War coverage casts enemies as vermin, disease, and hunted prey to justify killing.

Evidence

“Captured: Saddam caught in hole ‘just like a rat.’” “Terrorists, like rats and cockroaches, skulk in the dark.” The second type of dehumanizing metaphor characterizes the enemy as a pernicious disease: “Only Muslim leaders can remove spreading cancer of Islamic terrorism.” “Al Qaeda mutating like a virus.” In the third dehumanizing metaphor, military actions designed to capture enemies are framed in animal-linked hunting metaphors. The enemy as “prey” is hunted, tracked down, snared, caged, and “kept on a short leash.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2421

Categorization

• SHARE: The three canonical metaphors (vermin, disease, prey) make a tidy mini-taxonomy worth sending to anyone studying propaganda or media framing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2421