Austria teenage girl jihadis 'want to come home’ from Isil

[shedemei]

...and so the US allows ISIS to devastate the Turkish Kurds.

Guess what that's caalled?

"Same shit, different war."

[Stephanie66]

I the US, we'd take our citizens back, try them for treason, then execute them, at least if they were adults. I'm not sure what would happen to teens. We'd take them back, but then what? We can't let them walk at some point, but we don't sentence 15-year-olds to death.

This sort of thing is too big to just let the person walk without consequences. There'll always be the concern that someone who committed treason once might be part of a plan commit an act of terror by getting someone stationed back inside the country. Traitors pose a huge security risk. I'm not really sure there is much that can be done other than what our countries already to. It's such a huge security risk to so many to take for 1 or 2 people who consciously chose to do this once that such drastic measures are necessary.

Yes we do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ju ... since_1976

I am not saying we SHOULD, just that yes, if someone commits a crime as a juvenile, they can be tried as an adult and executed.

[DGayle]

The hard part, for me, is where is the " age of reason" drawn? I agree that making some kind of special op to retrieve just the two of them doesn't seem feasible -- but at what age is the line between " can't be trusted for life" and "dumb kid who didn't know what they were doing" - isn't one of the definitions of " innocent" being unaware of / naive?

I think it's a really hard call. Although neither are legal adults ( at least in the U.S.)- it's a lot easier, for me, to think of the 17 year old as mature enough to be held accountable. But 15 is kind of a gray area, to me. And what if one of them was 12? Should a young teen be considered a threat for the rest of their lives?

When you're old enough to know that murder is wrong, and you make the conscious decision to go join terrorists groups that murder, complete with making secret plans on when to leave and how to get to the terrorist group, you're old enough.

In the US and many other countries, 15 is old enough to get a driver's permit. In many countries, 15 is the age where teens have the full right to ALL their medical decisions and to block their parents from knowing anything. Most of us support girls at the age of 15 getting abortions without parental consent or knowledge since it's believed they are intelligent and mature enough to make adult decisions. 15 is high school. Kids that age aren't so naive and unaware of things as we'd like.

If 15 isn't old enough to be held responsible for your own plans to join a terrorist group, and then doing it, then 15-year-olds need to be declared children who need their parents to sign off on everything still, and no driving for them.

The typical 15-year-old is old enough to know murder is wrong. The typical 15-year-old these days is also capable of making plans to flee. The typical 12-year-old is at an age of starting to understand the gravity of murder, but the typical 12-year-old isn't capable of making such secretive plans to escape their home country to go join a terrorist group.

Those girls weren't raised in this knowing nothing else but terror. They were raised in a first-world country in safety, and with access to TVs where they could see what's happening around the world. They chose to turn on it.

They may genuinely be feeling remorse. They might not be. The might be terrorists being masked as girls wanting to go home. It's a crap shoot. Guess wrong and leave them there, and the lives risked are theirs. Guess wrong and go get them, and the lives risks are the soldiers sent to try to find them (how easy it would be for 2 soldiers to die, nullifying the lives saved before the girls are even to the border, and I doubt the parents burying their soldier-children will think their kids died for the worthy cause of saving a couple idiots from their deliberate decisions to go join terror groups trying to kill soldiers) and everyone around them when they get back to Austria. If one of your loved ones died because of an attack planned with their help. I doubt you'd be thinking that rescuing them, with any lives lost along the way, was worth it in case they really were remorseful. Chances are you'd be asking why they weren't left there.

[DGayle]

But these people are as human as you are. They err. They gravitate towards power for the security of it. But then a time comes when those whose consciences remain intact then know they turned a bad corner. They know they can never go back - but in a society that repudiates the atrocious and unforgiving rules of groups such as ISIS, then there should be room for those girls to grow beyond their worst acts. A day may even come when their repudiation of terrorism will give other young people pause.

Volunteer up your children to risk their lives to go bail those girls out of the consequences of their actions. We don't say that murderers and rapists should "be allowed to grow beyond" their actions. We shouldn't send the message that you can go make all the mistakes you want, risk lives, maybe be involved in some murders, and as long as you come to realize the errors of your ways, we'll welcome you back with open arms. Sometimes consequences are permanent, and those times come when the risk of ending consequences means others are in significant danger.

