[d0mine]

Because it is how propaganda works: dehumanize the enemy, and the opposite for your side: make your hangman as human as possible. It is aimed at people who don't believe there were no war crimes and therefore the spin is necessary to get sympathy for the killers.

A similar spin was with the Abu Ghraib: torturers were humanized and their victims dehumanized.

[Aeolun]

It’s also good for your psychological wellbeing. If you’re just ‘destroying goods’ so to say, you don’t really have to worry about the fact they have wives and children.

Conversely, what is described in this article is the worst of both worlds. After spending days looking at their lives you are most definitely killing a human/father/grandfather.