British newspaper The Independent has confirmed reports that murdered ISIS hostage, Kayla Mueller, was held as a sex slave by the group. Charlie Sennott joined Margery Eagan and Jared Bowen to discuss just how sophisticated ISIS' system of organized sexual violence of has become, and why it's radicalizing more and more Americans.
The trade in women and girls, specifically "minorities and people who are not members of the Islamic faith, and women who they feel don't adhere to their standards of modesty" has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses, inspection areas, and a transportation fleet. The administration and infrastructure is highly bureaucratic, Sennott says. Reports have emerged with court-notarized sales contracts. The practice has become, according to Sennott, "and established lure."
"We're dealing with an organization that needs to be confronted more than it is," Sennott explains. "There is a lag between recognizing evil and responding to evil." And his word of choice is evil. He goes on to compare the "horrific and grotesque" actions and their profoundly disturbing institutionalization to Nazi Germany. While that comparison is more common these days, Sennott levels it with gravity: "You can't help but feel some historic kinship between how systematic this is, and how systematic the Nazis were."
So what's next? "We need a political solution. We need aggressive diplomacy. We need to challenge the State department to address this," Sennott argues. But more than that, "we have to look at fundamentalism in a sophisticated light." And that light needs to bring recruitment into focus. "ISIS is actively recruiting young people online." Radicalization is, according to Sennott, a very real concern. "It's so sad that in the human narrative, evil sometimes lures people. I'll never understand that."
There's not much in the ISIS narrative that is easy to understand.
>> To hear Charlie Sennott's conversation with Jared Bowen and Margery Eagan, click on the link above.