You say that letting these girls go home and move on with their lives might influence others to do the same. Have you overlooked how suicide bombing is seen as noble? Martyrdom as a way to heaven?

Have you thought about such severe consequences may be deterring others from even dabbling in terrorism?

Saying that young people can go try it out, repent (how would anyone know it's genuine?), and come home, is far more dangerous.

When there's no going back, you think twice. When you know you'll be welcomed hoe with open arms, it's easier to be impulsive.

[Anny Nym]

I can see them trying something like that - but not with those girls. A great many people associate them with ISIS and still believe them to be part of terrorist organization. It could be decades before they're trusted enough to send uncensored text messages.

I'm genuinely curious - I'm not just asking for the sake of argument - just how those two could act as "trojan horses."

ISIS sometimes recruites through the internet; they write tracts abusing their Holy Book and glamourizing service against an enemy they claim is bestial and savage. Much as I hate to say this, those trojan horses are probably posing as moderates in Muslim student groups and other organizations designed to attract the young.

How they could act as trojan horses? The same way as everyone else would be used too. With teenagers, it is even more easy. And no, there was no talking about moderates in student groups, but actually using ISIS members tarned as refugees.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-terrorist ... pe-1468701

I do understunderstand your suspicions. There are two separate but tightly liked issues, however: One is how thoso handle this situaion. The other, addressed here by several different posters, is how thoso deal with ISIS defectors and POWs.

When we ask the latter question, I think it´s important to point out that there is no one-fits-all recipe. This has to be an individual decision by every single country, evaluating carefully the political and cultural impacts if any actions in dealing with returning ISIS members or ISIS defectors. What could be a good way for the USA might be a bad choice for France or GB, and what would sound perfectly reasonable in Austria may be a strange concept to the USA and so on...

I think the same people who spent a million lives and a trillion dollars in their War On Terror should be paying for that.

To put it blunty, how in the fuck did ISIS manage not only to invest Raqqa but build a rudimentary infrastructure there when the eyes of the Western world were allegedly on that region?

(For example, who would like to explain this? http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/opinion/barfi-kurds-isis/ )

Well, that is a very noble wish, but unfortunately it belongs to the same category as "There should be no hungry child on the entire african continent" - we both know that just won´t happen anytime soon.

For the latter, how the fuck did ISIS manage to take on Raqqa? Because nobody seriously tried to stop them until now.

Maybe it´s time to talk about some ISIS key data:

When you look at a map of the ISIS controlled area, it´s clear that they simply took over a already war-ridden region with previously damaged or destroyed infrastructure. Their "force level" is speculated to be somewhat between 30.000 (realistic) and 50.000 (maximum).

That´s laughable, if spoken from a pure militaristic pov. While WW II, there were battles where this was the causuality of just one DAY.

Nobody with sane mind could possibly believe that they couldn´t do away with ISIS if they want to. But they don´t want yet. Erdogan wants the kurds to be decimated and alot of people in the oil industry really like the incredible cheap raw oil they could currently buy from the ISIS, which they sell quick to buy weaponry. (ISIS got control of some main iraqui oil wells).

It is a question of time until the slogan regarding ISIS will be "The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go."

About the article you posted, what is exactly the question there?

[Burris]

Imprison them in embassies instead of sending them home.

Which embassies - the ones where human rights observers could be potentially barred from entry because that location is considered part of a different country?

None of us would be too pleased if we lost loved ones to a massive terrorist attack carried out with the help of supposed-defectors. Even with monitoring, there are still ways of getting messages to people.

Of course not. But it would be equally painful to lose loved ones in any other way.

One thing that cannot be stressed too much is this: We believe our way of life, whatever its flaws, is superior to the theocratic tyranny ISIS represents. If this is correct, then we should remain every bit as committed to human rights and reason - to rising above savagery, whatever the provocation - as ISIS is to their own beliefs and goals.

Those girls are in a country where women are supposed to be very closely monitored, and yet they supposedly got messages to the outside world. Either monitoring, even closely, is prone to fail, or those messages were approved as a part of a plan to make people look like defectors to get them a foothold somewhere.

To what end? They're tainted.

[DGayle]

Yes we do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ju ... since_1976

I am not saying we SHOULD, just that yes, if someone commits a crime as a juvenile, they can be tried as an adult and executed.

