Re: [SG] Islamic Bombers

Laserlight wrote:

> Richard Bell wrote:
>
> > Nobody has suicide squads until after the war has been lost.
>
> With enough training/brainwashing, I don't see why not.  There was a
> sect in the middle east a few years ago (AD1300-1400 or thereabouts,
> IIRC) where the men castrated themselves.

Did it kill them?  Was it a doomsday cult that felt desperate?	If it
takes more training to produce a suicide bomber than a combat rifleman,
why aren't you producing more combat riflemen?

Castration is not that extreme.  There are people that voluntarily
reject the pleasures of the flesh, but make it harder by NOT castrating
themselves.  There was a time in Chinese history where guaranteeing that
you would have no blood descendants was the surest way to political
power.	Even in the late nineteenth century, certain boys, in Europe,
were convinced to allow themselves to be castrated to preserve a singing
career [aside: oddly, these castrati were never at loose ends for the