A child soldier in Syria, and Muslim beheadings thwarted in Australia

September 18, 2014 • 4:24 am

This short (2-minute) video will chill you, for it shows an interview with a 12-year-old Syrian child sniper who evinces no compunction about killing one person after another.

I have no idea if he’s on the side of ISIS, the Syrian rebels like al-Nusra, or some other group, but it hardly matters. This is what war and religious indoctrination do to kids. Does he have any chance to have a normal life (if he doesn’t get killed, that is), or will he be so enamored of killing that he’ll simply keep doing it?

Meanwhile, according to multiple sources (including the Associated Press), 800 police in Sydney and others in Brisbane have just conducted huge raids against terror cells of Muslims. One group in Sydney planning to behead a random Australian citizen in public as a demonstration of their ardor. No doubt it would have been filmed and used as propaganda. According to the BBC:

One man has been charged with planning an attack. Prosecutors said he planned to “gruesomely” execute someone.

Australian media reports said a plot involved beheading a random member of the public after draping them in an Islamic State flag.

Asked about the reports in a press conference, Mr Abbott said: “That’s the intelligence we received.”

“Direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL (Islamic State) to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.”

Apparently the many ISIS sympathizers in Australia are frustrated that they can’t go to fight with their coreligionists in Iraq and Syria, and wanted to do something similar in Australia.

It seems only a matter of time before this kind of public execution, like the one visited on Theo van Gogh, happens in a country like Australia, the U.S., or Great Britain.

The Age has real-time coverage of new information about the plots.

h/t: Vic, Malgorzata

74 thoughts on “A child soldier in Syria, and Muslim beheadings thwarted in Australia”

    1. On the surface, it does appear perfectly timed to fit in the few days between the NZ Internet Party hosting Edward Snowden and Julian Assange on the topic of whether or not the PM lied about NZ being spied upon by the US (it appears that he may have), and the NZ general election.

      Also, the Australian PM has been reported as refusing to comment on how many have been arrested, or on what legal grounds.

      People are wondering if the suspects could have been watched indefinitely into the future, but now was a good time to act for political reasons.

      Meanwhile, the NZ press is blatantly downplaying the extent of the spying problem in the PMs favour, and representatives of the US have made comments to the press concerning these arrests in reference to justifying US policy.

      2. It would be weird if the US spied on NZ because they are part of Five Eyes which says we won’t spy on each other & we will share our intel. I suspect Canada, NZ and the other Five Eyes nations have enjoyed the intel from the NSA, while on the US is getting spanked for it.

      1. Lee Rigby wasn’t in uniform at the time. The attack happened near some barracks, but I thought that was coincidental.

        1. Not coincidental. Via the Wp article: “One of the assailants, filmed by a bystander said, ‘The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. And this British soldier is one … By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone.’”

          But this is chilling: “In October 2013 British anti-terrorist police warned several Muslims who had spoken out against Islamist extremism, some of them explicitly against the murder of Rigby, that they had been targeted in a video created by Al-Shabaab, the group responsible for the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya.”

          /@

          1. Rigby was also wearing a Help For Heroes shirt. Help For Heroes is a charity that supports the wounded from the services and is quite active. It is one of the charities that I will give to, having two brothers in law who suffered at the hands of the Taliban, both bearing physical and mental scars. Rigby was chosen because of his shirt, I believe.

    1. Was just going to say that very same thing.

      I used to live just down the road from where it happened too.

  4. Video made me think of these words from Yeats:

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    1. The “best” seem very gullible to entertain the idea that it might be that their government and politicians are to blame for this radical religiously inspired behaviour.

  6. All leading up to calls for increased government surveillance powers and justification for trampling liberties. No doubt the NSA will milk this one.

      1. Your risk of being the guy whose head they take off is negligible. You’re far more likely to be killed by someone texting while driving.

          1. As Torbjörn points out, we know more or less what the future in terms of ordinary homicide. For terrorist beheadings to rival that risk, they’d have to be decapitating tens of thousands of people every year. The entire ISIS army doesn’t have enough manpower for that, no matter how fanatical they are.

          2. … and so your point is? The NSA rivals radical Islamist militants in it’s brutality toward the populous? And, say again, who was it you were saying we should watch out for texting while driving? What that the religious militants, or the NSA? I’m trying hard to follow your logic, but feel like I’m witnessing the construction of a complete non-sequitur.

