Brainwashing Is A Reality And This Is How ISIS Is Using It

Brainwashing or mind control or re-education, is a technique used by various groups to control the way a person thinks, to restrict their autonomy, change their perception of reality and disrupt basic beliefs in order to direct thier actions. Earlier totalitarian regimes used torture and propaganda to indoctrinate people; now increasingly brainwashing is a tool used by religious extremists to seduce and control people and make them do things. Most recently, it is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS that is known to engage in brainwashing to recruit people and to make them do their bidding:

Cubs of the Caliphate

Cubs of the Caliphate

Catching them young

Moulding impressionable young minds is easier. According to some reports, the ISIS and their supporters have managed to alter school curricula of up to 400,000 school children to teach them hate and to attract them towards their extremist agendas.

Controlling the source of information

Controlling what recruits see, know and learn is a powerful means of brainwashing. Recruits are shown only propaganda and material that furthers the agenda of the extremists; so that they literally know no other reality and accept what they are told to be the gospel truth.

The brainwashing is very extreme

A child soldier who escaped from Raqqa, 12 year old Nasir had horrifying details to reveal about his experiences: he and 60 other children were being trained to be suicide bombers. They were told that ISIS loves them more than their parents. They were told to kill their own parents, who, they were told were unbelievers.

Suicide bomber at 5?

Nasir revealed that some children being trained alongside him were as young as 5. These very young children are often used in ISIS propaganda videos.

Nazi recruitment tactics

The Quilliam foundation has studied this phenomenon and found that the terror group uses tactics rather like the Nazis used; and that they introduce children to their twisted ideologies practically from birth. These children are transformed into soldiers, spies and executioners.

Children are desensitized

During their training, kids are not permitted to cry and are threatened with extreme punishments such as flogging, torture and rape. The environment is such that the children are completely desensitized to violence and find dangerous weapons and brutal combat quite normal.

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