Daniel Okrent, the managing editor of Life in l996, commenting on the decision not to publish the photograph of an incinerated and charred corpse of an Iraqi soldier, stated that at some point we have to acknowledge what people are capable of doing to one another. Such inhumanity is the necessary result of propaganda, of an us versus them bipolar opposition. In the beginning we create the enemy. Before the weapon comes the image. We think others to death and then invent the battle-axe or the ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them.
Propaganda precedes technology.
In an unconditional, Manichaean exterminationist war, the enemy is archetypically depicted as a superman or as supermen. The psychological pattern in propaganda to create an image of the enemy as a superman is rooted in a paranoid, infantile orientation. Moreover, anxiety and guilt is lessened when the enemy is omnipotent and criminal. This tactic is necessary to galvanize and mobilize all the resources against the enemy, which is not as easily done if the enemy is not perceived as a threat or danger. The analogy most often used in propaganda is that of the bully.