http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/isis-jihadists-now-blaming-anti-depressants-for-killing-sprees/

November 15, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 1 Comment

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

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This is why you don’t take prisoners. When you’re dealing with an army of rapists and murderers, you kill them all. And then you don’t have to put up with the whining.

15-year-old Kareem Mufleh freely admits that he fought with ISIS. “They captured my village and gave me a choice,” he said. “Either join ISIS, or be beheaded.”
ISIS has embarked on a reign of fear. Mufleh told us he was a witness to massacres when ISIS seized villages in Syria.
“I even saw them kill a woman because her wedding dress showed her neck and bare arms,” Mufleh said.
He claims that ISIS gave him the anti-anxiety drug Zolam before he went in to battle.
“That drug makes you lose your mind,” he said. “If they give you a suicide belt and tell you to blow yourself up, you’ll do it.”

The story might be true. It might not be. There’s no way to know and no point in trying to decipher it. Kareem might be 15 or 19.

ISIS impresses fighters into its forces, but it’s doubtful that they would entrust a suicide bombing to a reluctant recruit if they didn’t have leverage over his family. In which case Kareem wouldn’t be talking at all.

There are plenty of idiot Western Muslim converts eager to blow themselves up.

Alprazolam does not turn you into a killing machine. An anti-anxiety drug would be a useful way to avoid having your suicide bomber panic at the last moment. It takes effect quickly so it could be useful in battlefield situations, but it doesn’t make you want to kill people.

You still have to want to kill.

Jihadis have a long history of drugging fighters and they know what they’re doing. Any drug that would significantly alter basic personality would make the fighter too unreliable. You don’t want your suicide bomber to become too paranoid or apathetic. You also don’t want him hallucinating or developing some other different agenda. You might want him to feel less pain or panic, to be up without being too up.

Zolam doesn’t make you want to blow up a bunch of Kurds. The Koran, now that’s another story.

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