        2. Or killed by someone you know. I happen to have run the numbers today, after the BBC article on war in chimps. [It seems de Waal was delighted with ‘data, finally’.]

          Chimps have ~ 30/100 000 murders/year*individual; they observed over 1 500 individuals at 18 sites over 400+ observational years. (My lousy estimate from ‘an average’ ~ 80 group size, group sizes from Wikipedia.)

          Bonobos, with spotty statistics (4 sites, 100- years, much smaller groups), may be limited to the same number, ~30/100 000 murders/year*individual. They saw 1 potential murder.

          Humans had ~50/100 000 murders/year*individual last year unless I’m mistaken. About half of those would be between familiar individuals, IIRC. War and so terrorism has now become negligible, ~1/100 000 murders/year*individual. [Wikipedia figures on total murders, wars and world population.]

          The correlation in chimps was not with human ingression as such, but with lack of resources – but I get this second hand from BBC. The researchers seem to think the behavior is adaptable.

          Anyway, bonobos are claimed elsewhere [Wikipedia] to have evolved their particular social structure because their habitats are resource rich. So I would guess my estimate of their upper limit on murder rate is high.

          Curious how we apes come out with roughly the same amount of aggression (organized or not)!

          1. While, as you note, with other apes the aggression may be motivated by environment or resources. We humans are the only ones who murder on ideological grounds.

      2. You’re talking false dichotomy. Preserving freedom, supporting the Constitution does not mean some Muslim will take my head off (and I’m FAR more likely to be killed in a traffic accident or by a street criminal).

        But this is the fear game. Politicians play it and the (sadly) cowardly public is so easily intimidated that they are willing to snivel up to whatever the government says, and surrender rights just to be ‘safe’.

        1. Wait, wait. So the video shows that the government is man-ip-u…lating us,…. umm okay, I’m lost. Jay, you’ll have to start typing more slowly so I can follow….

        2. …Damn, did you see that car almost hit me while I was looking down to step over that puddle of blood in the street. Fuckin’ polititians. THEY CAN’T FOOL ME!!!!

      1. The current ‘powers ‘ (in US but I’m told similar in Au) involve massive data and phone sweeps. After Snowden, there was political pressure to rein in these abuses, hence the need for dramatic headlines to make this pressure go away.

        1. But that’s not an argument for *increased* powers, which is what you said.

          And were you *really* surprised by Snowden? The telephone surveillance has been going on for as long as I remember; I gee up in the shadow of Menwith Hill, and it was an open secret that that’s what they were doing. And the information that’s collected about people’s online behaviour is not significantly different that what the banks’ online fraud detection tools gather.

          /@

          1. I’m not surprised by Snowden. But he drew back the curtain, as politicians avoided the situation and issued vague denials that too many were willing to accept. And it WAS illegal.

            It’s too bad that many people like you are willing to accept illegal spying by the government… but that’s a process that grows and gets entrenched deeper, and leads to greater and greater corruption.

            As it was, the NSA was secretly feeding illegally obtained information (which if known would throw a case out of court) back to police who would just ‘happen’ to stumble upon surprising finds.

            Once corruption has gotten to that level, any degree of guilt can be manufactures.

          2. Okay. So the answer is that there are two fronts here. The Islamist militant extremists (or, arguably, mainstreamists), and the overreaching government claiming to protect the citizenry, but really committing unreasonable searches and seizures. So lets address the more pressing one first (and, by the way, the one being used to justify the other).

  7. “One commits and a thousand pay!” Islam is the most inclusive and personal religion of all. For believers it’s a way of life not just a system of beliefs. When Muslim immigrants settle in Western Countries, they are faced with an entirely opposite, free, non-conservative culture that puts them in a dilemma. They have to choose between integrating into the local culture or dig a hole and go hibernating with their own culture. 95% do the latter. They not only construct small pockets of their conservative culture but also fall into that religious slippery slope of fundamentalism which in its fourth and final stage breeds radicalism. This is because religion appeals much greater where it is not present. Back home they would not have fallen into that funnel of fundamentalism. Their vision of the world becomes so narrow that only their sect can fit into it. The other sects and religious groups become their enemy no. 1; as they put all the blame of their own doing like illiteracy, poverty and crime on the local non-Muslim govt. They believe that are the target of an international conspiracy (involving agencies like CIA) to subjugate or eradicate their culture and religion. This leads to extreme hate and antipathy towards other communities, which leads to Jihadism. An eye for an eye concept. A Muslim killed anywhere in the world–Palestine in particular–another innocent non-Muslim should automatically be killed with brutality to vent out their frustrations and their failures. However, a few Muslims (like some newscasters in CNN, BBC etc.) do get happily adjusted to the new environment; but these are well-educated westernized secular Muslim, a great many of whom would eventually become either agnostics or secular humanists like me. The bottom line is the Western Countries must be very careful in allowing Muslims, in particular, to settle in their countries. Otherwise, they’ll be asking for trouble.
    Thanks!
    Anwar Khan

