Wednesday, August 17, 2016

What An Uninformed Kid Gets Into

Years ago, in my military years, I tended to notice that the hyped-up and over-dosed crowd on patriotism.....were usually the ones who had the least amount of knowledge about American history, the Constitution, general law, and civic affairs.

I discussed this observation with an older gentlemen that I worked with....who'd done twenty years of military service and ten years of contractor work.  His thoughts were.....people really don't get much of an education in high school in regard to the topics mentioned.  A kid finishes school with enough basic knowledge for twenty 3x5 cards on history and they get some false sense of reality.  As he noted.....these are the idiots who end up as some mayor, senator or eventually some President....but they really aren't well-suited for the profession they hold.

Today, I noticed out of the German news this odd situation that journalists had stumbled across.  Some reporters had found that there in Syria and Iraq....in the midst of this 2013/2014 build-up to the ISIS war....that various recruits were arriving and didn't really know anything much about Islam.

Naturally, you'd think.....young guy....twenties....pumped up back in France, England, and Germany...on the Muslim religion.  He ought to have a hundred 3x5 cards of information in his mind and be able to quote Muhammad real easy.  Well....no.

According to analysis by the AP reporters and their agency.....various documents show that thousands of these jihadists members.....just didn't know nothing much about Islam.  At best?  Five percent are said to have a decent amount of information or knowledge. The bulk....near 70-percent....knew just basic stuff and that was it.  The rest?  It's best not to even bring up that 25-percent crowd.

What's this mean?  If you were a circus recruitment guy....you'd want to go and recruit the dumbest idiots possible....so you could easily bring them into the circus profession and get them accepting just about everything.....no matter how stupid it sounded....as absolute truth.

So you wonder why they had to make these music video episodes that had Islamic themes and comments in the background?  Mostly because they were dealing with guys without much intellect or common sense.

All of this led to what might be called in-house training....some Islamic scholar in the midst of combat operations.....trying to ensure that the "kids" got some increased knowledge in their core beliefs.

My humble guess is that a quarter or more of the 'kids' involved.....wised up within thirty days and realized that this was pretty crappy instruction....and were looking for some method of escape.

So, you stand back and reflect upon this.  A bunch of hyped-up but dismal students of the topic involved.  Enthusiastic but they can't really detail this out in any rational statement or state their core feeling on the topic.  All of this....while in some hot hell-hole and threat of death seven minutes away?  Yeah.....that's about the whole summary of this issue.

What if you were the German government?  I might start to expand the mind and the thinking of a bunch of 13-year old punk kids who say they are Muslim while they are in school.  I'd ask challenging questions.....make them explain something by research and through a research process.....make them objective about the bigger picture of life.  You don't need to go to some hell-hole or be seven minutes away from death.  There's more to life than that.

Why it took the journalists three years to realize this?   Unknown.  I'd like to ask more but with the journalists crowd you have today.....investigative journalism is almost non-existent.

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