“How else could you define it? Starting a brutal colonial war on Abyssinia is not exactly a nuanced act.”
You might look at how France, Belgium and Britain acted in their colonies during those decade before and after it. In fact, in 1868 the Brits did the same thing in Abyssinia. In 1879 the Brits disregarded a treaty set border and invaded Zulu land. There’s a movie about it. And you might want to review Bonaparte in Egypt. And also see Belgium in the Congo. The first genocide of the century.
Mussolini did nothing different that any other European power. I had an italian tour guide call him a “naughty boy”. Germans don’t speak of Hitler quite that way.
You do raise a good point.
King Leopold of Belgium was probably the worst.
You might want to look at a few things too, such as how silly the “everybody did it” argument looks when you apply it to somebody who dropped poison gas on civilians.