Their propaganda is also new and exciting to a generation of people who grew up during the period where nations use soft propaganda rather than the outright lies and “hero worship” of prior conflicts.

They just met online like everyone else these days

You read about British girls doing this because it’s easier for people in Britain to travel to Turkey, but it’s not just British girls.

The middle class, well educated young person is the most susceptible to cults. That’s what Isis is, an evil cult.

Don’t believe the Daily Mail

Yeah. Couple that with the message that IS delivers: A new imperialistic, proactive, and technological military force. Former Islamic nationalist movements presented themselves as defensive and reactionary. The mujahideen of the Afghan Civil War sought to protect land; the Taliban they became saw the West as…

It’s a really sad situation. I work with young people in East London, many of them just a little older than these girls. I don’t know how frank they are with me (I am, after all, an Old) but the it seems to be a combination of hormones, hubris, resentment at lack of opportunity and a (very teenage) desire to both kick…

Progress...?

They should have done a season of the Bachelorette about it.

London IS fucking brutal. It’s just getting more expensive and more people seem to be struggling (I seem to recall Paxman grilling Cammo about the skyrocketing number of food banks in the capital since he was elected in 2010).

“So, how did the two of you meet?”

I made a snarky comment about the current state of England (and the British isles as a whole, really), but I do think it’s worth examining how three young and by all accounts vibrant and gifted girls could be so unhappy and/or disenfranchised with their lives that they could be successfully brainwashed to join ISIS,…

Fuck em. Seriously, between the kids stoned during Ramadan, the women beheaded for ‘sorcery’ and the continued reports of an expanding slave markets from the past month my sympathy for anyone who aligns themselves with or joins ISIS is at an all time low.

Yeah I would really like to hear from some of these kids what draws them to this. I mean, I was pretty disaffected and depressed as a teenager, but going to a foreign country to get married and join a holy war? Nah, I’d much rather comfort eat and read Edith Wharton, thanks.

So they actually have binders full of men over there?

Why/how do teenagers keep getting brainwashed and roped into these situations? What is the appeal? When I was 15 I was writing fanfiction and playing dress up on Gaia Online.

Great article. I’m visiting in September for the first time and really looking forward to it.

Great read. Better people.

Very well written man. Though only a few images, I was kinda able to imagine the feel of the crowd. I’ll have to look for the match online and see it. I dig stories like this :3