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[CassidyIzABeast]

Run away from bothersome parents to a group that burns their prisoners alive. Smart move.

 

[Fishlake]

This is really tragic. They listened to the wrong people.

 

[Anion]

They ran away... TO ISIS?

I wonder what pushed them, radical leaders within or feeling disenfranchised by society.

Probably both, one is an easier fix than the other though...society might not change anytime soon unfortunately.

 

[Aiustis]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

I have sympathy for people who join gangs. I don't have so much sympathy for people who abscond from their country to join isis.

 

[Ray Wonder]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

I'm sure if I read stories or whatever, yeah, but it's hard to just always feel bad for everyone who has it rough.

 

[TwEE-N-Toast]

Are we supposed to extend to young racists the same sympathy that we allegedly should have for these young women?

If people don't want to look like hypocrites, sure.

 

[-COOLIO-]

True, but I would argue that these really young kids have a far weaker defence against being brainwashed (especially those with lower levels of education, bad childhoods, living conditions, family situations, etc). But I guess argueing about the level of "how sad" something is, is kinda useless...

Older Isis militants were brainwashed young as well, they just lived long enough to become adults. If you really wanna dig deep then then there's cause and effect for everything we do at any age. Free will doesn't exist.

 

[Yaboosh]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

I believe it was a This American Life episode where a neighborhood in Chicago had compulsory gang membership depending on where you lived.

http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/harper-high-school-part-one

Things like this are never simple when it comes to blame.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

I'm actually struggling to feel sorry for the two girls in this story but am able to manage sympathy for those who join gangs in the US. I guess this might be a proximity thing for me. Or there's just something else preventing me from empathizing the same way in those two cases.

 

[Wellscha]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

This is more like leaving the U.S. for Colombia to join FARC.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.


These weren't 5 year old kids that didn't know any better. They flew from their own country to join a well known terrorist organization to deal with their teen angst. Just wanted an ideology to cling to and saw something in the "purity" of fighting a great struggle for whatever.

Sadly some peoples lives only exist as a lesson to others: Don't join IS, kids...

I have sympathy for people who join gangs. I don't have so much sympathy for people who abscond from their country to join isis.

This. Gangs are local and they almost always stem from a young boy's desire to have a father figure of some sort around. Or a sense of family.

These girls had families and they abandoned them not because they "didn't have X" but because they selfishly wanted to join a terrorist organization.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Running away to a group who treat women as property. Smart move there... Sure, you're 15, but this isn't a stupid thing like getting too drunk or stealing something. To travel to another country to join a terrorist organisation that commits horrific crimes that they would have read about and even seen in videos on the internet is on a whole other level. Sad for their families, but I can't feel too bad for them.

 

[harSon]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

Or for kids who are dragged to ISIS by their parents

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Or for kids who are dragged to ISIS by their parents

There's such thing as context. Which makes that a completely different situation where blame lies with a completely different party.

 

[Rktk]

This is more like leaving the U.S. for Colombia to join FARC.

Because Colombia is a different country? If the comparison is that simplistic you should stop, and if you are comparing FARC to ISIS you don't know much about it.

 

[Rival]

I wonder what these girls home lives were like to make them want to do this? It's sad that kids are able to be manipulated into doing something like this and that two lives were lost. I feel sorry for their families. This was the exact outcome though that anyone should have expected. How dumb of them.

 

[ebullientprism]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

I wonder if people that are feeling sorry for youths that join gangs also feel sorry for starving kids in Africa.

I wonder if people that are feeling sorry for the starving kids in Africa also feel sorry for the Gorrilas about to to extinct.

 

[Yaphett Kotto]

It was a disturbing trend for a while.

I mean reports of girls being stopped a the airport before leaving was appearing every week for a while.

Yea, a girl an hour away from my hometown left Hoover Alabama for Turkey where she crossed the border to Syria which is crazy because its Alabama of all places. Nothing happens there. lol

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

GOTEEM

 

[leadbelly]

Nah bro.at 15 I definitely knew killing was wrong.

