COLLABORATORS

What's the one about making one's bed and then lying in it?

An American woman captured by Kurdish forces after fleeing the last pocket of land controlled by Islamic State says she “deeply regrets” travelling to Syria to join the terror group and has pleaded to be allowed to return to her family in Alabama.

 

Once one of Isis’s most prominent online agitators who took to social media to call for the blood of Americans to be spilled, Hoda Muthana, 24, claims to have made a “big mistake” when she left the US four years ago and says she was brainwashed into doing so online.

Insert web porn joke here.

 

Speaking from al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria, while her 18-month-old son played at her feet, Muthana said she misunderstood her faith, and that friends she had at the time believed they were following Islamic tenets when they aligned themselves to Isis.

 

“We were basically in the time of ignorance […] and then became jihadi, if you like to describe it that way,” she said. “I thought I was doing things correctly for the sake of God.”

 

Muthana says her family in Alabama were deeply conservative and placed restrictions on her movements and interactions, factors she claims contributed to her radicalisation. “You want to go out with your friends and I didn’t get any of that. I turned to my religion and went in too hard. I was self-taught and thought whatever I read, it was right.

So you were a Democrat?

 

“I look back now and I think I was very arrogant. Now I’m worried about my son’s future. In the end I didn’t have many friends left, because the more I talked about the oppression of Isis the more I lost friends. I was brainwashed once and my friends are still brainwashed.”

 

Muthana said she had not been in contact with US officials since her capture. “I would tell them please forgive me for being so ignorant, and I was really young and ignorant and I was 19 when I decided to leave. I believe that America gives second chances. I want to return and I’ll never come back to the Middle East. America can take my passport and I wouldn’t mind.”

 

A myth about World War II in Europe is that it was everybody against Nazi Germany.  While that's mostly true, it's not entirely true. Nazi-occupied lands all over Europe, countries like France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and others, contributed SS units to fight the Allies.

 

Believe it or not, there was even an SS unit consisting of British prisoners of war.  Called the British Free Corps, its membership only numbered around 200 or so and it never did any serious fighting although some BFC members may have died in Berlin after the Russians got there.

 

What happened to all these men after the war?  A few were executed while others emigrated anywhere that would take them.  Many got prison terms, some short, others long.  Those who made it out of prison probably led miserable lives, shunned for the rest of their days.  What would you think of anyone who intentionally chose to join the occupiers of your country? 

So what should be done with an American who deliberately joined forces with a group that encourages people to butcher her fellow citizens?

 

Is magnanimity called for?  Should we let this young woman back in the country?  I say sure.  As long as she's told that she'll need to get used to the idea of losing her son since she'll be spending most if not all of the rest of her life inside a cell in one of our fine US prisons.

 

If she doesn't get that, Syria's as good a place to die as any.