Roper v. Simmons, 2005. SCOTUS declared that the death penalty for minors is unconstitutional. In 2012, in Jackson v. Hobbs and Miller v. Alabama, life sentences without parole for those 17 and younger was declared to be unconstitutional as well. Cruel and unusual punishment.

[Anny Nym]

Oh, okay -there are alot of posts coming up right now. I think I have to catch up :-D

[BrownieMomma]

This isn't directed at me, but it begs for an answer.

It might be legitimate to imprison former ISIS members. If your primary reason for doing so is that people are safer, however, then you're sadly mistaken.

Me? Would I offer a bed to a former ISIS member transitioning from prison? That depends: If that individual had spent her time behind bars working to better her lot, seriously engaging with Imams committed to peaceful coexistence, then I'd "put my money where my moneouth is."

It's not always true, unfortunately, but it is true sometimes that the antidote to cruelty in one person is an unflagging commitment to kindness as expressed by someone else.

This seems incredibly naive.

We, especially we Americans, have such a tendency to childize our teens. We keep them in schools until they are 18 and consider them children.

Not everyone does this. There's really nothing to substantiate this prolonged childhood except that it suits our school system. My cousins grew up in Britain and were done with high school by age 16. Then they had to/got to make their own choices about their adult lives from that point.

These were not 12yo's who flounced out the door in a huff because they couldn't stay up late. How mature are they truly? We don't know. How in the world was joining a terrorist group appealing to those two girls? We will probably never know.

They are European and probably considered more mature in their culture than we consider kids that age in our culture.

People make foolish choices, and sometimes you can't take it back.

Sometimes those choices are forever.

[DGayle]

Which embassies - the ones where human rights observers could be potentially barred from entry because that location is considered part of a different country?

Then leave them where they are. Let them live with the terrorists they consciously decided to go to.

Of course not. But it would be equally painful to lose loved ones in any other way.

One thing that cannot be stressed too much is this: We believe our way of life, whatever its flaws, is superior to the theocratic tyranny ISIS represents. If this is correct, then we should remain every bit as committed to human rights and reason - to rising above savagery, whatever the provocation - as ISIS is to their own beliefs and goals.

How much additional risk in this world are you willing to put your family in because you're so worried about the idiots who leave comfortable homes to so serve terrorists? It would hurt to lose my children in a car crash, but it would be acid on top of the hurt to have my children die because someone decided that saving the asses of traitors is just that important.

It's not savagery to say that if someone chooses to turn their backs on their home country, and to become an enemy of that country and to try harming it, that the penalty for that is that they will never be able to be fully trusted again, and that the risk of accepting them back is imply too great. Savagery is kidnapping people and beheading them if their home countries don't give money. Savagery is hurting people who had no choices in anything. Traitors are people who have choices, and who choose to make themselves your enemy.

To what end? They're tainted.

[DGayle]

Not everyone does this. There's really nothing to substantiate this prolonged childhood except that it suits our school system. My cousins grew up in Britain and were done with high school by age 16. Then they had to/got to make their own choices about their adult lives from that point.

[snip]

They are European and probably considered more mature in their culture than we consider kids that age in our culture./quote]

Something I had to get used to in the Harry Potter books is how Britain considers kids to be adults. When I first read the first book, before it was available in US stores, it was strange to be a minor in America, while same-age characters in the books were adults.

I do think America is on the forefront of extending childhood into the adult years. It used to be you were an adult much younger because you were raised to take responsibility so much younger. When our grandparents and great grandparents were kids, a lot of them were so much more grown up than today's college kids because they had no choice. They had to be grown up and be responsible in ways we don't expect adults to be until after college.

Those girls aren't little kids.

When the risk that comes with a choice not being forever is a real probability of an attack that could cost thousands their lives, the choice needs to be forever. If you make your bed, why should my kids be told they may have to lie in it?

[Anny Nym]

When the risk that comes with a choice not being forever is a real probability of an attack that could cost thousands their lives, the choice needs to be forever. If you make your bed, why should my kids be told they may have to lie in it?

I´m afraid I have to agree with DGayle and BrownieMomma here.

Adding to the debatte of "Where are austrian teenager to be placed on the "seen as either a child or a grown up" scala... In Austria, the minimum voting age is 16, so is the age of unlimited curfew and entrance to most night clubs. Also one can buy unlimited amounts of alcohol and cigarettes at the age of 16.

