Yeah, exactly. Why hornets? No one knows. There's no worldbuilding reason for it. It's a "the bad guys are doing melodramatically bad things because they are eeeeeeevuuuul" choice.

The funny thing is that sort of punishment would've completely fit in with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. Not only is it a ridiculously overblown reaction to something fairly minor, which satirizes the tendency towards sadistic military training in pulp mil scifi, it would've worked from a "see, if you don't keep your cool in combat then the Bugs will get you" standpoint as well.

Context, context, context. Which an editor could've told him.