Bad News Good, or Good News Bad?

ISIS Child Soldiers
Vocativ

According to an AFP report posted in the Daily Mail, "Desertions [are] prompting [the] IS to rely on child soldiers" (March 14, 2016):

The Islamic State group is relying more heavily on child soldiers as growing numbers of fighters desert the jihadist organization, the United States said Monday. That may indicate the group's leaders are "struggling with their ability to recruit and retain manpower," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters during a daily briefing . . . . [Apparently], "more and more" defectors are leaving IS's ranks, prompting the group to rely more heavily on child soldiers, the spokesman added. "Originally, they would rely on children for intelligence streams, getting information . . . and then using them to conduct suicide attacks, which they still do," Kirby said. "Now we get more reports about them using children in actual engagements side by side with adult fighters," he added. "All those are good indications they are struggling with their ability to recruit and retain manpower."

The IS would probably argue that by Islamic standards, the 'so-called boys' are men, i.e., that the soldiers in question have already started growing pubic hair. Yes, that's the criterion: pubic hair. And we all know how mature boys are when their pubic hair starts growing. Why, they're mature enough to become soldiers!

We thus have the bad news of child soldiers fighting, which implies the good news of adult soldiers deserting, and we have the good news of adult soldiers deserting, which  entails the bad news of child soldiers fighting.