I am a closet pacifist. I am tempted to come out and declare that I am against all wars, except for the lingering suspicion that some odd wars may have to be grudgingly conceded as justified military actions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that just wars are as rare as just men, and you need to look for them with a lantern in broad daylight.

Yet, wars seem as inevitable as disease and prostitution to the human conditions. The history of our civilised world is a history of war and peace. Wars define national boundaries, determine identity for peoples, and chart the collective destiny of our human race, for better or for worse.

To some, war is the extension of diplomacy by other means. To others, the international disorder today is akin to Thomas Hobbes' "state of nature"; a state of war exists between nations, with intervals of uneasy peace between violent senseless outbursts of armed conflict.

That is why I tend to be very cynical when wars are declared and waged with the noblest of intentions. Somehow, you get the feeling that, behind many such wars, the raw motive for warfare is often "national interests". Embedded deep under the intractable definitions of "national interests", you are more likely to find "vested interests".

Is the motive for war therefore the blind survivalist instinct of the individual writ large, to motivate whole communities and nations towards brutish violence, like animals in any Darwinian jungle? If so, the fear for personal and national security has bred within its nihilistic depths the seeds for moral corruption of mankind.

This tinge of nihilism in warring behaviour of mankind is the reason why wars fought with high ideals like patriotism, liberation, courage, honour, sacrifice and nobility have never escaped the spectre of needless brutality and inhuman atrocity.

The American war on terror, especially the current occupation of Iraq, is a heart-breaking case in point.

High-flown objectives

The US government declared war on Saddam Hussein with the high-flown objectives of securing homeland security through pre-emptive military actions, liberating the Iraqi people from the tyranny of a dictator, and establishing a model of freedom and democracy in the volatile Middle East region.

Despite accusations of furthering vested interests masked as national interests, individuals from President George W Bush down in the inner sanctum of US administration may have believed fervently in their declared objectives of mobilising for war and occupation in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the strength of conviction in any ideological belief is not necessarily sufficient proof that the belief is correct. In fact, unquestioned burning conviction in a self-righteous moralistic declaration of war is the perfect formula for wartime atrocities and "humanitarian disasters".

Inevitably, the moral conviction that leads to war can easily slide into expediency that "all means justify the end", as long as the end is noble. This sort of simplistic view of morality divides the world into allies and enemies. "If you are not with us, you are against us", as President Bush pronounced to the world with a straight face. His naivete is almost pitiable, if it is not also so deadly.

That the Iraq war has been deadly is beyond doubt. Something like 10,000 Iraqi have perished, along with over 1,000 allied soldiers. The country is now so unsafe for everybody that the United Nations, aid workers, and contractors engaged in reconstruction works balk at any suggestion to return to the killing field that is Iraq.

The real victims of this appalling state of affair have to be the Iraqi people themselves. This general anarchy that seems to escalate by the day a year after the invasion can hardly be the dream of liberation as promised by the American-led Coalition forces.

In fact, the alleged liberators look more and more like oppressors and occupiers by the day. They now face daily attacks from all sides, in all parts of the country, from the Sunnis and the Shiites, from 'foreign" elements to the Ba'ath remnants, and from God-knows-where.

You get the general impression of a whole people in revolt, against their so-called liberators. The savagery of this revolt and retaliation is as shocking as the savagery of the invasion. The seeds of nihilism beget nihilism in response.

Easy to resort to atrocities

Here, it is useful to recall that, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, villages in some parts o the Ukraine welcomed the German troops with bread and flowers for freeing them from Stalin. A year later, these same villages were fighting to the death these very German "liberators".

The term "terrorist" was the very label bestowed by the Nazis on the resistance movements throughout Europe in World War Two. Since then, it has become the generic tool of demonisation to justify the most horrifying acts against humanity, and Malaysia has been no exception.

Frustrated at being the receiving end of an epidemic of lethal attacks from faceless insurgents embedded deep within the local population, it is all too easy for the invading or occupying forces to resort to atrocities.

This was true of the French troops fighting in Algeria, and of the British forces struggling to subdue the Mau Mau in Kenya. In more recent years, we have seen more instances of "barbarisation of warfare", as with the Israeli troops in Palestine, the US soldiers in Vietnam, and the Russian armies in Chechnya.

Reflecting on this phenomenon, the professor of modern history at King's College London Richard Overy made the following observations in a Guardian article entitled 'Like the Wehrmacht, we've descended into barbarity':

"How does it happen? Some historians of the eastern front see the degeneration of military behaviour as something provoked by the fearful and dangerous reality of guerrilla warfare. When military forces are attacked by resistance movements using ambushes, bomb attacks and hostage-taking, they inevitably respond with accentuated violence.

"Others have argued that what matters is the set of assumptions - about race, about the occupied society, about what is permitted when troops are fighting irregular warfare - which soldiers bring with them. The predisposition to see the enemy as inferior, bestial, or outside the law, so the argument goes, produces a rapid descent into casual brutality and mistreatment."

Both factors would be applicable in Iraq, and would explain partially why ordinary men and women enlisted into the US army would descend into the sort of barbaric bizarre behaviour in the mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

If dehumanisation of the enemies is necessary to motivate people for warfare, and to justify the extreme acts of taking away God-given lives from their fellow human beings, then in time of war, atrocities have to be an integral part of warfare. There is no war without crimes against humanity.

Therefore, the horrible brutal acts inflicted on Iraqi prisoners cannot be the isolated aberrations of a professional US army, committed by a few undisciplined soldiers because of lack of proper training and poor supervision.

Given that there are 10,000 to 15,000 Iraqi prisoners held by the American occupying forces, and that the military authority in Iraq is a virtual dictatorship unchecked by any civil society or civil government in Iraq, it is more than possible that inhuman atrocities inflicted on the prisoners are both routine and widespread.

The International Red Cross and Amnesty International have been monitoring and reporting such atrocities for six months to a year. These are highly professional and credible people on the ground.

One can only imagine how their feeble protests have been brushed aside as inconvenient interference by those directing a war which they regard as a God-anointed struggle against evil and terror.

Not isolated wanton acts

You can imagine those hard-eyed warriors saying to themselves: "Somebody has got to get his hands dirty in this dirty business. Information can save lives, American lives. These people (sic) will not talk unless you soften them up a little."

The precedent for disregarding the Geneva Convention has been set in the Guantanamo Gulag. The message rings clear to all the American troops in Iraq: for the grand purpose of the War on Terror, and for Good to triumph over Evil, some human beings must be treated as less than human beings!

In short, the kind of wartime atrocities that have been uncovered in Iraq, and the kind of atrocities yet to be discovered there in the months to come, cannot be the wonton acts of a few wayward individual soldiers. They are the symptoms of the necessary logic of all warfare.

As Confucius used to say, weapons are instruments of evil, and the wise man will use it when there is no other choice. The trouble with fallible but powerful leaders of men is that, when they have such awesome arsenal at their disposal, they become lazy in considering other choices. Intoxication with the power that comes with the might of "instruments of evil" will tend to descend into acts of evil.

Eventually, sheer military might, and the American policy of unilateralism that is based upon their economic and military power, cannot solve the problem of the quagmire in Iraq, or the threat of terror.

Other choices have to be pursued. Only responsible and enlightened political, diplomatic and economic measures in creating a more just world order will ensure that this strife-ridden world shall be a safer place for all.