[rlmorel]

It does depend on how one defines "victory", not an inconsequential point.

I know that the word "proportionality" is a hot button word, and I considered leaving it out, but...surely you can agree, that as a rhetorical device in helping to define the opposite ends of a spectrum, that it IS valid?

Surely you and I can agree that a crazed mulim extremist who shoots one lone American on a street corner would not be valid grounds for dropping a nuclear weapon on Damascus and killing a million people?

That was how I was primarily using the word.

[Prokopton]

"Surely you and I can agree that a crazed mulim extremist who shoots one lone American on a street corner would not be valid grounds for dropping a nuclear weapon on Damascus and killing a million people?"

I would not drop a nuclear weapon in such a circumstance, but not because of any feeling of proportionality, but because it would be unnecessary. However, I might bomb the entire block where the shooting took place if that was what was required to kill the perpetrator, even if civilians would be killed. That's how we defeated Germany and that's how we defeated Japan. That is not how we are fighting in Iraq.