Well... I think a 15 year old is old enough to make responsible decisions. To a degree. At the same time though, they're at an age where they're not fully wise to the world. The only way you can become wise is through experience.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

I mean jesus, I can't imagine what her home life must have been like to get reeled into thinking ISIS would be a better alternative.

 

[EGM1966]

I don't remember leaving my country and joining a terrorist group. What the hell is happening and what kind of lives are these teens living to even consider such a thing? At 15 and up a person can tell weight their choices just fine.

Actually many people are very susceptible to being coerced between 15 and 21. Happens all the time. Psychologically it's an impressionable time when many young adults are trying to determine there place on the world, are seeking goals to believe in and focus on and are receptive to outside influence.

Sure not everyone's susceptible but many, many are. You can't just say "well I never did that" as though that explains it: all it says is you weren't. And not to be rude it doesn't even say that. Might just be no-one overtly tried to steer you in a bad direction. Many youths turn out fine simply because their circumstances automatically protected them from something like this.

Ultimately it's as sad as when young adult girls run off to join conmunes and the like and end up as slaves or pregnant for similar reason of being susceptible to coercion.

 

[Wellscha]

Because Colombia is a different country? If the comparison is that simplistic you should stop, and if you are comparing FARC to ISIS you don't know much about it.

Chill, I was using FARC as example. Joining gangs and joining ISIS is like Comparing apples to oranges, even if you remove what atrocities ISIS does.

 

[Kyzer]

As futile as it might end up, im thinking more and more that the white house should hold a 12 hour press conference and address all the conspiracy theories on the internet. They ignore them because they're crazy but young people end up believing ridiculous things and radicalizing. People are more willing to believe scary YouTube videos than accredited media these days. I keep thinking about how much of a nightmare a legitimate state of emergency in the US might be because of the amount of crazies that have been waiting for the new world order to impose martial law since the inside false flag 9/11 attack...ugh. And I mean. Propaganda is powerful. It's not hard to see someone else's made up side of the story if they present it right. Like people distrust our government so much that they're more willing to believe the illuminati control everything and its actually the Russians telling the truth about everything, while totally ignoring that we live in a society so free that they were even allowed to watch those conspiracy videos in the first place, than that there are reasonable explanations for things. Who the hell made Zeitgeist anyways? Who puts that much work into something like that lol

 

[Morrigan Stark]

They were 15, not 8. They really don't have the excuse of youthful ignorance. It's horrible when anyone gets murdered like that, but it's hard to be sympathetic when they really went out of their way to go into the wolf's den.

 

[GreatestHits]

I feel the most truthful thing is to say that they tragically got what they deserved.

However you never know what circumstances encompass someone's life and mind to be pushed or to choose something like that.

I hope their deaths aren't in vain, as in I hope we take a serious critical look at the most important parts of society that are contributing to things like this.

 

[Kyzer]

They were 15, not 8. They really don't have the excuse of youthful ignorance. It's horrible when anyone gets murdered like that, but it's hard to be sympathetic when they really went out of their way to go into the wolf's den.

15 year olds can be pretty naive, I see what you mean in that at 15 you can have a good critical thinking head on your shoulders, but theres also a ton of kids who are still very much children at that age. Its certainly not an age fit to be able to discern propaganda or make whats what of foreign affairs and conflicts. You know? In fact its probably the perfect age for people to be convinced of ridiculous things. Rebel phase.

I know what you mean though. They made their own decision. I definitely don't agree that they "got what they deserved" though...kind of a savage opinion...

 

[ClosingADoor]

15 year olds can be pretty naive, I see what you mean in that at 15 you can have a good critical thinking head on your shoulders, but theres also a ton of kids who are still very much children at that age. Its certainly not an age fit to be able to discern propaganda or make whats what of foreign affairs and conflicts. You know? In fact its probably the perfect age for people to be convinced of ridiculous things. Rebel phase.

I know what you mean though. They made their own decision. I definitely don't agree that they "got what they deserved" though...kind of a savage opinion...

I feel when that propaganda includes beheading people, there is something seriously wrong with you if you buy into that. That's not a rebel phase or wanting to belong to a group. You're crossing a line then you can't turn back from.

