What is wrong with my country?

[Mouth for war]

Ok...I read in the news (It was a while ago but it didn't catch my attention until yesterday) that Swedish politicians now wants to reward people fighting with IS (Islamic state) We have a lot of young people here without jobs, still living with their parents etc. When those terrorists return to Sweden, some politicians wants to give them apartments, jobs, free psychiatric help etc. REALLY?!?!?! Even some native swedish people has joined. I have a lot of friends from all over the world with different religious beliefs as well and they are really nice people. I welcome everyone here who can behave and treat people with respect. I just thought it was really messed up reading about that. I know we are a neutral country and don't want to go to war with anyone. And that's good because war is a terrible thing, no matter what my forum name might suggest I understand the thought behind this action "It's better to stay friends" but rewards should be given to those who deserve it!

[Lasca]

Being Swedish, would you mind posting a link to this news. Haven't read anything like it myself, so I would like to get my own perspective.

[Mouth for war]

Ah sure! http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/orebro/kommun-hjalper-is-krigare      (This is in swedish)

[Ibispi]

Maybe those politicians think that this way they can rehabilitate those people into society. Since, they probably think that the real problem isn't Islamic State, but maybe poverty or desperate conditions in which these people live who join extremists.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah I think so too! But I think it's really weird to reward it like that.

[Ibispi]

Yeah I think so too! But I think it's really weird to reward it like that.

Yes, it can be misinterpreted that they are giving them rewards.
The thing is, they are not rewarding anyone in any way. Politicians are not giving them apartments, jobs, free psychiatric help, because of IS fanatics' actions, but because politicians think that IS fanatics' actions are a consequence of conditions in which they live. These politicians consider the problem not to be the people as individuals, but they believe the problem is in the society itself.
Read this article if you haven't. It may help you understand it better. http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/orebro/terrorexpert-staller-sig-bakom

[Mouth for war]

Yeah I guess that is a point. I missed that article so thanks for showing me! Oh and I never thought for a second that they would get rewards for their actions of course No sane person supports acts of terror

[Andail]

Noone's rewarded for fighting with the IS.

People returning from Syria and Iran who can be suspected of extremist activities do get special attention and in some cases extra resources to re-adapt to society, but if there's any evidence of war crimes whatsoever, that person will be tried and convicted just like everybody else.

What politicians apparently have failed to communicate is how fighting with IS is still a crime. However, if you can't prove anything, it's considered better to try to make that person fit in society again. And it is often hard to prove those kinds of crimes.

Now, whether it's a good thing spending extra money on presumptive extremists is still a good question, but rewarding criminals we do not.

[Ali]

I think we should remember that some of these IS 'fighters' are idealistic teenagers who have been manipulated and lied to about what fighting for their religion will mean. (Of course, that's NOTHING like how we recruit teenagers from poor backgrounds for the army.)

I'm British, and we favour the approach of putting them in the stocks and parading them around the village. I'm not sure that's the best way to effect the peaceful integration of disenfranchised Muslim youth.

[RickJ]

Well, the obvious thing to do is to give them one-way plane tickets to go and don't let them come back to kill you and your fellow citizens.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah don't allow them back. But it is easy for young minds to be manipulated so something must be done of course

[WHAM]

Not long ago a Swedish politician / person of interest (Sven-Johan Dahlstrand) compared people travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS/ISIL as similiar to volunteers travelling to Finland back in the early 40's to fight against the Soviets. There was a lot of outcry in the media, but it did get me thinking about the matter. Hear me out, thought this may sound really weird.

In case of travelling to Finland, volunteering service to the finnish military to defend against the Soviets, the gesture was seen as noble and righteous, an act of brotherhood, and even encouraged to a degree. It makes sense, people were travelling to help their "neighbouring state" in a time of plight.

In the case of travelling to Syria, it's completely different. Or is it? This will depend on a couple of factors, most importantly: is ISIS/ISIL a state, or will it become one in the future, as it indends?
If no, then they will eventually collapse and are considered a terrorist organization and anyone working with or for them is considered a criminal and a terrorist, plain and simple (and life-shattering for those who were part of the attempt).

But if ISIS/ISIL manages to raise itself into statehood (as they are trying to do by capturing land, building schools, power plants, hospitals and infrastructure, raising political support, enforcing religious views and eliminating dissidents), then everything they have done will be considered legal within that new state and it's laws. Skip forward a decade or two and we might have to examine the whole situation again, but this time through the viewpoint that these people who travelled to Syria to fight were not, in fact, terrorists and criminals, but rather the noble volunteers who were ready to fight for a fledgeling nation and might have ended up bringing peace to the region (through massive bloodshed and murder and untold horrors, at least as seen by us westerners).

