In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, was on his way to work in Prague when his car was attacked by two Czech resistance fighters. Heydrich was mortally wounded and died in hospital.

We designate the assassins "resistance fighters" retrospectively. To the Germans, they were terrorists.

The Germans, determined to protect the lives of any of their citizens, "waded through blood", in Hitler's words, to exact revenge. They chose the town of Lidice to demonstrate their rage and their reach. When the avenging Germans had finished, they left behind a pile of rubble and 1300 corpses - because one German had been murdered. Or was it murder? --Terry Lane, In war, semantics is everything.

Once again the male of the species is beating his chest at the behest of his ego. We do it all the time. In disputes with neighbours, while driving in traffic, after too many drinks in bars, just about anytime and anywhere we think our insufferable, mindless pride is at stake. The only exception is when we are dealing with the little woman across the kitchen table. Sometimes we beat her to a pulp for being smarter and more evolved than us, but mostly we sit there and take it, because we know she is right.

It's only at that kitchen table when the Heydrich's, the Olmert's, the Sheik Yerbouti's, the Bush's, the Howard's turn into timid little boys. But when they, or their surrogate soldiers, get into the field, the revenge for all that humiliation at the feet of the instinctive intelligence of women becomes possible. With an AK-47 or an M16 and the camaraderie of their fellows, rape and murder becomes as easy as shooting a duck during peacetime.

The male ego is the foundation of all horror on this earth, but the current Middle East prelude to conflagration exemplifies another dimension, that of "Me and Mine and to hell with You and Yours" vs "We're all in it together".

All good and all evil begins at home. And every home resides in a neighbourhood, the microcosm of everything happening on the world stage.

Let's say neighbours X and Y have an uneasy relationship with each other. Neither of them knows exactly why. Maybe they perceive each other as coming from different social strata. X thinks Y is a mushroom with a stubby in its hand; Y suspects X is a latte-sipping twit. Both are married with two children.

Y and his wife like to have friends around on the odd Saturday night. They watch footy and drink beer and Jim Beam colas into the wee hours. X lies furiously awake until the last door of the last car is slammed and the car speeds off, honking its horn merrily. X's wife and children sleep through it all.

Sunday mornings, as soon as his wife and children leave the house to escape the inevitable retribution, X responds by playing Steve Reich's "Six Pianos" and/or Phillip Glass's "Music With Changing Parts" at full volume, the high-powered speakers in his office pointed directly at Y's bedroom. The mind inside Y's pounding head plots various forms of revenge, while his wife and kids sleep peacefully.

Y buys a puppy for his kids, and purposefully leaves it outside to bark incessantly some, but not all, nights, reasoning that X will never know if he's going to have a peaceful sleep.

X calls the council, keeps the required diary and the council eventually knocks on Y's door with an either/or: keep the dog inside at night or hefty fines will apply.

X's wife has a new car, but X still drives his 1985 Mitsubishi Sigma, hoping it will last another year until he can afford his own new car. The Sigma has a faulty exhaust that makes it sound like a Harley Davidson. When he starts it and idles it for, oh, say 20 minutes every morning in the driveway right next to Y's bedroom, he knows Y will be waking up earlier than he wants to.

Sometimes Y retaliates by sneaking over to X's front yard late at night and turning off the water spigot. He knows that X will have to come out in the frosty morning to turn it back on before he can take a shower.

When this happens X refuses to throw back the tennis balls Y's younger son and friends use to play cricket in their backyard and which occasionally fly over the fence into X's yard. Or, if he does throw them back, he makes sure to rub them in his own dog's feces.

For no particular reason, nothing happens for awhile; a detente has been reached. Perhaps their minds are on other things. Then one summer night Y comes home with firecrackers his workmates have given him and lights them in his driveway. X, who did a few tours in Vietnam, hits the floor of the lounge room in panic, thinks Y is shooting his family or trying to shoot X's family, and calls the cops.

The cops ream Y's arse. In retaliation, Y instructs his eldest son to start parking his Ute in front of X's house.

After a few weeks, X eventually blows his stack, goes after the eldest son, who kicks the shit out of him.

Two nights later, X sneaks down Y's driveway, lobs a Molotov cocktail into the family room at the rear of the house, runs back to the front yard and shoots the entire family as they come running out the front door.

X spends the rest of his life in prison. A year later, Y's brother knocks on the front door of X's house. When X's wife opens it, he shoots her, enters and shoots X's two children.

During the entire lifespan of this war, the wives of X and Y were never more than nodding acquaintances, yet they never failed to wave to each other if they were passing in their cars, or to say hello if they encountered one another shopping.

-- TG Willikers