rdh@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (Robert Hartman) (06/28/89)
From: rdh@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (Robert Hartman) In article <7735@cbnews.ATT.COM> eli@spdcc.com (Steve Elias) writes: > > >From: eli@spdcc.com (Steve Elias) > >[repost from sci.med] > > jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes: >!It has been widely reported that the soldiers responsible for the Tienanmen >!Square massacre were injected with amphetamine to make them more willing to >!kill. Is this really believable, or is it simply wishful thinking by the >!media seeing the chance to add a drug horror story to an already dramatic >!enough event? After watching 14-year-old boys play video games, the thought of putting them behind the controls of guide-by-wire missiles and other remote weapons must look mighty appealing to some tacticians. Speeding them up even further with coke and dex, while perhaps unnecessary, might also have its appeal. God only knows what it would do to those kids though. There's a great Sci-Fi book about this type of scenario called "Ender's Game," by Orson Scott Card. BTW, I think that simply telling the soldiers that there was a violent and dangerous counter-revolution to quell would be cheaper and cleaner than mass injections. Soldiers who are well trained don't think about politics. They perform as ordered. It wouldn't take much of a justification to override any qualms they might have had, especially when they were from distant provinces and therefore not "contaminated" by local affiliations. -bob.