It's a weird thought and I, as a Finnish person, find it really hard to consider these 'soldiers' as criminals guilty of supporting a terrorist regime. By that definition we finns are a nation based on terrorism (see Finnish civil war), born from a history of bloodshed, prison camps and political executions. It's not all that different... In my view, condemning those who fight for a cause they believe in as criminals and saying "don't let them return to their homes" makes as much sense as saying that the swedes who fought for Finland in the 40's should not have been allowed to return, because in someone's eyes (Soviet Union and it's allies) they were as good as criminals as well.

[RickJ]

The thing you are missing is that they are pledging their allegiance to an ignoble ideology and a group who viciously practice it, to an ideology and group who are at war with the home country.  What they are doing would be the same thing as a British citizen running off to fight for Hitler during WWII.  Neither should retain their citizenship in the country they have betrayed.

The other difference is that these people are not going there to fight for the Iraqi citizens but rather to invade their country.  It's a huge difference isn't it?   

[WHAM]

RickJ: it all comes down to the end result. If Germany had won WW2, then those people who joined the German side would be considered heroes and their accomplishments cheeres, just as people today cheer those who jumped from the German side to the allied side.

Also, since we are ready to condemn the Muslim ideologies followed by the ISIS/ISIL faction, it's good to remember that pretty much all western powers have run very similiar ideologies in the past. The British and Spaniards (to name a couple) felt it was their right to colonize land and drive off or murder natives, and the Americans (read old-British) felt it was A-OK to keep slaves back in the day. There isn't an inherently correct or incorrect ideology, just differing ideologies and people who follow them. Just because people choose a different ideology and worldview as we do should not entitle us to condemn said people.

[Khris]

But it does.
What you do is called "moral relativism", and it's a futile and idiotic view. Saying that killing minorities is ok as long as you end up winning the war is really not even worth commenting.

Sure, in the end everything is subjective; but maybe we can agree that promoting equality, education, freedom and peace is still better than doing the opposite? Just take human wellbeing as baseline, and it's pretty straightforward.

[RickJ]

WHAM: I disagree.  In either case the person has abandonded his Birtish citizenship and pledged loyalty to enemies who would destroy his home country.  In either case his fellow Birtish citizens would see him as a traitor and would not willing accept him back in thier country except for proseution for treason.  If the Germans won and welcomed him as hero (more likely Hitler would recognize him as traitor and send him off to some shit hole to die a hero's death) then Briton  would no longer exist as an independent country and so there would be no citizenship rights to reclaim.

It doesn't matter if these people are youg and stupid because it's a near certainity that when they return they will deal death and destruction to the loyal Sweedish citizenery.  Looking the other way won't make it any less certain.

[selmiak]

Imagine a european living in Syria, living there for 15 years or longer. He decides to come to europe to fight a war, kills some muslims, aymbe terrorists, maybe civilian and comes back to syria. Will he be a hero? No he will be on some wanted list because of the murders he commited. This example probably doesn't work this way around. Just imagine you are living abroad in a country where noone is shooting you on the streets when you are out to get some milk, and this country is in war with the country of your origin. That would indeed make me crazy!
Then again, this is about sweden, and sweden is not in the nato, I don't know, are there any swedish troops in that hot zone in the middle east because of whatever humanitarian reasons there could be for military? Or did sweden even declare war on some country far far away?

[Radiant]

But if ISIS/ISIL manages to raise itself into statehood (as they are trying to do by capturing land, building schools, power plants, hospitals and infrastructure, raising political support, enforcing religious views and eliminating dissidents), then everything they have done will be considered legal within that new state and it's laws. Skip forward a decade or two and we might have to examine the whole situation again, but this time through the viewpoint that these people who travelled to Syria to fight were not, in fact, terrorists and criminals, but rather the noble volunteers who were ready to fight for a fledgeling nation and might have ended up bringing peace to the region (through massive bloodshed and murder and untold horrors, at least as seen by us westerners).

While it is true that the winner writes the history books, the victory of ISIS is hardly a fait accompli, and should not be treated as such.

[WHAM]

So basically we're all going: "Yeah, western civilizations did all sorts of wicked evil crap in the past and still do to this day (via corporations), but hey, we got better. Kind of. And since it's in the past we can act all high and mighty towards fledgeling nations going through their birth pains. Those OTHER guys on the other hand, with their silly hats and wrong religion, they are wicked evil and that's that because I say so and anyone on their side must be banished or killed, because we have the superior worldview." 

