Are those who wage war on innocent civilians, especially children just inhuman monsters?

Or is saying that just a kind of psychological relief because it creates distance keeping us from understanding how ordinary people can be drawn into extraordinary violence?

History shows it is rarely “monsters” that commit genocide, but ordinary neighbours, soldiers, citizens who learned to stop seeing their targets as people.

So maybe the harder, truer answer is:

They are human, and that’s exactly why we have to stay vigilant. Because if humanity is capable of both atrocity and restoration, then the work isn’t to banish “monsters,” but to dismantle the systems, stories, and wounds that turn people into them.

~ Trotzen Healing Ecology™️