Enemies are dehumanized into vermin before military force can be unleashed

Evidence

The bringing to bear of what, following Veblen, we might call conspicuous force presupposes a second stupidity: the verminisation of the enemy. Before Gulf War 1 had even happened, Virilo saw the logic of verminisation rehearsed in James Cameron’s Aliens, wherein the “machinic actors do battle in a Manichean combat in which the enemy is no longer an adversary, a fellow creature one must respect in spite of everything; rather, it is an unnameable being that it is more appropriate to exterminate than to examine or analyse.” In Aliens, Virilio ominously notes, attacks on the “family [form] the basis of […] neocolonial intervention”. The teeming, Lovecraftian abominations which can breed much faster than we can are to be dealt with by machines whose “awesome appearance is part of [their] military effectiveness”. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1451

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘verminisation’ as the rhetorical transformation of an enemy into subhuman swarm justifying extermination.
• XREF: Connects to the anti-Muslim monster imagery in Muslims in the Western Imagination and to modern counterterrorism literature. — connects to: Dehumanizing enemies as vermin reduces the guilt of killing them — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2417; Dehumanizing enemies can change soldiers until they dehumanize entire civilian populations. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2418; Training soldiers to kill requires dehumanization that extends to women and ethnic others — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 557 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Dehumanizing enemies as vermin reduces the guilt of killing them #expands (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2417
• Enemies are rhetorically recast as animals or demons before being killed. #corroborates (0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 613
• War journalism dehumanized enemies through animalistic metaphors like rats. #exemplifies (0.88)
• Dehumanizing enemies can change soldiers until they dehumanize entire civilian populations. #expands (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2418
• Training soldiers to kill requires dehumanization that extends to women and ethnic others #expands (0.80) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 557
• Dehumanized enemies must stay human enough that killing them seems valorous #complicates (0.80)
• Enemy depictions must balance dehumanization against valor so violence stays enjoyable #complicates (0.80)
• Dehumanizing an enemy requires first casting one’s own side as innocent victims #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1453