 

[psynergylover]

it's odd when male go to ISIS, but females!? really don't see how women can be allured to; was wacthing a CNN report about females going to ISIS and they were either married to an ISIS militant to be completely submissive to her husband, sold off as a sex slave, passed around to other ISIS militants, or used as suicide bomber...do not see allure in that at all

 

[Nightbird]

She was 15.

Just think about the amount of stupid ideas you had when you were 15, couple that with a romanticization element and you get situations like this.

Not to mention it's not unusual for kids in contemporary life to long for something greater than themselves.

15 is not that young. I agree that many are naive or stupid at that age, heck i was the same, but that's way too far.

This is not a simple running from home, they left the country and ran to fucking ISIS.

I understand your point, but look, even other 15-year olds will say that's dumb.

 

[Kyzer]

I feel when that propaganda includes beheading people, there is something seriously wrong with you if you buy into that. That's not a rebel phase or wanting to belong to a group. You're crossing a line then you can't turn back from.

Right, all I'm saying is when a 15 year old subscribes to this idea of the evil west and then realizes they made a stupid decision and gets beaten to death, its still really sad. Its definitely WAY different than an adult making that decision. In my opinion anyways. Idk its a muddy issue.

it odd when male go to ISIS, but females!?!I really don't see how women can be allured to; was wacthing a CNN report about females going to ISIS and they were either married to an ISIS militant to be completely submissive to her husband, sold off as a sex slave, passed around to other ISIS militants, or used as suicide bomber...do not see allure in that at all

Well to be fair whatever propaganda got to her was probably not truthful at all. If ISIS was selling the dream of being an abused sex slave with no rights and that they are evil terrorists who take meth, they probably wouldnt get any recruits at all.

Worth noting the brainwashing process often includes telling the victim the mainstream media is lying and not to be trusted. They often tell the victim to stop watching and read the news altogether and direct them to sites they run themselves or are sympathetic to their message.

Their perception of the events on the ground is warped.

And then you add some naivety into the mix...

Pretty much. And I see the other viewpoint too, though. 15 is old enough that they crossed a very clear line. But at the same time, its certainly not old enough to be treated with the same expectations as an adult. Its definitely sad.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I feel when that propaganda includes beheading people, there is something seriously wrong with you if you buy into that. That's not a rebel phase or wanting to belong to a group. You're crossing a line then you can't turn back from.

Worth noting the brainwashing process often includes telling the victim the mainstream media is lying and not to be trusted. They often tell the victim to stop watching and read the news altogether and direct them to sites they run themselves or are sympathetic to their message.

Their perception of the events on the ground is warped.

And then you add some naivety into the mix...

 

[Lulubop]

I fear how sexually abused these girls who run off to join ISIS are. RIP.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Worth noting the brainwashing process often includes telling the victim the mainstream media is lying and not to be trusted. They often tell the victim to stop watching and read the news altogether and direct them to sites they run themselves or are sympathetic to their message.

Their perception of the events on the ground is warped.

And then you add some naivety into the mix...

True, but in this case you have the brain washers themselves promoting their beheading videos and such. So I have little doubt they saw that stuff before they left. That is not the media telling that and believing they lie, that is ISIS itself telling straight out they do that stuff.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

i wonder if those that are feeling sorry for these girls also feel sorry for youth that join gangs in the u.s and other places.

Yes absolutely, I see it in the same context really.

Poor judgement coupled with a need to rebel and be part of something larger than themselves.

I feel bad for kids who join gangs because they see it as some sort of glamor symbol or other reasons, only to be killed later on through violence.

I remember watching the documentary called "Narco Cultura" on netfilx and seeing kids being killed by other kids from other narco gangs simply for being part of that gang and just feeling crest fallen - these kids thought, hey i'll join this gang for riches and notoriety only to be shot and killed

 

[Miles Quaritch]

True, but in this case you have the brain washers themselves promoting their beheading videos and such. So I have little doubt they saw that stuff before they left. That is not the media telling that and believing they lie, that is ISIS itself telling straight out they do that stuff.

I imagine it's a case of presentation. While most people see it for what it is, the victim of their constant bombardment and brainwashing attempt is likely being told this is justice, this is their form of the death penalty and I have no doubt they conjure up all manner of crimes those people will have committed to justify it.

