Now that's the kind of Northerner talk everyone loves.
While I frequently agree with violator's perspective, I'm definitely more aligned with Zack's pie hole on the matter of cowardice. I don't see this people as cowardly at all. Indeed, I think it takes pretty big stones to drop off the baby and intentionally go commit acts that are almost certain to lead to your own death.
Savage? Perhaps... But I just think of them as the implacable foe. Thus, a terrible calculus of the type advanced by W T Sherman has to apply at about this juncture, and it doesn't bode well. Sherman, pre-Civil War, estimated the number of Confederat casualties required to successfully conclude the war. He did this by taking an estimate of fighting-age males, reasoning that most of them would not be persuaded without death or traumatic injury striking in close proximity.
As for The curious focus on that aberrant loon cited, Bustr, of course you're right... You just need to let go of the idea that the citation is concerned with "justice". It became clear to me, mainly from all the gloat icons, that sticking it to person/persons unknown is more attractive for some. You'll see this at all levels of American society. Lynch's curious warbling yesterday being another fine example... Baffling, unless you think like a perp, a thing I know how to do because of a past youthful life that I suspect I have in common with some. Disclaimer: my perpetration was notably petty and off the public record, thank god... But there is a mindset that Patty Smith characterized, imj, in a song that features an epithet in the title.