It was either the afterword of Black Hawk Down or this book I read on how Muslim militancy and the mujahedeen got their start, but the writer of one of them talked about how he asked an elderly lady about peace in the M.E. She aggreed that most normal residents wanted peace, but when he followed up about peace with another, specific tribe of Islam, the lady basically said "fuck no, fuck em all, we can't have peace with those kinds of people."

"As long as my people are in charge, fuck you, beheading and bombing and get thee to the hinterlands of Hell where you belong, infidel.. If yours are in charge, we'll rape your wife and enslave your child and kill you."

That's why wars are fought: territory, food, sex, wealth, dogma. Power and control for it's own sake, and not in that order, although Power is often near the top if not number one.

Of course, if you're dealing with mindless hordes of NPCs, you can't reason with these frothing at the mouth savages, so of course, mass beheading is sometimes the only recourse. Sometimes you have to walk up to the degenerate and do a lotta damage. Not advocation of.