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Someone please explain the appeal of joining ISIS to me

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So I saw through yahoo news digest today that three girls from Denver, Colorado played hookie with their classes last Friday to catch a plane to Germany and then to Turkey to join ISIS. To my knowledge this is the second case of young girls from Western societies wanting to throw their lives away in favor of shacking up with terrorists. Someone for the love of God please give me some insight into why this could be appealing to someone.

The girls were stopped in Germany btw so their fate didn't turn out like the two teens from Austria that are now preggers with ISIS spawn, want to come home but now can't for obvious reasons.

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-us-girls-may-tried-join-jihadis-203307941.html

Here's the article about the Austrian girls for reference http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isiss-austrian-poster-girl-jihadi-brides-have-changed-their-minds-and-want-to-come-home-9789547.html
 

Slayven

Member
I don't know, but more dumbasses are doing it everyday. I say if they are 18 years old and not developmentally challenged, let their asses go. Nothing sobers you up quicker then shit getting real.
 
gotta be an ISIS psychological warfare tactic, with the multiple reports of similar incidents.

Seems like they use the internet to try and lure women from western countries to their cause.

Unsure of the long game there though.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
quote is about another American teen referenced in the article said:
Conley said she wanted to use her American military training with the U.S. Army Explorers to fight a holy war overseas, authorities said. If she could not fight with the extremists, she told agents, she would use her training as a nurse's aide.

What in the fuck? Someone should tell Fox that the enemy might look like your average joe American.
 

DarkKyo

Member
I get that some freaks may identify/sympathize with a fucked up group like ISIL, but what gets me is these young kids who want to join have no idea how ISIL will react to them or treat them in reality. They could very well kill you on the spot for no good reason -- this is ISIL we are talking about. Young women joining could become sex slaves. There's no telling what a group of monsters will do to a young person.
 
Feeling of empowerment, for one. You're going to fight for a group that is feared by the rest of the world. You can appear in videos brandishing weapons with your index finger in the air and people will cower at the sight. You probably feel invincible when you're hanging out with them and terrorizing civilians (until you get blown up by a drone you never hear coming).
 
So I saw through yahoo news digest today that three girls from Denver, Colorado played hookie with their classes last Friday to catch a plane to Germany and then to Turkey to join ISIS. To my knowledge this is the second case of young girls from Western societies wanting to throw their lives away in favor of shacking up with terrorists. Someone for the love of God please give me some insight into why this could be appealing to someone.

The girls were stopped in Germany btw so their fate didn't turn out like the two teens from Austria that are now preggers with ISIS spawn, want to come home but now can't for obvious reasons.

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-us-girls-may-tried-join-jihadis-203307941.html

Here's the article about the Austrian girls for reference http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isiss-austrian-poster-girl-jihadi-brides-have-changed-their-minds-and-want-to-come-home-9789547.html

1. Clerical Abuse of religious power
2. Youth being misled by 1.
3. Desperation for relevance in life.
4. Desperation for a Caliphate
5. Pure evil intentions
6. Propensity to violence
7. Sexual needs.
8. Misfits in their own society (Being muslim in UK while not being loyal to UK OR being a Muslim in a corrupted Muslim society)
9. Need a purpose for living (or dying)
10. Being Taught the religion only as opposed to self teaching and self criticism of faith.

as the saying goes. This should come as no surprise, People have joined and died in Death cults before in USA as well, this is exactly the same thing
 
ISIS is one of many (one of most?) terrorist organizations that pay their combatants a per-diem salary. ISIS pays something like $150/day to combatants.

http://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-isis-recruits-come-from-turkey-2014-9

In Turkey, $150/day is 3x the national GDP, and in isolated regions of Eastern Turkey, Syria, and Northern Iraq, where pay is very low and opportunities scarce, a young person with few opportunities can make a decent living. If they also happen to be radicalized then it makes a lot of sense.

Turkey, a secular Muslim country led by a moderate Islamist party, faces a problem of disgruntled Islamists hoping for a more purely Islamic society.

"Recruits cite the group’s ideological appeal to disaffected youths as well as the money it pays fighters from its flush coffers," Yengisu notes.

