Apparently, the jihad isn’t as fun when you can’t get the iPod to work anymore. Seriously.

The Telegraph translated several letters from French Muslims, which were published in Le Figaro, who left France to go to Syria to fight with ISIS. The jihad isn’t turning out to be summer camp.

“I’ve basically done nothing except hand out clothes and food,” wrote one, who wants to return from Aleppo. “I also help clean weapons and transport dead bodies from the front. Winter’s arrived here. It’s begun to get really hard.”
Another writes: “I’m fed up. They make me do the washing up.”
One Frenchman whinged that he wanted to come home because he was missing the comforts of life in France.
“I’m fed up. My iPod doesn’t work any more here. I have to come back.”
A third wrote fearfully: “They want to send me to the front, but I don’t know how to fight.”
Others were concerned, more prosaically, about the nationality of their baby, which was born in Syria and so not recognised by the French state.
And Le Figaro said that, among Islamist commanders, it had been noticed that some of the French were beginning to want to leave. One Frenchman was rumoured to have been beheaded when he explained to the emir that he wanted to follow his friend who had already left.

Insert joke about the French giving up here. Especially since the iPod won’t work. But France is not looking kindly upon those who are returning:

Over 1,100 young French people – many of them converts to Islam of French rather than Arab origin – are believed to have thrown in their lot with Isis or other jihadist groups. Over 260 are believed to be in Syria or Iraq. More than 100 have already returned. Of these, 76 have been arrested.

The British are having to think about what to do with their potential returning jihadi dropouts, and India has already dealt with one man who has returned. Fighting for a hostile foreign group is generally against the law, and most of these jihadi-wannabes are facing criminal penalties in their home countries.

While I can believe that these Muslims are giving up on fighting with ISIS because they are tired of being used as fresh manual labor (but seriously, what did they think they would be doing?), my concern is that they haven’t given up the jihad against the West. While they might be crying over broken iPods in Syria, what will happen once they return home to Mommy, indoor plumbing, cheese and cookies?

This is one of those moments when the old saying, “you made the bed, you get to lie in it” comes to mind. Even if your bed is nothing more than a blanket in a tent. Decisions have consequences. These jihadis made choices. They’ll have to learn to live without the iPod.