What is wrong with my country?

[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.