      1. Well it’s long answer Ant!
        Almost all believers in Islam start with
        1. FUNDAMENTALISM: normal family-loving people, quite moderate, friendly, tolerant of other communities, pray at mosque, fast during Ramadan, have ‘live and let live’ ideology, pre-occupied with Allah and duties towards him; in short, fully governed by religious dogma. Three of them got together–Islam would be the main topic of conversation. Trying to accommodate Islam with science or testing Islam on the touchstone of science, these people are pragmatic and know the importance of worldly requirements as well like academic education, health care, importance of scientific, technical & medical knowledge. Some of them do study life sciences but like some scientists in US have their doubts or rather look for some loopholes and disregard evolution, big bang, archaeology etc. They may as well teach zoology without believing in it. They, in India and probably elsewhere, make up to 90% , if not more, of the total Muslim Pop. However, they do not forget to indoctrinate their children with religion and rear them up like themselves. About half of them slide into the next stage:
        1. PURITANISM: They are one step ahead or I’d rather say one more fathom deep in the quick-sand of religion. They cannot get out of this bottomless pit. They have a dress-code, hair-style, and every aspect of their life is governed only by religion. Nothing comes to their mind except Islam. Don’t care about academic education, force their children into Islamic education, prevent girls from mixing in society after the age of 10. Besides religion pre-occupied with sex and money. Subjugate their women. Women and girls being illiterate are regarded as commodity, boys not properly educated have medium or menial jobs. Going down the ladder of socio-economic strata, they blame their misery on other factors and communities. Barely tolerate other faiths. Above all do not have a planned family; the average progeny being 4 or 5 kids per family which also adds to their misery. Only about 10% of them go down the drain of the next stage:
        3. FANATICISM: About 5% of the total Muslim population this stage is set for the final stage. Don’t tolerate other sects or beliefs, want only their particular denomination of Islam to prevail in the world. Hate anything academic or scientific edu., women and girls become child-bearing machines. Eat-drink-sleep-wake up-enter or leave house or mosque, they recite quotes from Koran. Mistreat or abuse their own family member who don’t follow their footsteps. Coerce other Muslims onto the same track. Kick-start kids for morning prayer. Have even larger and extended families. Discuss political Islam in Madrasa’s and mosques. Want to follow Islamic laws only. Their view of the world is only through the binoculars of Koran and Hadiths. Dream of ideal Islamic society like caliphate throughout the world. Wish other beliefs didn’t exist. More than 50% of them given the chance would jump in or sink in into the last and final stage:
        4. RADICALISM/EXTREMISM/TERRORISM: This stage is so familiar to us these days that it doesn’t need any delineation at all. It can easily be called BARBARISM. Devoid of empathy for any co-existing human or animal, this is the ugliest side of human nature. Or probably, this is nature’s way of avenging human control of it and trying to contain the exploding human population. It’s not far that nature might fight back with something catastrophic to end human domination. Creating antipathy in the human race or developing a diabolic ebola-type microorganism might be the initial sparks.

