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Tracey Lingo sends this sensible email:

"Disproportionate use of force." Do I really have to explain that one? That's been in the press for the last week since the situation in the Middle East has blown up and I (for one) am quite sick and tired of it. Several pundits have put it better than me: "If rockets were raining down on Chicago or Miami on a daily basis, would you be complaining that our military was using "disproportionate use of force" against the thugs that were dropping those rockets on our cities?"

Tom Cook really dislikes the phrase:

This phrase has quickly become the most annoying noise on news reports. Like a car alarm at 8:00 in the morning, like a mosquito buzzing next to my ear, like a cell phone ringing six levels too loud, the repeated use of this brainless retort sets my nerves on end and nearly causes me to exert a disproportionate use of force against my television.

And Donald Palmer sends these words of wisdom:

Sun Tsu told the world 2,500 years ago that next to pre-empting war entirely (think Reagan and the Evil Empire), creating a disproportional response is the best strategy in warfare.

It is only in today's PC (Orwellian) world, where both winners and losers get trophies, and 2 + 2 = anything you want it to be, that a disproportional response seems unfair. I guess we should go back the trenches in World War I, where a toe-to-toe 2-year stand off along a fifty mile front gained no ground for either side and killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Now there was a truly proportional response.

topics:
Television, Military