I don´t know how this is handled in the USA or GB and I never did read Harry Potter books to make a sufficient pop culture reference to put that into a comparison for you US/GB FJites - but you maybe now can paint your own picture about where we tend to place a a 15 and a 17 year old in Austria, regarding responsibility for their actions.

[happy atheist]

In the US

16 - can drive

High school ends at 17 or 18, depending on birthdate

18 - legally adult - can vote, be drafted, buy cigarettes

21 - buy alcohol

Very different from Austria.

[Anny Nym]

Indeed, because driving is the only thing that you can NOT do at 16 in Austria! :lol:

Edited for: not because of the age, because of the Autobahn.

[Mama Mia]

Volunteer up your children to risk their lives to go bail those girls out of the consequences of their actions. We don't say that murderers and rapists should "be allowed to grow beyond" their actions. We shouldn't send the message that you can go make all the mistakes you want, risk lives, maybe be involved in some murders, and as long as you come to realize the errors of your ways, we'll welcome you back with open arms. Sometimes consequences are permanent, and those times come when the risk of ending consequences means others are in significant danger.

You say that letting these girls go home and move on with their lives might influence others to do the same. Have you overlooked how suicide bombing is seen as noble? Martyrdom as a way to heaven?

Have you thought about such severe consequences may be deterring others from even dabbling in terrorism?

Saying that young people can go try it out, repent (how would anyone know it's genuine?), and come home, is far more dangerous.

When there's no going back, you think twice. When you know you'll be welcomed hoe with open arms, it's easier to be impulsive.

Well, except often we do give juvenile offenders - even rapists and murderers - second chances. Often they are sent to juvenile detention facilities until they are 18 or 21 or 25.

I seriously doubt that a 15 year old who is so twisted up that she runs off to marry an ISIS soldier is giving one whit of thought to whether she'll be allowed back home or not. The kind of people who think twice about things and consider all the possible repurcussions

aren't the type to do this in the first place.

Again, I don't think a rescue attempt should be made. It's just not realistic. But I wouldn't neccessarily not trust them for the rest of their lives if they did manage to escape. I would think they are still fairly malleable in their attitudes and beliefs.

If we really gave a damn about getting rid of ISIS we'd be blowing up the oil fields they control, which is where most of their money is coming from. But , not so shockingly, they never seem to even consider the possibility - because oil. At least that I've seen.

[Burris]

Volunteer up your children to risk their lives to go bail those girls out of the consequences of their actions.

My left leg is held together by metal. I'm now legally blind. I have bits of metal in my body. I have epilepsy. And I haven't slept a continuos night in 20 years.

I put myself out there for a rotten cause, but I did it. I believed in a thing and risked my life for that belief.

If I were 20 years younger and whole, nothing would please me more than to rob ISIS of the youths it warps and twists.

We don't say that murderers and rapists should "be allowed to grow beyond" their actions.

So long as the public is protected, then there is no reason, beyond a barbaric instinct to go further in punishing a crminal than justice demands, not to give prisoners the means for self improvement.

We shouldn't send the message that you can go make all the mistakes you want, risk lives, maybe be involved in some murders, and as long as you come to realize the errors of your ways, we'll welcome you back with open arms.

No, but if you err in the other direction, what message does that send?

You say that letting these girls go home and move on with their lives might influence others to do the same.

I did not say that. I said this:

* The defectors should be debriefed by intelligence analysts while under the care of a mental health team

* The defectors communications should be censored

* The defectorefectors should be placed od probation, thus restricting their movements, for at least ten years

I also said thihey should be given tools to rebuild their lives and make themselves useful; that they could, if expised to an unfailingly humanitarian model, become useful allies against groups such as ISIS.

And yes, I believe that absolutely. I believelieve people can become more than merely the worst thing they've ever done.

And I believe there should be some effort to collect and rehabilitate ISIS' child soldiers.

Have you overlooked how suicide bombing is seen as noble?

Develop aa surrender protocol. There are several ways to go about it that would preserve the lives of allied soldiers.

Have you thought about such severe consequences may be deterring others from even dabbling in terrorism?

