Last Friday a Washington Post contributor penned an op-ed with the provocative title, “ISIS kidnapped my best friend. But when I met its fighters, I couldn’t hate them.” The op-ed seems intended to convey a poignant, emotional insight about the tragic human cost to everyone trapped in the hell that is ISIS-controlled territory. But the end result is moral equivalence.
Photojournalist Sebastian Meyer relates that his best friend was kidnapped in 2014 by ISIS militants. Meyer can’t say much more than that, he claims, without further endangering his friend, who presumably then is still being held captive somewhere even after all this time. Given the opportunity months later to question an ISIS captive, Meyer – eager to get some answers and some catharsis – was surprised to find himself becoming sympathetic to the fighter for having been recruited into service with the Islamic terror group at what we in the West would consider the tender age of 13.
Meyer detailed the captive fighter's background:
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