I usually try not to link to a lot of things that are readily available on widely read blogs but these issues seem so clear to me that it astounds me that there are large groups of people that don't believe what I do. Abortion, gun rights, stem-cell research, global warning - I can see the nuance of both sides. I don't see any here.

On the concept of proportionality.

"...parties to armed conflict are required to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and, therefore, are prohibited from attacking purely civilian targets--that is, targets with no military function. However, the law recognizes that targets with military objectives may be situated among civilians or have both civilian and military uses. In such cases, the law prohibits indiscriminate attacks and requires the attacking party to employ methods of warfare that minimize the harm to civilians."

Yay John Bolton - by Alan Dershowitz.

"Most importantly, Mr. Bolton understands that his job is to represent the United States and our interests to the world, and not the other way around. When The Washington Post's Dana Milbank chided Mr. Bolton for "disparaging the very organization he would serve," the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto promptly corrected him by saying, "the American ambassador to the U.N. is supposed to serve America, not the U.N."

Ouch.

'Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe? - by Charles Krauthammer.

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?....

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.

Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again.