No. I don't think your consequences would deter the type of fanatic who is willing to blow himself up or saw an aid worker's head off.

The only people your solution woild deter, ironically, are those with the capacity to examine new ideas and possibly come to repudiate terrorism in a language potential recruits to terrorism will understand.

When you know you'll be welcomed hoe with open arms, it's easier to be impulsive.

Open arms! Thanks for the laugh.

[Burris]

This seems incredibly naive.

We, especially we Americans, have such a tendency to childize our teens. We keep them in schools until they are 18 and consider them children.

Not everyone does this. There's really nothing to substantiate this prolonged childhood except that it suits our school system. My cousins grew up in Britain and were done with high school by age 16. Then they had to/got to make their own choices about their adult lives from that point.

These were not 12yo's who flounced out the door in a huff because they couldn't stay up late. How mature are they truly? We don't know. How in the world was joining a terrorist group appealing to those two girls? We will probably never know.

They are European and probably considered more mature in their culture than we consider kids that age in our culture.

People make foolish choices, and sometimes you can't take it back.

Sometimes those choices are forever.

My view of how cruelty breeds cruelty isn't very dependent on age. It's possibly truer that teenagers, their brains still developing as they reach adulthood, are easier to sway. It has been my experience, however, that people actually become how they're treated. We have an incredible capacity to live down to others' expectations of us: http://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_ ... of_meaning

[It'sFunToRun]

My left leg is held together by metal. I'm now legally blind. I have bits of metal in my body. I have epilepsy. And I haven't slept a continuos night in 20 years.

I put myself out there for a rotten cause, but I did it. I believed in a thing and risked my life for that belief.

If I were 20 years younger and whole, nothing would please me more than to rob ISIS of the youths it warps and twists.

So long as the public is protected, then there is no reason, beyond a barbaric instinct to go further in punishing a crminal than justice demands, not to give prisoners the means for self improvement.

No, but if you err in the other direction, what message does that send?

I did not say that. I said this:

* The defectors should be debriefed by intelligence analysts while under the care of a mental health team

* The defectors communications should be censored

* The defectorefectors should be placed od probation, thus restricting their movements, for at least ten years

I also said thihey should be given tools to rebuild their lives and make themselves useful; that they could, if expised to an unfailingly humanitarian model, become useful allies against groups such as ISIS.

And yes, I believe that absolutely. I believelieve people can become more than merely the worst thing they've ever done.

And I believe there should be some effort to collect and rehabilitate ISIS' child soldiers.

Develop aa surrender protocol. There are several ways to go about it that would preserve the lives of allied soldiers.

No. I don't think your consequences would deter the type of fanatic who is willing to blow himself up or saw an aid worker's head off.

The only people your solution woild deter, ironically, are those with the capacity to examine new ideas and possibly come to repudiate terrorism in a language potential recruits to terrorism will understand.

Open arms! Thanks for the laugh.

What was the rotten cause that you fought for? Is that how you ended up injured?

[Burris]

What was the rotten cause that you fought for? Is that how you ended up injured?

Just to be clear, I did not post that merely to titillate and encourage a curiosity I have no intention of satisfying. Rather, I offered that bit of biographical information to demonstrate to a poster – someone who was obviously indicating that she believes my, er idealism goes much further than my physical willingness to back up my beliefs – that I have indeed paid a pound of flesh for the sake of ideology.

It’s in no way a credit to my character that I might be one of the only people on this board who understand how someone can get sucked into an ideological black hole such as ISIS.

I will say one thing, however: I find it just a little disturbing that while members of ISIS are willing to kill and die for their warped ideology, so many people who claim to believe in the primacy of human rights and in the importance of freedom suddenly become timid in the face of terror and are willing to throw humanitarian principles to the wolves - all the while arguing that those who still do want to retain some sense of decency in the treatment of ISIS POWs and defectors are naive ; that such ideas as universal rights are peacetime luxuries that can be done away with in war.

It's ass backwards for certain people here to argue that ISIS must be stopped because it's oppressive who then go on to suggest unnecessarily oppressive "deterrents" of their own.

ISIS fighters who get their carefully screened news from their commanding officers get to hear all kinds of interesting, unedited, and in-context comments from US pundits - I'm looking at you, Bill Mahaer, an alleged empiricist - not only about how defectors should be treated with disdain and worse but also about how Islam itself is a threat to global security.