      2. Well Ant you asked for it!
        Almost all believers in Islam start with
        1. FUNDAMENTALISM: normal family-loving people, quite moderate, friendly, tolerant of other communities, pray at mosque, fast during Ramadan, have ‘live and let live’ ideology, pre-occupied with Allah and duties towards him; in short, fully governed by religious dogma. Three of them got together–Islam would be the main topic of conversation. Trying to accommodate Islam with science or testing Islam on the touchstone of science, these people are pragmatic and know the importance of worldly requirements as well like academic education, health care, importance of scientific, technical & medical knowledge. Some of them do study life sciences but like some scientists in US have their doubts or rather look for some loopholes and disregard evolution, big bang, archaeology etc. They may as well teach zoology without believing in it. They, in India and probably elsewhere, make up to 90% , if not more, of the total Muslim Pop. However, they do not forget to indoctrinate their children with religion and rear them up like themselves. About half of them slide into the next stage:
        1. PURITANISM: They are one step ahead or I’d rather say one more fathom deep in the quick-sand of religion. They cannot get out of this bottomless pit. They have a dress-code, hair-style, and every aspect of their life is governed only by religion. Nothing comes to their mind except Islam. Don’t care about academic education, force their children into Islamic education, prevent girls from mixing in society after the age of 10. Besides religion pre-occupied with sex and money. Subjugate their women. Women and girls being illiterate are regarded as commodity, boys not properly educated have medium or menial jobs. Going down the ladder of socio-economic strata, they blame their misery on other factors and communities. Barely tolerate other faiths. Above all do not have a planned family; the average progeny being 4 or 5 kids per family which also adds to their misery. Only about 10% of them go down the drain of the next stage:
        3. FANATICISM: About 5% of the total Muslim population this stage is set for the final stage. Don’t tolerate other sects or beliefs, want only their particular denomination of Islam to prevail in the world. Hate anything academic or scientific edu., women and girls become child-bearing machines. Eat-drink-sleep-wake up-enter or leave house or mosque, they recite quotes from Koran. Mistreat or abuse their own family member who don’t follow their footsteps. Coerce other Muslims onto the same track. Kick-start kids for morning prayer. Have even larger and extended families. Discuss political Islam in Madrasa’s and mosques. Want to follow Islamic laws only. Their view of the world is only through the binoculars of Koran and Hadiths. Dream of ideal Islamic society like caliphate throughout the world. Wish other beliefs didn’t exist. More than 50% of them given the chance would jump in or sink in into the last and final stage:
        4. RADICALISM/EXTREMISM/TERRORISM: This stage is so familiar to us these days that it doesn’t need any delineation at all. It can easily be called BARBARISM. Devoid of empathy for any co-existing human or animal, this is the ugliest side of human nature. Or probably, this is nature’s way of avenging human control of it and trying to contain the exploding human population. It’s not far that nature might fight back with something catastrophic to end human domination. Creating antipathy in the human race or developing a diabolic ebola-type microorganism might be the initial sparks.

        1. A good analysis, Anwar. Where do you fall if you are a muslim? Or are you an atheist?
          I ask purely out of interest.

          1. I am an atheist to the point of becoming an antitheist like Christ. Hitchens or Rich. Dawkins. Religion has done its duty. It’s about time it retires or go extinct. It’s a passing stage in the evolution of human mind. A phase that is out! It might as well go extinct in a century or two. Islam will be the last one to go.
            Thanks for asking!

          3. Of all the religions, Islam somehow came out the worst due to its inflexibility and inability to change. No one has the authority to change even a vowel in either Koran or Hadiths. Probably suited to its turbulent era of the lawless rich pagan worshipers and the deprived wretched poor, it’s stringent measures to please the deity are not only inhuman but also against the very basic instincts of human nature–like stopping people from eating, having sex or doing their daily tasks. It’s a castle with no broken walls: either you are in it or out of it.
            Thanks for the appreciation!

    2. “They have to choose between integrating into the local culture or dig a hole and go hibernating with their own culture. 95% do the latter”.

      Do you have any data to back up this assertion? I do not, nor do I have anything to disprove what you wrote, but it does not chime with my own experience of living in a racially, religiously & ethnically mixed neighbourhood in northern europe. From what I see, most of us immigrants find a happy spot somewhere in between complete integration/assimilation and “hibernating” within our home cultures.

      1. Look at all the community-living in England– London, Birmingham, Liverpool, etc. in Southern France, parts of Germany, Holland, US. Muslims immigrants must first, find a mosque or build one, a halal meat shop or open one. This can only be done as a community. Once they are a community of their own culture, its becomes very hard to assimilate into the local culture. Their offspring who try hard to assimilate into the local culture are sometimes killed. You can argue that it’s the same for all other communities like Hispanics in the US etc. but with one big difference–religious centers do not become the hub of their political ideologies. With Islam comes the threat of Islamism–political Islam, Islam to its very roots, the Sharia law, women’s subjugation, child and forced marriages, honor killings,etc. Why then the figures excel among Muslims only? Why then there are so many terrorists among Muslim communities only? Why, then, there are so few Industrialists, Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Nobel laureates, high profile white-collar officials, Musicians, Artists, etc among Muslims compared to their numbers in any place? I hope you have good answer to all of these!