You are saying that, in a part of the world where foreign invastion in the last decade was a reality, where civil war is a constant and the governments teeter on the brink of collapse, assailed by endless internal conflict, the creation of a new state (even through violence) is an inherent negative and 'causes suffering'. As if there was no suffering there to begin with. As if this is somehow new in the region.

Admitted: the brutal executions done by ISIS/ISIL shock people, myself included, but I can sort of understand where they are coming from. Hell, we did the exact same fucking thing back in the 40's!
http://nocandoo.servebeer.com/temp/suomisodassa/pics/hs4.jpeg
http://nocandoo.servebeer.com/temp/suomisodassa/pics/hs6.jpeg
(Pictured, soviet spy/agitator being executed in 1942)

True, my worldviews are far from those followed by ISIS/ISIL and I would never wish to travel to this 'Islamic Caliphate' myself, but instead of seeing them adding to people's suffering, I see a potential for an end to all that internal strife and chaos that has engulfed Syrian and Iraq long before ISIS/ISIL came to be.

[Khris]

Let's put it this way: if ISIS violently overthrew dictatorships only to erect independent social democracies with equal rights and freedom of speech, I'd probably cheer them on.
But they have a deeply irrational ideology based on utter nonsense. So whether one agrees or not that in order to do good in the long run, some violence is acceptable, the stuff they believe is wrong and evil*, and basing a society on sharia law is wrong and evil*, even if it had seriously evolved from its barbaric roots.
If they actually manage to stabilize the region, and overall violence and death goes down on average, I'll revisit my assessment.

And nobody claims that western civilization is the epitome of everything good and right and decent, let alone has been for centuries, because it's clearly not true. But saying that because of that, judging ISIS is hypocritical, simply doesn't work. The fact that some cancer treatments fail doesn't mean that treating cancer with so-called alternative medicine is suddenly a viable option. It's still dangerous nonsense.

*wrong and evil: ISIS sees the west as wrong and evil, so this needs to be elaborated. It's possible to compare societies based on human wellbeing, for example a society where people are constantly tortured will have less wellbeing than a society where people aren't. Using that objective scale, ISIS is clearly below western democracies.

[WHAM]

I think we can all agree that the situation is pretty catastrophic either way. To get back to the original subject of what to do with people returning from the conflict zone: I do not see why people choosing to travel to fight in a war they believe in should be penalized for doing so. Rewarding them is out of the question as well, on that I fully agree, but as far as I have seen on the media, the talk has mostly been about deporting people who have fought as part of this conflict or revoking their citizenship or revoking their basic social securities, or imprisoning them as criminals, which I find to be equally wrong. If these people should be jailed for fighting in Syria or Iraq, then the Swedish volunteers who fought for Finland should have been treated the same, and (for obvious reasons) I cannot condone that idea.

People fight in wars. Some for money, some for nationalism, some for religion, some for other ideals. All are equal(ly stupid, since we are talking about war) and none should be criminalized in their home countries based on participation in a foreign conflict any more than the others, no matter which conflict is in question.

(And yes, if an individual is proven to have directly participated in war crimes, THEN we are talking of a completely different matter altogether. Lock 'em up, I say!)

[Cassiebsg]

(And yes, if an individual is proven to have directly participated in war crimes, THEN we are talking of a completely different matter altogether. Lock 'em up, I say!)

You do realize that "war crime" is dependent of the POV? From the ISIS POV decapitating westerns and non-muslims is perfectly "a okay" if not not even an act of heroism. From our POV is barbaric and a war crime.
There isn't an easy solution to this problem.
The Resistence in WW2 was heroes to the Allies, and Criminals in Hitler's eyes. Had Hitler won, they would have been called terrorists and we would accept that as the ultimate truth.

They took a decision to go and fight for the ISIS, cause at some point they believed that to be the one true right. They went and fought. Now the real question is: Why do they return? 
Is it cause they found out that they were fighting the "wrong truth" and ideal, and realized that they actually had it much better before? Or do they return, with the intention of "fighting evil from the inside"? Or they consider their fight as some sort of "summer camp"... it was fun but all fun has an end and now it's time to return home?
Beats me, honestly. How do you distinguish one from the other?

[WHAM]

ISIS executes by fire or decapitation and the media goes "oooh, war-crimes".
The US still execute with lethal injection, electric chair and firing squad. China does god-knows-what and the French used the guilliotine in the 70's, soo I'd wager that ISIS is calling all of the above equally "brutal".

And as you mention: perhaps some people went out and came back because they felt that they no longer wished to be part of ISIS, even hated them. Yet the discussion that was being had would have politically lynched them just the same, suspecting them of what you described "fighting from the inside".

We can't really know, so my final opinion on the matter is: innocent until proven guilty.