The language is eliminationist, and quite possibly the best gift ISIS has received since the West turned a blind eye to its founding and subsequent investment of places such as Raqqa.

[jaelh]

In the US and many other countries, 15 is old enough to get a driver's permit. In many countries, 15 is the age where teens have the full right to ALL their medical decisions and to block their parents from knowing anything. Most of us support girls at the age of 15 getting abortions without parental consent or knowledge since it's believed they are intelligent and mature enough to make adult decisions. 15 is high school. Kids that age aren't so naive and unaware of things as we'd like.

If 15 isn't old enough to be held responsible for your own plans to join a terrorist group, and then doing it, then 15-year-olds need to be declared children who need their parents to sign off on everything still, and no driving for them.

The typical 15-year-old is old enough to know murder is wrong. The typical 15-year-old these days is also capable of making plans to flee. The typical 12-year-old is at an age of starting to understand the gravity of murder, but the typical 12-year-old isn't capable of making such secretive plans to escape their home country to go join a terrorist group.

We don't consider 15 year olds old enough to *consent to sex*.

But they're old enough to fully cognise what they're doing when they run away to marry?

then 15-year-olds need to be declared children who need their parents to sign off on everything still, and no driving for them.

Driving isn't the test you should be applying.

Again. We Don't Let 15 Year Olds Consent To Sex.

The parents of 15 yos do sign off on most things. In my country, medical consent isn't unrestricted until 16. That's right - these girls would not be entitled to make unrestricted medical decisions at their age. *because we deem they lack the capacity to do so*. (as in most of the west, there is a sliding scale; unrestricted is 16)

The typical 15-year-old these days is also capable of making plans to flee.

And....??? So they should do it themselves? From a war zone?

You're picking random things and using them as substitutes for actual indicators of reason. Being able to drive, or know what murder is wrong (heck; I think most 8 year olds get that one - it's what did the Bulger killers in) isn't the same as being endowed with 'adult' reason.

Did the girls "choose" to go murder, or did they "choose" an Adventure; a chance to Fight for Something Righteous; something with Meaning and Purpose? Did they make their decision because they "wanted" it, or they were doing something their families wanted? We have no idea, yet we still seem entirely willing to throw them under the bus.

I will say one thing, however: I find it just a little disturbing that while members of ISIS are willing to kill and die for their warped ideology, so many people who claim to believe in the primacy of human rights and in the importance of freedom suddenly become timid in the face of terror and are willing to throw humanitarian principles to the wolves - all the while arguing that those who still do want to retain some sense of decency in the treatment of ISIS POWs and defectors are naive ; that such ideas as universal rights are peacetime luxuries that can be done away with in war.

This a million times over. Why should the west "win" this ideological war? We think we're "better" because we are liberal (in allowing greater choice and diverse political perspectives); we don't prejudge; we treat The Accused with due recourse to Law. We think we're better because we *don't let children marry* (campaigns against child marriage are huge in women focused NGOs. Yes, that includes 9 yos, but it mostly considers 15-17 year olds).

A right to nationality - to citizenship - is fundamental. To not have a nationality is to be adrift in a sea of nothing. For Austria (or any other nation) to say someone is not Austrian because they have don't something we don't agree with is to deny one of the most fundamental legal rights we have.

[Anny Nym]

to say someone is not Austrian because they have don't something we don't agree with is to deny one of the most fundamental legal rights we have.

Sorry, but could you clarify that a bit?

[BrownieMomma]

My view of how cruelty breeds cruelty isn't very dependent on age. It's possibly truer that teenagers, their brains still developing as they reach adulthood, are easier to sway. It has been my experience, however, that people actually become how they're treated. We have an incredible capacity to live down to others' expectations of us: http://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_ ... of_meaning

In theory, and in a lot of practice, I agree with you. I think that is probably a better tack to generally take in life than a lot of heavy-handed justice.

One wise parenting tidbit I learned was that hurting people hurt people. I do believe this is true. However, this is not universal and does not extend to violent, radical religious extremists whose goal in life is killing the infidel. They wish to kill Westerners not because they are hurt, not because we hurt them, but simply because they are bred to hate us and destroy us.

