In response to Christina, I must say, that while this is indeed a drunken tavern, some of us still have our wits about us, while others need a splash of the cold water of reason.  My interlocutor, though quite learned, suffers from having a degree in Medieval Studies (if you will allow me the ad hominem in this informal setting) and thus has her head full of quixotic romanticism.  She confuses chivalry with justice and esthetics with sound reasoning, both of which, I would add, are common and mostly forgivable errors among her sex, as long as she accepts her due rebuke.

If justice demands victory and victory does not demand the injustice of atrocity, then war is not only permissible, but indeed noble.  It does not matter whether we ride horses or tanks, fire arrows or mortars, fly on gryphons (as Christina would have us do) or fighter jets.  Furthermore, an atrocity is just that, whether it is razing and pillaging Constantinople in the Thirteenth Century or carpet bombing Paris in the Twentieth.  Civilians have always been affected by war; war is never pleasant for anyone.  What is never conscionable in any era is the targeting of civilians (i.e. those not directly involved in the war effort).

It is true that in war man can be both at his best and at his worst, but war is not primarily, as Christina asserts, about each side testing its physical prowess against the other.  Such a conflict would be much more the "video game war" she complains about than anything else.  Rather, war, when fought justly, is an instrument of that same justice.  It must be fought always with the help of God and a heavy heart.  For war is never neutral.  The courage and resolve required to enter battle must come either from the light of divine justice or from animal cruelty.  So let us dispense with Christina's romantic notions of polite, deathless wars and  rather look horror straight in the eye and let our cause be judged by it.