Blood rhetoric

By way of comparison:

One evening in Gulu at a sanctuary for night commuters, I met 14-year-old George, who said he spent three years with the rebels. He said that as the rebels prepared to break camp one night, a pair of 5-year-old boys complained that they were too tired to walk. �The commander got another young boy with a panga [machete] to kill them,� George said. On another occasion, George went on, he was forced to collect the blood of a murdered child and warm it in a saucepan over a fire. He was told to drink it or be killed. ��It strengthens the heart,�� George recalled the commander telling him. � �You then don�t fear blood when you see somebody dying.� �

Paul Raffaele, Uganda: The Horror
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2005/february/uganda.htm