I know, as a mother of a 14yo girl and 16yo boy, that I put my own face on the problem. I think how I would be so devastated just because my girl ran away. I would think she's not mature enough to make such a decision, much less to run off and join a terrorist group.

But I don't know how the parents feel. Maybe there has been discord and problems for so long that they don't feel how I think they might. Maybe they think their girls are old enough to have decided.

It is a sad thing in life that young people make stupid decisions that have permanent, unalterable consequences. As a mom, I find that terrifying. Every white cross I see on the side of the road has been for someone in their teens or early 20's.

Maybe in 90% of other situations I would agree with you to show kindness. In this situation, it grieves me and I certainly don't think they "deserve it" as I suspect they did not know what they were really getting into but maybe they did.

It just has to be this way. I sorrow for their parents, for the girls, for the unborn children. I hope life is not an actual hellhole as I imagine it might be. If it is, I hope for painless release from their suffering, but in no way I am willing to entertain endangering non-traitors in order to go in, get these girls, and find some safe place in the world where they can live in anonymity. They will forever have the eyes on ISIS upon them.

[Burris]

How much additional risk in this world are you willing to put your family in because you're so worried about the idiots who leave comfortable homes to so serve terrorists?

I understand your concern, but I think the greater risk - and yes I really believe this; it's not merely a device for debate - is that justice without mercy can lead to a kind of tyranny where those who make poor choices are dehumanized to such an extent that anything done to them is seen as justifiable (no matter how shocking).

How should a civilized society deal with individuals accused of treason? Well, if you're not convinced that my idea of debriefing and long probation is sufficient, then bring them back and take them to court. As far as I know, they're still Austrian citizens. Let their government put them on trial.

In any case, they should not be left with ISIS. I don't even think defectors born in Syria should be left with ISIS. I think anyone who wants to leave ISIS should, if they can engineer their own escape, feel secure enough to approach allied facility without fear of inhuman treatment. Even if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest, interrogator should set aside any hostility when dealing with walk-aways. Those people could have valuable, life-saving information. (As an aside - not to imply you would ever support something like this or something - but torture is a notoriously unreliable way of getting a clear enough picture of the truth to gain anything useful by it. Beat one man with cords. Keep him awake for 24 hours without water. Burn him with cigarettes. You'll end up with four different confessions, all lies. Not only does the practice destroy everyone involved, regardless of what capacity, but it's also useless.)

There will be bad ones among the defectors. Consider, however, the powerful voice of a former ISIS member addressing a group that includes potential ISIS recruits. He tells then that the ISIS propaganda is a lie. He knows, because he has the scars to prove it.

Consider also that those who repudiate ISIS in earnest and are left behind, unable to escape, could face unspeakable retribution - and quite frankly, those who sit back and watch that happen, when they have the power to prevent it, have lost every shred credibility in their denunciations of ISIS brutality.

Returning to the subject of these girls and how they could allegedly bring more people into the terrorist fold - I'm not seeing it. By what mechanism would they accomplish this feat? They'd be watched and their movements would be limited.

Why would ISIS used damaged goods when they can instead find the occasional sympathizer, with a clean record and a western education, to infiltrate Muslim student groups with radical propaganda?

You think ISIS actually gives a damn about those girls enough to groom them as as agent provocateurs? Most low-level ISIS members are basically walking bombs - fodders whose lives don't matter one whit to those who handle the planning.

It would hurt to lose my children in a car crash, but it would be acid on top of the hurt to have my children die because someone decided that saving the asses of traitors is just that important.

Because obviously there's no way to act in a humane fashion towards the defectors without seriously risking the security of some random family.

I think it's a safe assumption that terrorist sympathizers, small in numbers but ambitious and all the more dangerous for that, could be found in every country; in every major city. And yet you're way more likely to die in a car accident than in a terrorist attack.

It's cliche, but it in this case it's true: Terrorists don't have the firepower to overwhelm their enemies through force of arms, so they use the one asset they do have: Terror. They use it to keep people in their homes. They use it to control the behaviour of people living in the towns they invest. They use it to encourage humanitarians to set aside their principles and adopt a zero-sum mentality - a mentality that terrorists then cite as evidence of western duplicity in their recruiting materials.

It's not savagery to say that if someone chooses to turn their backs on their home country, and to become an enemy of that country and to try harming it, that the penalty for that is that they will never be able to be fully trusted again, and that the risk of accepting them back is imply too great.

