You're soft-hearted, like me. You can't conceive of brutality to a cat, dog, or horse, much less another human. Neither can I. But evil in this world is attracted to brutality as one of the "fringe benefits" of being evil.
The Roman empire institutionalized brutality as a way of keeping its political system going. Give the masses enough vicarious brutality by way of the gladatorial games, and they'll become quiescent, just like from watching too much network TV. The downside was, the more the public got used to casual brutality, the less they wanted to serve in their own military. That brought the downfall of Rome, along with the rise of Christianity as an antidote.
Iraq is a brutal society, as was Germany and Japan. They are being given a chance by America to become un-brutal.