A war zone is a collapse in law and order where might makes right and whoever has the guns makes the rules. People who normally wouldn’t risk imprisonment for acting out their fantasies of torture and murder have the opportunity during wartime to become one of the people with the guns who make the rules. They have a helpless population at their fingertips to whom they can do anything they like.

War is the worst thing in the world. It’s the most insane thing humans do. So, so much of the trauma and dysfunction of our species are the lingering reverberations from wars which ended decades ago, passed down from generation to generation by soldiers returning home and by civilians who’ve been subjected to unfathomable abuse by those who found themselves free to do anything they want to them.