        1. No, I don’t pretend to have answers to any of the questions you pose. As I said, I don’t have any data other than my own anecdotes.
          But do you? You are throwing various percentages around, but can you link to any studies that support them?
          Thanks.

    3. “The bottom line is the Western Countries must be very careful in allowing Muslims, in particular, to settle in their countries.”

      I don’t see why.

      Let me first note that Europa makes a lot of money on immigration, according to OECD. They made the first economical assessment ever last year, and 23 out of 27 nations got benefits. (It would have been 24, if not Germany has taken on themselves that uniquely pull their eastern part up to western part standard fast after the reunion.)

      As an example, I estimated that Sweden nets 1-3 % of GNP.

      This means there can be local problems with immigration, but not generic. Now you can say that the problem is those who seek asylum. (Sweden accepts a lot of Syrians, of course not as many as the local nations around, but anyway.) Many will be mohammedanist. But where is the statistics that say it is a problem?

      Also from statistics, the 2nd generation, no longer immigrants, assimilate well. You claim mohammmedanists in particular don’t, but all you relate is anecdote. Again, I would need to see statistics before I accept there is a specific problem.

      A democracy can’t just bar specific people without evidence. It would be tantamount to thought crime, racism and betraying human right principles of equal value.

      This singling out takes us back to religion. Is religion a problem? You bet! There are evidence of people who join wars, even on side of religious terrorist groups.

      I hear the suggestion is to bar _those_ people from returning, immigrants who go to foreign wars whether joining religious terrorists or not, revoking their citizenship. And I can get behind that.

  10. There was an article in The Economist recently (sorry, I don’t have time to find it and link right now) about how muslim immigrants to the US tend to integrate into western society much better than muslim immigrants to Europe. This was partly thought to be due to most muslim immigrants to the US coming with university degrees for good jobs whereas in Europe most are not well educated and work in factories or the equivalent. I have no idea what it is like in Australia, and I have no idea if this is true, but if there’s any truth to it, it is interesting and perhaps valuable information.

    1. US doesn’t take many who seek asylum from the wars in North Africa or Middle East nations. They go mostly to the nations around of course but many seek asylum in Europe.

      Even if you have a degree, fleeing from a war you have little money and often no papers! And of course these nations have less economy and so less education than the average, hence the wars.

      See more in my response to Anwar Khan.

  11. These Muslim terrorists need to be very, very careful, or else they’ll get exactly what they’re asking for.

    The West is lousy at fighting guerrillas in imperialist idealistic wars such as Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.

    But we are very, very, very good at absolute wars of conquest and destruction. With the Caliphate now becoming the de-facto government in the region, if they push the American public too far — such as by publicly gruesome attacks on citizens on American soil — then they may well push us into a sort of “HULK SMASH!” rage of indiscriminate devastation.

    Make no mistrake: it would be horrifically evil for us to do so and I absolutely do not want to see us go down that path and I will do what little I can to prevent us from going that route. But I have to be realistic and acknowledge that it is well within the emotional capability of the American public to be goaded into that type of bloodlust, and trivial for the American military to sate it.

    The whole reason our military has been so ineffective since Korea has been because we’ve kept them on such a tight leash and tried to use them for “nation building.” But, the moment we cry, “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war…no force on Earth can stop us.

    b&

    1. Caliphate? If it ever makes it to statehood, it would be a theocratic dictatorship under the ignominious Baghdadi.

      I think communistic states and kingdoms are often elevated by not mentioning the dictatorship or ruling class. Perhaps we shouldn’t so elevate this one, especially since it isn’t an established state.

      1. Well, “theocratic Islamic dictatorship” is the textbook / dictionary definition of, “Caliphate.” It’s as accurate as referring to what the Catholic Church was a few centuries ago as the “Inquisition,” or the modern US hegemony as an empire….

        b&

        1. You really need to stop comparing the Christianity that once was to the Islam that is now.

          It’s irrelevant and it’s an attempt to let Islam off the hook for being terrible.

          Stop doing it. It’s a bad argument. Criticise living Muslims rather than dead Christians.

          As an analogy, the racism of yesteryear is not a factor in discussions of racism today. People are rightly castigated for being racists in the present without reference to how stupidly racist their predecessors were.

