The British newspaper News of the World on Feb.12 reported an incident of British soldiers beating teenage Iraqis two years ago and related video has been widely broadcast. Following the exposal of US troops' abuse of prisoners in Iraq British soldiers' brutal acts in the war in Iraq gradually come to light, which leads to shocks as well as contemplation.

The British soldiers' brutal behavior happened two years ago. During the two years, neither those in question, witnesses nor those who learned of it later viewed this as brutal or shameful. Otherwise, the incident wouldn't take two years before it is exposed. Rather, it caused clamor and shocks in the society two years later, after it was exposed in the form of video evidence. There is a big difference in response between the two, which perhaps can be attributed to the difference between "war culture" and "peace culture". In other words, things intolerable in a normal and peaceful society can happen quite often in a war environment and be viewed as normal.

The distortion of human nature and mentality by war is indeed an issue worthy of serious studies. It is believed that the US and British troops' brutality can't be limited to the few incidents caught by the camera and there must be much more unrecorded by the camera, only these have been ignored, tolerated and wrapped up in the special war environment. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's explanation for this -- "most British soldiers are good" -- is too juvenile.

If it is argued that the British soldiers' behavior has behind it a kind of "war culture", it is also true that their behavior has not been regulated by "wartime laws". After the exposal two years later the British government and military said they would investigate. It goes to prove that the British military lacked internal self-regulating legal environment during the Iraqi war, the most important of which are education and supervision mechanisms.

Since the advent of human society it has tried to establish certain kinds of war civilization. Duke Xiang of State Song in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) was a typical example of pedant in wartime. However, he was among the first attempting to propose war morals (for example, refraining from killing the surrendered and capturing the gray haired etc.).

In more recent times, the international community set up an elementary treaty system regarding treatment of war prisoners and civilians and certain social awareness has formed in many countries. However, such and such abuse behaviors during the war in Iraq show that effort in this regard is still wanting in some countries and in the troops that most need war civilization.

Behind the "US troops' prisoner abuse" and "British soldiers' brutal beating," two ideological elements need to be discussed. One is the "civilization superiority" and the other "conqueror's mentality". Under the US and British official propaganda the US and British soldiers at large have the tendency to regard themselves as "liberators" and "sowers of advanced civilization". The mentality will inevitably lead to a kind of disdain of Iraqi culture and religion and therefore cause many conflicts.

"Conqueror's mentality", on the other hand, is determined by the fact of occupation. This fact often places a condescending mentality in the occupiers, a mentality of doing whatever one wants which induces various ugly elements in the human nature.

War is the highest violent form of human confrontation. To reduce as much as possible the damage of war is perhaps the original intention of establishing war civilization. This is a thing hard to accomplish. However, it is something worthy of try under the circumstance that war cannot be avoided.

(People's Daily Online February 16, 2006)