 

[Kyzer]

Found this article. Doesn't necessarily make sense of the decision, but there's some sort of insight to be gained.

http://time.com/3276567/how-isis-is-recruiting-women-from-around-the-world/

 

[tbd]

Source also gave me this which is even more tragic: http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/24/tiny-...-set-on-fire-by-drugged-up-teenagers-5524142/

This world...

 

[ClosingADoor]

I imagine it's a case of presentation. While most people see it for what it is, the victim of their constant bombardment and brainwashing attempt is likely being told this is justice, this is their form of the death penalty and I have no doubt they conjure up all manner of crimes those people will have committed to justify it.

I'm sure there was some brain washing involved and they regretted it later, but it's hard to feel sorry for them anyway.

It's not a true black and white issue and there are surely underlying reasons and other factors leading to their joining of ISIS, but that does not excuse them I think. It's is still their decision.

 

[MrKaepora]

Well... I think a 15 year old is old enough to make responsible decisions. To a degree. At the same time though, they're at an age where they're not fully wise to the world. The only way you can become wise is through experience.

Yet you have the European Parliament wanting 16 year olds to vote in elections.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I'm sure there was some brain washing involved and they regretted it later, but it's hard to feel sorry for them anyway.

It's not a true black and white issue and there are surely underlying reasons and other factors leading to their joining of ISIS, but that does not excuse them I think. It's is still their decision.

I don't blame anyone for not being sympathetic to this news. It's tragic that they were sucked into this madness and it cost them their lives and we'll never really know why they did it, but I can understand the side of the argument that doesn't feel any sorrow at their deaths.

Although the manner of death for at least one teen is so brutal it can't help but trigger some emotion and empathy for what she went through in those final hours.

 

[psynergylover]

Well to be fair whatever propaganda got to her was probably not truthful at all. If ISIS was selling the dream of being an abused sex slave with no rights and that they are evil terrorists who take meth, they probably wouldnt get any recruits at all.

I understand that but, I mean they couldn't have at least done a little more research on them before going over to Syria? I think any western news media could've shown how terrible joining ISIS is.

 

[Kyzer]

I understand that but, I mean they couldn't have at least done a little more research on them before going over to Syria? I think any western news media could've shown how terrible joining ISIS is.

You would certainly think so. But that's the power of propaganda I guess. Someone who is radicalizing will see the media as nothing but fictional narrative because they're evil.
Weird era we live in

 

[Jotaka]

I understand that but, I mean they couldn't have at least done a little more research on them before going over to Syria? I think any western news media could've shown how terrible joining ISIS is.

You need to remember that this is not just a political movement but a religious too

 

[GaimeGuy]

The reason why you can't understand why people join ISIS is that you've never known (or you've forgotten) what it's like to really believe in a religion. These girls have been indoctrinated since birth to believe that the Quran is God's word to humanity and that His prophet Muhammad was the perfect human being, to be emulated in all ways. If you believe that, ISIS's interpretation of Islam is plausible, and the imperative to fight for the Islamic caliphate becomes the morally right thing to do. Add the romanticism of going off to fight in a holy war and the fact that they're teenagers, and I don't see anything surprising about girls such as these joining ISIS.

Of course moderate Muslims can't accept that their holy texts could be responsible for this so they'll blame the girls' decision on anything else they can think of, but they're the victims of their own religious beliefs.

The KKK used to be far bigger than any modern Islamic terrorist group. Your grandparents may remember such a time

 

[Jelly Rajah]

This is just awful.

Also, what did they find so appealing about the burka of all things?

 

[IrishNinja]

i prefer my people not compared to consumable food, ugh

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I mean, you lick a 'lolly' and we all know what a poorly maintained 'lolly' is like. Pretty subversive messaging right there.

 

[Amory]

Lay down with dogs...

 

[low-G]

Yes we should remember how we were as teens, not always very bright and easily influenced by external pressure.

We all remember going out at night and joining the world's worst terrorist organization, beheading a few children, and coming home at 2AM completely stoned.

 

[cyberheater]

I can't seem to be able to muster much sympathy for folks who join ISIS and then get killed by them.