          1. If you think that it’s a compliment to suggest that today’s Muslims are as savagely primitive as Christians of some centuries past when they were at their worst…sorry, I ain’t got nothin’ for ya’.

            b&

          2. We are talking about tribal behaviour which hasn’t yet understood democracy, where the state is primal over religion. The British worked out democracy after a few hundred years of brutality based on conquering other countries as well as internecine battles. The end phases saw the Tudors use every kind of torture, disappearing and other nasty forms of decapitation known by any group to ensure the Protestants would win.

            It is crucial to understand the historical developments of our precious imperfect democracies, to understand the tribal behaviour of these groups.

  12. That’s beheadings by muslims *allegedly* thwarted. The government has yet to present its evidence. The fact that over 800 police were involved in arresting a mere 15 people of whom only 2 have been charged so far doesn’t look so good to me.

    1. The conservative government in Australia is facing domestic difficulties over the budget, asylum seekers, climate change denial and whatever, so they are keen to engage in talking about fear and turning the attention away to a gruesome narrative. Groan……

      1. I feel bad for Australia because your PM visited Canada & told our conservative PM that he admired him & tried to be like him. God help ya! 😉

          1. Diana – yes, I hadn’t realised that you had a dingbat in charge as well – Canada is usually so much saner. Ours is stirring hostility, and using cheap and tawdry politics to divide the community. I don’t know anyone who isn’t horrified.

          2. Yeah “usually” is the important word. I fear we are losing the good will we have built up in the world over the generations. Just one of the repugnant things this government has done, is make scientific discourse next to impossible by saddling scientist with red tape or out right refusing to let them speak about their work if it has anything to do with climate change, environment, etc. They have fired many climate scientists and even destroyed their work, claiming they were “archiving” it.

          3. We have the same issue with scientific discourse, and now we have a ‘danger’, Abbott is raving about security, fear and all the rest of it. Some Muslim women are being insulted in public…..

            Gosh ‘archiving’ and destroying work – that’s so reminiscent of history’s worst governments.

            Are you on Facebook?

          4. Jon Stewart just highlighted (lowlighted would be a better term) the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (think I’ve got that right), most of whose members seem to be not only climate change deniers, but science deniers. Dismal.

  13. When Muslims are shown videos of beheadings of infidels they do not fill with revulsion like civilised human beings do.

    Instead they feel empowered and yearn for more beheadings.

    No, Muslims are not the same as other religious nuts.

    PS: I’m a little tired of the “criticise ideas and not people” nonsense. Islam is a terrible idea. But Muslims are terrible people. And I’m all for criticising terrible people.

    1. I still differentiate between suburban Muslims and some of their radicalised sons. The Middle East is a gordian knot at best, and none of us should be going near it, except for humanitarian aid.

      1. Even that is quite risky these days! You go there to help the victims of war and brutality and you yourself become a victim to people you’re trying to help! Sectarian violence eventually turns into the conflict of culture. Westerners working in these war zones become sitting ducks to terrorists! Any white-skinned civilian journalist or aid worker, grab him/her for some motive.

        1. Agree with the danger – it would have to be organised, such as dropping food etc to that group that were trapped on a mountain. I agree that individuals are sitting ducks!

  14. I’m sure that 12 year old kid only indiscriminately kills people due to western colonialism and his deep knowledge of world politics. It couldn’t possibly be religiously motivated jihad? Right right? Andrew Brown? Reza Aslan? Anyone? Hello???

  15. We should remember the children that fought in our civil war (still the largest percentages in the world), perhaps the ‘Children’s Crusade’, and many other historical wars. Children are easily convinced and all too often used by the militaries, figureheads and others they consider to be trustworthy adults. They are yet to develop the frontal lobe of the brain, that part used for conscious reasoning. Their lack of rational makes them makes them easy targets for this brain washing, and as their numbers grow, the ‘boots on the ground’ increases every day. We have seen it happen in Viet Nam, Communist Russia and Germany under the Third Reich, among others. It is happening now in China, Korea, the Middle East, parts of the Indian subcontinent and mostly centrally Sub-Saharan Africa, usually mid-cotenant. What charming adults they will make!

    Lisa

    And personally I think any soldier caught slaughtering and torturing millions of villages and so building these armies that just shrugging their soldiers, using the phrase “I was just following orders” should either be shot on sight or thrown into the deepest and most horrible jail or penitentiary that can be found.

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