While it is certain that few or none of these women and girls volunteered to join up with the insurgents, it is likely that the experience of captivity and of marriage, forced or not, and then of motherhood, will have had a profound effect on the psyches of some of them. “Brainwashing” and “the Stockholm syndrome” are pale concepts compared to what they have been through.
And recent events suggest that some women in Boko Haram custody may feel a fierce commitment to the insurgents.
During the battle at Sambisa, some women shot at their rescuers and were killed. Boko Haram used them as an armed human shield for its main fighting force.
Soldiers who spoke with The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity said they were shocked when women opened fire on troops who had come to rescue them last week. The women killed seven soldiers and 12 of the women were killed, they said.
These girls and women are as much victims of sharia as the shot security guard at the Draw Mohammad contest.
But Michelle Obama stood in a White House room holding a sign saying # Bring Back Our Girls for them.
This is the SAME sharia.
Muslims feel the world of infidels is being led by such weak horses that they can impose sharia on all people, Muslim or not.
And, looking at the way the world’s infidel leaders fight against them (weakly, if at all) they will keep on imposing sharia on as many infidels as they can reach.