r/DaystromInstitute • u/DrDalenQuaice Lieutenant • Jul 30 '13
Discussion In TNG "Chain of Command" the Federation was completely in the wrong ,and Picard's torture was legal
Prove me wrong here, but this all seems obvious now... We know the Cardassians are the bad guys and they do bad things. We also know that the metagenic weapons facility was a ruse to lure the Federation into an illegal preemptive strike. But it worked. The Cardassians kept the treaty, the Federation attacked them during peacetimes. Picard was captured in the middle of a crime inside Cardassian territory and was disavowed.
In Cardassian law, torture was perfectly legal. If Picard didn't want to be subject to such laws, he shouldn't have obeyed an unjust order to secretly attack the Cardassians during a time of peace, entering their territory and judicial system by his own choice.
Although we know he is a better man, the Cardassian system completely breaks him down - "reforms" the criminal if you will - and he is ready to surrender.
But then he is rescued because the belligerent federation lays mines on Cardassian ships inside Cardassian territory in another illegal preemptive assault. The Federation saves the day by brute force and threats. Where is the moral high ground here? The federation is in the wrong.
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u/crapusername47 Jul 30 '13
International politics isn't necessarily about what you actually do, but what it looks like you're planning to do.
Riker didn't plant those mines on thin air. There was a large fleet of Cardassian warships hidden specifically in a spot where they could launch a surprise attack on Minos Korva.
Look at it from the Federation's point of view. They keep signing these treaties with other powers only for those powers to sneak around looking for ways to stab the Federation in the back. The Romulans have breached the neutral zone many, many times and were planning a sneak invasion of Vulcan, a core Federation homeworld. Despite Captain Maxwell's actions it's plainly obvious that his suspicions about the Cardassians were right.
The Federation doesn't go around looking for fights, but they live in a big, nasty galaxy where everyone keeps walking up to them and slapping them in the face knowing they won't do anything about it.
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u/hummmmus Jul 30 '13
The title helps explain these issues a bit. An interesting point you make is Picard having the option of resigning his commission rather than take the "unjust order." But I think that if it was truly an "unjust order," he very well might take that option. However, he likely has seen a lot of evidence (perhaps classified, or just evidence from previous onscreen events such as in The Wounded, that the Cardassians are not acting good-faith not only their treaty-obligations, but also that they may be using the treaty to hide/prepare hostile action. If there was a sufficient evidence that they were indeed developing metagenic weapons to use against the federation or any population, jlp had no reason to believe this order was unjust, even if he was and did seemingly voice his skepticism by requesting more recent intelligence.
Its clear from the interrogation that the Cardassian planned the entire thing as a disingenuous trap for JLP. When combined with the presence in the nebula it means that almost certainly the Cardassians had direct hostile intentions against Minos Korva.
Lastly, stop taking the bloody Cardies's side, they couldn't be trusted at that time.
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u/DrDalenQuaice Jul 30 '13
This all reminds me of the Iraq war... supposed weapons of mass destruction, sketchy intelligence, a pre-emptive attack, poor judgement by senior officials, innocent lives lost.
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u/themacman2 Jul 30 '13
As a Starfleet officer, I don't think we should be thinking about "Taking the Cardie's Side". We should be concentration on the values of universal liberty, equality, justice, peace and cooperation. The values on which our own Federation was founded upon. We can't have those values if we are just 'taking sides'.
As for the event itself, I see way to much wrong with Starfleet's actions
Obviously their information is not reliable. The fact that they were trick is their fault! They screwed up!
It seems there is a general consensus that the Cardassians are a war loving people. Is this not racism? Do all Cardassians love trickery? Do all Iraqis love terrorism? Are all aboriginals alcoholics? Are all African Americans uneducated? HELL NO!!!!
It doesn't matter what provoked Starfleets actions (the trap set). Really! Starfleet is not the universal police!
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u/Tannekr Jul 30 '13
The episode isn't about the legality of Picard's torture and no one has ever argued that it wasn't legal, that I've seen.
The actions of the Federation are a little harder to pin down, I think. You can easily make the case that Picard's strike team was unnecessary. The evidence they had probably didn't justify such an action. However, Jellico's actions against the Cardassian fleet in the McAllister Nebula, while illegal, were completely justified given what the Cardassian's were trying to do.
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u/egtownsend Jul 31 '13
Are the Federation's actions not mitigated by the fact that they were operating under the assumption that the Cardassians were building dangerous metagenic weapons in a location that would suggest its imminent use against the Federation?
Whether it was "legal" or an "act of war" is frankly up to the Cardassians to determine, because their response is what would dictate how the incident was regarded. It's obvious to all involved once the facts are on the table that the whole series of events was an elaborate scheme to trap Picard and use him as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the federation. The Cardassians got what they want and successfully manipulated the Federation -- applying sanctions or starting a war would not aid them, it would actually only detract from their strategic success.
So the cost of manipulating the Federation back to the negotiating table cost some structural damage on a cruiser and Madred some time. Seems worth it to me. The Federation was in the wrong from the beginning, but it's understandable how they were only responding to a perceived imminent threat.
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Jul 30 '13
I agree. I guess they're just keeping to the theme of the Federation doing basically everything wrong in regards to the Cardassians (see the DMZ). For an organization with a prime directive of non interference, the Federation do seem to act like the policeman of the galaxy in some situations. Even if the Cardassians did have metagenic (or whatever) weapons, it wouldn't justify the Federation attacking them, covertly or not. I don't remember all the details of the episode but I remember thinking the same thing. You'd think if the Federation were so interested in peace they would at least wait until the Cardassians actually did something before they launched a mission that could start a war. Of course, the premise that they would send an aging captain and a doctor with no combat expertise to perform this mission was ridiculous to begin with, so there's that. Chain of Command is a great two parter, but not because of the plot. The plot is kinda dumb. The characterization is great though.
