The Islamic State knows that American kids use toy guns, right?
|
Version 0 of 1. In the 1983 movie classic “A Christmas Story,” 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants only one thing: “an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!” He’s repeatedly told there is no way it’ll happen because — gasp! — he’ll shoot his eye out. The scene is illustrative of a broader part of American culture: kids across the United States grow up with guns. The number of toy guns is down, as this Washington Post feature from December notes. But millions of them are still sold each year. They remain common when playing soldier, cowboy, police officer — all careers that are romanticized in much of American culture as noble, adventurous or both. Apparently, the Islamic State hasn’t picked up on that. Militants with the group released images Thursday of children playing with toy guns in Syria. The implication seems clear: Children in the Islamic State’s unofficial capital city, Raqqah, are being indoctrinated as future fighters. #ISIS releases photos of Toddlers w/ toy guns, “raised in the land of the Caliphate”, implying them as future ISIS. pic.twitter.com/5wkOmrS2pX — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) January 15, 2015 #ISIS releases photos of Toddlers w/ toy guns, “raised in the land of the Caliphate”, implying them as future ISIS. pic.twitter.com/5wkOmrS2pX — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) January 15, 2015 The photos, used in that context, seem creepy and exploitative. But they’re not unlike photos in the albums of millions of American families. There are plenty of photos in my own family album of a big-eared 5-year-old Dan, wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a toy Daisy bolt-action rifle reminiscent of the Wild West. The use of toy guns isn’t churning out extremists everywhere. The Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups have indoctrinated children in a variety of more serious ways, of course. A group known as “Zarqawi’s Cubs” was reportedly established by al-Qaeda-affiliated groups to train children in Syria. More recently, a video was released by the Islamic State purportedly showing a boy, perhaps 8 years old, executing two men accused of being Russian spies. Releasing photos of toy guns in the hands of Syrian kids, though? That just makes them seem like kids. |