The story of two Mississippi college students being ensnared by ISIS, the Mideast terrorist group, is as frightening as it is perplexing. AS PARENTS, teachers, friends and loved ones, we must do a better job of communicating with our youth about terrorist movements such as ISIS and their efforts to convert innocents.
Both were standout students, popular, and socially conscious.
She was pre-med. He was headed to graduate school in psychology.
But somehow, Jaelyn Young, 19, and her fiancé, Muhammad Dakhalla, 22, fell for the Islamist State rhetoric that their lives could be better used in the fight against the West and its allies, including other Mideast countries
FBI agents interceded the young couple before they boarded flights earlier this month leading to Istanbul where they were to join Syrian radicals.
Young people, especially, are vulnerable to cults like ISIS. Its grassroots nature appeals to those who have been convinced that as a small band of religious warriors they can wage war against the evil ways of Western thought.
That’s heady stuff for those eager to make their mark on the world, pronto.
To enroll new converts to this extremist thought, propaganda preys on the disaffected, or the misunderstood convincing them they can make a difference and be recognized for their efforts. And nothing speaks more strongly against the American way of life — or what teenagers hear as “blah, blah, blah,” — than their dangerously naive view of the ISIS movement.
Of course the question you are dying to ask of these disaffected youth is if they have a clue about these Sunni militants and their radical religiosity that they believe gives them carte blanche to endorse the sex and slave trade of women and girls, stone infidels, prohibit the education of females, behead traitors, institute rape and commit mass murders.
In doing so, you may also be saving that youth from going down a terrible, irreversible, path.
— Susan Lynn
The appeal of ISIS to U.S. young of heart