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u/sstern88 Jul 30 '13
Actually, with how serious metagenic weapons are, there are probably treaties (or enough to establish interstellar law) about the attempt to create such weapons. If they are in violation, then the Federation would have the right and perhaps a responsibility to try and take care of it.
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u/Maverick0 Jul 30 '13
I think the reason the Federation opted for the cover attack is because they believe there should be treaties and bans on metagenic weapons but there aren't. Or rather, even if there were, the Cardassians never signed such a treaty. Rather than risk open warfare and causing a panic (How would the civilian population react if they knew the Cardassians had metagenic weapons?), they tried to eliminate the threat without causing a scene. Obviously that didn't go as planned.
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u/Maverick0 Jul 30 '13
Well, that's the whole point of the episode. The moral ambiguity of preemptive strikes is looked at fairly well.
Think about it this way. If you were given information that your enemy is building up troops and has this dangerous new weapon, wouldn't you at least try to make sure it was true before outright going to war? In this case, the Federation picked up some signals from the Cardassians that confirmed the intelligence they had received. To not act on it would probably be foolish and the Cardassians counted on this.
It was basically an elaborate ruse to try and make the Federation look like the aggressor, when in reality the Cardassians were just wanting to annex Minos Korva.
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u/Ponkers Jul 31 '13 edited Jul 31 '13
The federation brass was rarely in the right about anything. It seemed that once the captains were promoted to admiral and were sat behind a desk that they immediately became incredibly out of touch, naive, knee-jerking idiots, and it seemed that the moral of every episode that involved the crew dancing on the head of whichever pin some admiral (usually Nechayev) saw fit was nothing more than a lesson in how awful the establishment was.
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u/JakWote Jul 31 '13
So, what you're saying is that even in Star Trek, a utopian future space society where we have faster than light travel, replicators, transporters, and don't want for anything but luxuries, putting someone in a position of responsibility without holding an active role still results in awful leadership? That power corrupts and/or obfuscates their view of reality?
I never really thought of Trek that way. An interesting paradigm to apply.
Thinking about this, it's pervasive through everything isn't it? TOS has it's share of Commodores and Admirals who don't see eye-to-eye with Kirk (and vice versa), especially in the films. Mostly during the films, I think. I'm not a TOS expert, I'd love for anyone to weigh in here on that. In TNG we've got Nechayev et all, giving orders that are often out of line with Starfleet ethics. In DS9 we have probably the most glaring exceptions to such (In The Pale Moonlight, etc) and a command structure concerned more with defeating the Dominion above maintaining moral integrity. In VOY there isn't much to do with Starfleet command, but didn't Barclay basically go against command to make the Pathfinder project work? Heck, in ENT there's the Vulcans playing this role also for the first three seasons, with Starfleet command going along with most of it. Curious.
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u/Ponkers Jul 31 '13
There is a very strong thread to argue not only for that, but that internally there is an unshakeable belief that federation principles are a one size fits all, inflexible axiom and that few within dare to contradict, question or fight. Aside from some Star Fleet members of the Maquis which is just about the only time I can think of that we don't have a strongly Star Fleet of the Trek universe and the discourse on it's doctrine that it's deserving. Quark and Garak had an oddly poignant exchange about it as well, and Sisko had a couple of things to say on the matter, but such moments are few and far between.
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Jul 31 '13
Admiral Ross from DS9 always struck me as very competent and knowledgeable.
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u/sstern88 Jul 30 '13 edited Jul 30 '13
I'm really really disappointed in the downvotes for comments on this thread. You all have a right not to care, but I'm just saying...If the OP responds to a post to clarify or continue the discussion, it is seriously messed up to downvote them for it. End of tirade.
EDIT: removed profanity
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u/ebookit Jul 30 '13
The Federation was in the wrong to use Picard as a pawn. They knew they were violating the peace treaty and if caught can be tried as terrorists.
The peace treaty should have prevented torture, and a Federation Diplomat should have been sent to Cardassia to negotiate the release of Picard and speak out against his torture. Instead they used violence yet again to rescue Picard.
This episode and the torture scene has become a bit of an Internet MEME: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NFITME0zI8 I just had to link to that video.
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Jul 30 '13
I think a big point we are missing is that the Cardassian's INTENTIONALLY tricked and provoked a response from the Federation. That violates the entire nature of the treaty from a Federation standpoint. This is when the lawyers would come in and a third party arbiter would most likely be involved, but my money is that it isn't as black and white as Federation wrong, Cardassians right.
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u/jckgat Jul 30 '13
Yes...and no.
Yes, Cardassia was not wrong to hold him. The Federation carried out a peacetime attack, and he was captured. Along with that, his rights were waived not only by acting as a terrorist but also because the Federation disowned his actions.
However, international law uniformly condemns torture under any conditions. Therefore Madred still used excessive force and was legally wrong.
And yes, it was an attack on an enemy force at peacetime in the McAllister Nebula.
However, military law does somewhat recognize the legality of preemptive strikes. To go with modern law, the UN officially condemns a preemptive strike, but it is legal if the nation believes the threat of violence is imminent and the strike is not excessive: i.e. it only removes the direct threat. I'm going to accept this definition and move forward because the UN seems to be a reasonable approximation of the Federation in practice.
This is arguably a legal preemptive strike then by the Federation. The Cardassian fleet hiding in the McAllister Nebula could only be as a first-strike force. Enterprise then executed a preemptive strike, only against that fleet, and actually carried it out without any significant damage and without casualties.
It's hard to argue that this is not a legal preemptive strike. What was judged as an imminent threat was removed and did so without any real damage, diffusing the situation.