After joining IS aged 15, German woman asks to go home - Sensationalist Headlines

What does this mean? You make choices from the day you're born essentially.

At 5 years ols you can't be held responsible for joining isis, you don't know any better You do at 15

...so you can't get laid if you're gay?

Elaborate, what happens inbetween age 5 and 15?

The question at hand isn't really whether or not she's responsible for her situation, so much as its whether or not we should forgive her decision as a byproduct of her youth. I work with a girl who, at the age of 15, borrowed her mother's car, crashed it into a wall and had it catch fire. It was a really, really stupid thing to do, but its not something that will be held against her for the rest of her life because as a society we are willing to accept that youth often make poor decisions. This is on a whole other level of magnitude, sure, but the same basic premise still applies. Quite frankly, if we're going to operate as a society from a position of moral superiority to the society of the Islamic State (as we rightfully should) then we should also be willing to show magnanimity to those who were led astray and help them reintegrate back into society. One of the most potent weapons we should have to combat such extremism is to display that it's not to late for our present enemies to turn away from their hatred and come home. If we can't provide that, why should those who have doubts ever abandon the extremist cause? Its not altogether that different from how we've operated in more conventional wars in the past. You prosecute the leaders for their guilt while recognizing that the general population had been led down the garden path. Its just now that, in a digital, globalized world, we have to recognize that even those at home can be misled.

At 15 your brain still hasn't quite developed the capability to truly parse cause and effect on the longer term (on average), you're more prone to making emotion driven decisions on reaction rather than thinking things through and considering the potential problems it might bring about. It's why adolescents are so impulsive. The brain just has progressed enough to not be impulsive. When you add that in to the various techniques used to groom and manipulate these teens it makes it a fair bit fuzzier than "they decided to join it fuck them". The ISIS recruiters don't just slide into their DMs with a "hey bby want 2 bhead infidels w/ me ;)". It's a somewhat carefully plotted processed to try and reinforce any insecurities or anger that the target may have with their current life. And use those as leverage to convince them to join a "resistance movement". They may never mention that they are DAESH/ ISIL/ ISIS directly, or at least hold off doing so until they're certain they've got their target in the right mindset to just accept that. There's a reason you're only seeing teenage girls targeted for this. They can be quite vulnerable. Common suggestions for why they might be easier targets tend to include; Their family lives are quite restrictive as particularly devout Muslim families can be quite conservative, and even a teen in that situation would want some freedoms. Running away may give them the sense of "yes I did this for myself, family be damned It'll make me happy" off the back of the lies spun by a recruiter. Similarly, arranged marriages are a huge problem in Asian communities. The kids involved rarely really want in on that, so running away to a man of their "choice" would give them that sense of self control and freedom. Even if it's all a lie. Alienation from local communities can play a huge part. It's hard to integrate when the society around you refuses to acknowledge the differences you do have and expects you to be the one who drops all your beliefs and personality in favour of the zeitgeist. Muslims in particular have it quite bad right now as they tend to be surveilled lot more than other groups. Great way to alienate people huh? So you've got a bubbling crock of hormones, a brain that isn't completely developed, and a underlying sense of unease or uncertainty in their lives. Promising them anything that might make their lives better is going to make manipulating them into running away a lot easier. This is all standard grooming stuff, it's not specific to ISIS or anything, and it takes time. As far as we can tell, these are pretty much the only real common factors between the girls we see targeted for this. Social status or family background doesn't seem to impact it as much as personal circumstance at the time. This is a slightly weird, wordsy read that kinda goes into that stuff in more detail, I was trying to find other sources from government investigations into this stuff but it's 1AM so you'll have to make do with this; Cyber-Grooming Young Women for Terrorist Activity: Dominant and Subjugated Explanatory Narrative

How many copies of Hybrid Theory do you own?

I get that, but at a certain point, you just have to evaluate the situation at any kind of level and figure out if its a good or bad decision. And I don't know how anyone could think that joining IS is a good idea. There has to be a lack of information or something of the sort for that to happen. How else would anyone think it would be a good idea to join murderous lunatics? I just don't get it whatsoever.

??? his implication was that i was defending the german woman's ~honor~ in hopes of getting to fuck her

That'd be weird as hell since she's a German currently living in Syria, I took it as just getting laid in general by defending people on the internet. But whatever it was a dumb post anyway, shouldn't have gone on a tangent, ignore me.

There's a difference between a random person pretending to be nice to groom a child and ISIS. Unless the pedo is well known and ""famous"", you full well know what you are getting into with ISIS, while the pedophile is an unknown person, who could look and pretend to be anything. Look at Bundy, he didn't look like a serial killer and no one blames his victims. But it's been known forever what ISIS is and what they do, so this equivalency is quite frankly stupid.

Yeah i really doubt ISIS groomers explicitly mention that they are ISIS

I'm confident that the girl poses no threat, so there is no harm done letting her back into her original nation. However, she is now with children at the age of 19, so she will require social support to get on with her life for years to come. Even better if she denounces her religion and any affiliation to Islam (all of which is inherently bullshit) but I suppose that's not a "cool" thing to do either.

This is such a grandpa statement, you're just saying "this is how the world works, duh"

I mean if it was up to me then maybe. Of course she shouldn't have the denounce shit, it's her right to practice whatever religion she chooses. However, there will not be a day where people of different religions (or the lack thereof) will respect the sovereignty and independence of other people and nations.