ISIS pays its members $150 a day, a potentially significant financial incentive to join the radical organization. Unemployment in Turkey was an estimated 9.3% in 2013, and almost 17% of the population lived below the poverty line in 2010, according to the CIA World Factbook.

By fighting for ISIS, youth with limited opportunities would be able to earn more than three times Turkey's average per capita GDP.

King Abdullah II of Jordan estimated that ISIS is paying approximately $1,000/mo to foreign-born fighters who join ISIS:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/is...eign-fighters-1-000-month-jordan-king-n209026

This is an upper middle class salary in Jordan, and with the region being as war-torn as it is, large bands of mercenaries have existed since the 1960s, and the youngest go from extreme group to extreme group. They also happen to usually be pretty decent fighters because of experience.
 
It's counter culture, strongly ideological, and i imagine they may partly see it as welcoming their emancipation.

Our parent's generation had young people banding together under the banner of free love and acceptance, becoming hippies.

We have people joining a genocidal terrorist group.

Where did it all go so wrong?
 

Ennosuke

Member
Asking me this question every day. Especially when I see pictures in the newspaper of young “girls“ trying to join those sick people.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
gotta be an ISIS psychological warfare tactic, with the multiple reports of similar incidents.

Seems like they use the internet to try and lure women from western countries to their cause.

Unsure of the long game there though.

How the fuck does that work. extremist Muslims aren't exactly well known for their good treatment of women.
 

Neo C.

Member
They lure them with the promise of having a good life as a muslim woman. ISIS romanticize their life.

There are several cases, and many girls are trapped in forced marriage. Some stories are heartbreaking.
 
So I saw through yahoo news digest today that three girls from Denver, Colorado played hookie with their classes last Friday to catch a plane to Germany and then to Turkey to join ISIS. To my knowledge this is the second case of young girls from Western societies wanting to throw their lives away in favor of shacking up with terrorists. Someone for the love of God please give me some insight into why this could be appealing to someone.

The girls were stopped in Germany btw so their fate didn't turn out like the two teens from Austria that are now preggers with ISIS spawn, want to come home but now can't for obvious reasons.

It can't be that hard to convince people that Western society is evil and looks down with disdain on anyone they consider an Other (even you, young lady!) and that it should therefore be dismantled as long as judgmental, dismissive attitudes like this keep going around.
 
It can't be that hard to convince people that Western society is evil and looks down with disdain on anyone they consider an Other and that it should therefore be dismantled with judgmental, dismissive attitudes like this going around.

Right because people that do beheading videos totally deserve the benefit of the doubt. I guess I'm just not worldly enough.
 
It can't be that hard to convince people that Western society is evil and looks down with disdain on anyone they consider an Other and that it should therefore be dismantled with judgmental, dismissive attitudes like this going around.

Let me just boil your post down.

You think that ISIS exists because of OP's "dismissive attitude" towards ISIS.

Okay.
 
It can't be that hard to convince people that Western society is evil and looks down with disdain on anyone they consider an Other and that it should therefore be dismantled with judgmental, dismissive attitudes like this going around.

Being dismissive and judgmental of terrorists seems like a pretty OK thing to me.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
Why do women join the army in any country? Do you know the rape statistics of US army for example?

I'd hazard to guess they don't. It's not highly reported as extremist Muslim atrocities are. Either way it's obviously not the same kind of thing.
 
People get really into stuff that they feel gives their lives 'special' meaning. It's ISIS/radical Islam stuff that's in the news now - 20 years ago it was anarchists/apocalyptic Christian stuff - 20 years before that it was far left/communist terrorist groups.
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
archer-lana-lingerie-machine-gun.gif


wait, wrong ISIS

im not making light of the actual ISIS btw :(
 

Chumly

Member
You could pretty much apply this to any cult although ISIS is a lot more dangerous. I'm sure pychologists could explain it better but I'm sure it's something with wanting to be relavent, the religious brainwashing etc. Also for some reason a lot of these people don't seem to understand what they are getting into although it's all over the media.
 
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