People often behave badly when they are trying to prove a point. - Iain Banks

The background to the war, my studious Homomdan pal, is three thousand years of ruthless oppression, cultural imperialism, economic exploitation, systematic torture, sexual tyranny and the cult of greed ingrained almost to the point of genetic inheritability.

Which was more likely: what appeared to be the case, or this all being a lie, a set-up, a vast and incomprehensible joke? Discuss.

Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed.