Obviously, not all Cardassians are under such an aegis: Garak is abandoned to the wolves, and the Bajoran capture of Armin Maariza barely elicits a token "but" from Dukat. But Cardassia is prepared to make a diplomatic incident out of Cardassians held by Bajor when it suits the whims of the Central Command. How could Kira risk the capture of the man she thought was Gul Darhe'el?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Odon]

Not really. That Cardassian was apparently travelling under a false ID (pretending to be a minor functionary when he was actually the notorious Butcher) so Kira had probable cause to hold him. Of course, it turned out to be the other way round.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. Yup, that's a difference all right. But if it really had been Gul Darhe'el (or Gul Dukat, or High Legate Pompussh) traveling under that false identity, would Kira really have had the guts to keep him imprisoned?

Strike that. Would Bajor have had the guts to keep him imprisoned?

The episode at first makes it sound as if Bajor has a list of war criminals, one that names some names, but also includes a catchall clause "everybody who ever worked at Gallitep". And Marritza seems to fall under that last clause initially, before Kira breaks through his first layer of false IDs.

If the list truly includes everybody working at Gallitep, surely it would also include the man who commanded the occupation force that ran Gallitep. Dukat must be on that list, under at least one set of charges and probably several.

But Bajor only acts bold about Marritza when they still think he is Marritza, a nobody who just happened to work at Gallitep. After his "real" identity is unveiled, it's not Bajor but Kira holding him; the Bajoran government could be having a massive coronary and trying to think of ways out of the diplomatic disaster. Bajor might never have the diplomatic muscle to prosecute the real Darhe'el, or Dukat.

And towards the end of the episode, it very much begins to seem that Kira's prosecution of Marritza was just personal vendetta; that there is no clause for prosecuting all Gallitep attendees; and that Kira's initial utterance "He is a war criminal" was just an expression of sentiment, not of law.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Stormrage]

Stalin did not launch a war of aggression in 1940. Hitler started one in 1939. The USSR would have been better off militarily if it had aggressed. But Stalin couldn't believe that Hitler could be such a fool, it seems.

Stalin invaded Poland along with the Russia (funny how the UK never declared war on them) and he forced the Baltic nations to give up their independence under the threat of invasion. Oh and he also tried to invade Finland who were forced to ask the Nazis for help since they were the only one who cared enough. The British wanted to use them has an excuse to invade Norway and Sweden. He also attacked the Japanese a nation he signed a treaty with which they respected to their downfall.

Just a note - but the wormhole DOES NOT open in Dominion space. It's like shouting at those darn kids... on the other side of the road.

But the Federation,Klingons and the Romulans reacted the same way when the Cardassians joined the Dominion. What gave them the right to send hundreds of ships to the wormhole in a threatening manner? All the Dominion was doing was sending ships and supplies to her ally.

A war crime is any act of violence that is outside the agreed upon conventions of war. Thus Hitler's butchering of civillians during WWII was a war crime, and by proxy anyone who relayed or carried out those orders was guilty of war crimes.

I can't think of a single nation that participated in WW2 that DIDN'T commit a war crime of any sort. All i know of are nations that were convicted of war crimes and nations whos acts were conventionally forgotten. It's kind of hard to talk about Allied war crimes when people will rub Auschwitz in your face.

The thuggish Mannerheim, butcher of the civil war, did not run a free country.

Didn't he save Finland from the Soviets twice?

 

[Timo]

He also attacked the Japanese a nation he signed a treaty with which they respected to their downfall.

To be fair, Stalin was first victimized by Japanese hardliners who started a private little war against USSR in Manchuria in 1939. That war was short and easily won by the Russians, though, putting the animosity on idle for the duration of WWII; no wonder, then, that a treaty of nonaggression was signed between the two nations at the height of that war. (Hitler must have hated the pact - he had been betting on the Japanese keeping some of Stalin's forces in Siberia by threat of invasion, if not by an actual invasion.)

When Stalin declared war on Japan in 1945, he did so at a moment when there wasn't going to be a Japan for much longer; he just wanted to partake in the postwar looting there. It's not as if he ever had implied (let alone confirmed with his signature) that he would be a friend and ally of Japan. At best, he had agreed not to shoot at them much.

It's kind of hard to talk about Allied war crimes when people will rub Auschwitz in your face.

But it shouldn't be. What Stalin or Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman did is every bit as graphically horrid as what Hitler achieved at his worst. Images of Katyn forest or bombarded Dresden would be just as efficient as those of corpse piles at the concentration camps. Heart-wrenching testimonies could be heard and read from the victims of Soviet troops on a patriotic raping rampage, or those of American bombers on a glorious firebombing mission.

Thinking that the great evils of one must never be compared with the evils of others out of fear of "diluting" them is dangerous thinking indeed. For that matter, it is the exact type of thinking of Hitler and those he convinced to follow him.

Didn't he save Finland from the Soviets twice?

Sure. However, that should not affect stj's argument one way or the other. Whether an ally of Hitler would save a nation or not would not be relevant to whether he was thuggish or ran a free country. After all, Stalin saved Russia by being thuggish and running a non-free country (and by being too drunk to evacuate himself from Moscow at the darkest hour, thereby inspiring the city and the nation to a crucial last-ditch defense!).

The factual errors of that argument lie elsewhere, as I pointed out: Mannerheim did not run the country - a relatively free civilian government did, largely independent of German influence because Hitler considered Finland too distant a war theater. The somewhat analogous leaders of Hungary or Bulgaria did not enjoy similar freedom from Nazi dictation, and the former was quickly disposed of by the Germans when he attempted to practice independent foreign policy for his nation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Stormrage]

(Hitler must have hated the pact - he had been betting on the Japanese keeping some of Stalin's forces in Siberia by threat of invasion, if not by an actual invasion.)

He knew they weren't going to attack if Germany attacked. His mistake was declaring war on the USA when Japan attacked it.

When Stalin declared war on Japan in 1945, he did so at a moment when there wasn't going to be a Japan for much longer; he just wanted to partake in the postwar looting there. It's not as if he ever had implied (let alone confirmed with his signature) that he would be a friend and ally of Japan. At best, he had agreed not to shoot at them much.

He still broke the pact.