>>I'm amazed you'd expect anything different.It's the human male. Whether he's kneecapping a Protestant, blowing up a parade, beating up prisoners, raping women, killing civilians, building gas chambers...<<

What a load of shit. I know a great many human males who do not engage in such activities and would never engage in such activities. Some American servicewomen freely participated in the sexual abuse of Iraqi male prisoners. Must be in their natural programming too.

Atrocities are a consequence of aggression, hate, superiority issues and fear -- not gender, I'm afraid. In that case, we may as well bust it down by race as well.

>>It's not the prerogative of the British, Divis, it's the failing of us all, no matter what our race, creed or colour. It's indefensible, unjustifiable but it's been going on since the dawn of time. How would you stop it? Good catholics, even the Pope, couldn't prevent IRA atrocities. The Archbishop of Canterbury couldn't stop Loyalist atrocities. Blair and Bush can't stop this, anymore than a good muslim leader could stop 9/11.
It's not a case for petty point scoring. It's life.<<

While I agree it's always going to happen and you can't prevent it, you still have to punish it whenever it occurs. To not do so is less civilized than the atrocious behavior. It is itself atrocious behavior.