Being able to craft a statement justifying such an event, with all the mental gymnastics that might be involved if it's not a position you would support normally, is one step in recognizing those statements in real life.

If the student does support the action, accurately anticipating the objections of the other side and explaining why the action is justified in a way meant to mollify them is also useful.

Bottom line, being able to (or attempting to) write a PR document at that level requires a lot of understanding and thinking, and being willing to forego your initial prejudices to explore an idea as fully as possible. That's exactly what a good student does, so I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.

Truthfully, I'm much more worried about what I see as the common trend of only viewing and reacting to the surface level of any event or topic, and immediately seeking others lend support and credence to that interpretation rather than trying to understand the motivations and purpose. That's always happened, but it seems to have become much more common.

I'll continue to take the assumption that asking a (prospective) student to conduct an exercise involving a thought experiment implies support of the premises of the exercise on the part of those asking it, an expectation that the student supports them, or an attempt to shape the student to support them, as a sign of ignorance within at least the confines of what those sorts of questions are used and useful for.

That the position the student is asked to assume is a bit uncomfortable is very likely part of the point. Seeing what they make of it—the tone, the message, what they choose to add or leave out, how and whether they fill in the gaps in the prompt WRT the events, circumstances, the state of mind of the prime minister, the mood of the people, and so on, which are numerous, how and whether they balance all this with the particular limitations and goals of the message itself, or hell, whether they reject the prompt and walk out in a huff (bad) or do something else by ignoring all or part of the prompt and its explicit and implied constraints (potentially very good if done just right)—can all be useful, and in ways "craft a message about how awful this was and why it should never happen again" wouldn't be.

People have been making the point long before Chomsky. Education for the masses is about training people to fit into domination based hierarchies[1]. In the past such systems produced better outcomes.

As info explodes and people learn there are other structures besides Hierarchies that can produce outcomes (such as Networks) the Hierarchies start teetering. And training for obedience becomes less important.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7TONauJGfc

Bill Deresiewicz made a similar point in his book Excellent Sheep. Students are rewarded for conforming and following the designated educational path. But is that really what we want?

https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/