No - the savagery comes about when the defectors are left to the tender mercies of their former masters merely because a false sense of security means more to the majority than does the humanitarian principle that people can not only be rehabilitated but also become vocal and authoritative opponents of the reactionary terror group they once served.

Savagery is kidnapping people and beheading them if their home countries don't give money.

Quite right. And tyranny is stripping someone of their citizenship without a trail.

Savagery is hurting people who had no choices in anything.

Are you talking about just those girls, or about, say, the Raqqans, who believe their choice is between putting up with ISIS while getting a regular supply of food or ejecting the group and living in a city that could degenerate into the back-drop for a post apocalyptic horror movie.

To what end? Aiding in a terrorism plot. It's just as feasible, if not more so, that they're claiming remorse to go home where they could help feed information to people planning an attack.

Okay, so the girls are watched, their communications are monitored, they have little if any freedom of movement, but they're going to somehow communicate a plot to ISIS members in Austria. Neat trick.

And why would ISIS use people that obvious when they're sure to have clean-cut, untainted sympathizers already in place elsewhere?

There's no way to guarantee this isn't a strong possibility.

I think you're overstating just how possible your theory is - and in overstating it, you'd allow a whole lot of extralegal nonsense in exchange for...what? Security?

Taking them back and hoping for the best is foolish, at best...

Good thing that isn't what I said, then. How many times do I have to repeat that I would support strong security measures limited their movements and their interactions? I think this is about the fourth time I've said this so far.

...and at worst, you'll have the blood of many innocent people on your hands if they are still serving Allah and the organization, and they manage to feel enough info that a terrorist plot goes down.

And if they die screaming at the hands of ISIS members because they defected and were cast away, you'll have blood on your hands - and worse, people who believe as you do will have debased western tradition and forever tarnished your credibility as arbitrators of right and wrong.

[Anny Nym]

Well, burris - you can call it "ass backwards", "savagery", "tyranny"... whatever nice word will pop into your head, that´s your right to do so.

But always keep in mind: at the end of the day, you just might be wrong.

I am quite satisfied with the decisions my country already made or most likely would make in this case - because it´s a pragmatic one.

We don´t torture anyone, we don´t take their family in Sippenhaft. And as I and various other posters have already pointed out, it is completely okay to mourn this girls´fate, to feel sorry for their families and to wish them no long suffering. But that´s it!

And if some people now fray about it and think THEY are on the morally higher end, because they act behind their keybords upon some current theoretical concepts of what is "morally right" and what is "morally wrong" (and that might be obsolete in 100 years, as some concepts from 100 years ago are obsolte right now" ) ... well, I say let them do so - whatever soothes their soul.

Because it will not change reality.

[jaelh]

Well, burris - you can call it "ass backwards", "savagery", "tyranny"... whatever nice word will pop into your head, that´s your right to do so.

You can also call it a denial of basic human rights. Everyone has a right to a nationality, and to return their country of nationality, even if they are children that run away to marry terrorists. Wether anyone "rescues" they is by the by. Removing citizenship (esp without a trial) is appalling, ass backwards, and a whole lot of other nice words.

That's the problem with human rights. We are entitled to them because we are *human*, not because we act a particular way.

Maybe standards will be different later. But that's a pretty weak argument for not conforming with standards that we've said we hold ourselves to now.

And really, is "not torturing" the family of these girls is really the standard you hold Austria too, Anny? Because that's a pretty low standard. And that's being generous.

And if some people now fray about it and think THEY are on the morally higher end, because they act behind their keybords upon some current theoretical concepts of what is "morally right" and what is "morally wrong" (and that might be obsolete in 100 years, as some concepts from 100 years ago are obsolte right now" ) ... well, I say let them do so - whatever soothes their soul.

Anny - these theoretical concepts, like the rule of law and human rights, are what our society is founded on. That's it. What makes us better than "them"? Exactly these "theoretical concepts". Why are we rushing to throw that all out?

I would say to you, in return - if you want to abandon, not these girls, but the principles that make western society Good; then hey - you make up whatever reasons make YOU feel good about it. But don't kid yourself - you're heading down a nasty, slippery slope. If we can't hold ourselves to our own standards, why in dogs name could we ever expect anyone else to follow those standards?