Deradicalization programs, upon which the West has placed so much hope, have long been an obvious failure. Such programs are based on the premise that the true teachings of Islam are peaceful, and so all that needs to be done is show the jihadis how they’re misunderstanding the Qur’an and overlooking its teachings of peace, and all will be well. But since the Qur’an and Sunnah are full of commands to make war against and subjugate unbelievers, the idea that jihadis can be “deradicalized” by reference to them is just a myth told to Infidel authorities to lull them into complacency.
Well, let’s see. De-radicalization programs have been implemented elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Let’s look at how they fared. From the Jihad Watch archives:
11 ex-Gitmo prisoners flee the Saudi “rehabilitation program” and join up with terrorist groups
Jaw-dropper: 25 former Gitmo detainees “return to militancy” despite Saudi rehab program!
Flight 253 jihadist wasn’t cured by Saudi anti-jihad art therapy
Former Guantanamo detainee now top al-Qaeda ideologue — “He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006 where he was placed in a national rehabilitation project.”
Indonesian government admits that its jihadist rehab program is a failure
“France’s deradicalization centers seen as a ‘total fiasco,’” by James McAuley, Washington Post, February 24, 2017:
PARIS — A bipartisan report in the French Senate minced no words in describing this country’s efforts to “deradicalize” former and future terrorists.
The French government’s attempt — including the controversial opening of a deradicalization center in the middle of the countryside — was a “total fiasco,” in the words of Philippe Bas, a senator from the center-right Republicans party.
Among the most damning elements in the report was a firm condemnation of the planned network of 12 deradicalization centers, perhaps the most widely publicized — and criticized — element of the government’s push to combat homegrown extremism.
A wave of terrorist violence — perpetrated mostly by French or European Union passport holders — has claimed the lives of 230 people in France since January 2015, and the Socialist administration of François Hollande has struggled to improvise a solution to the problem.
The deradicalization centers — officially called Centers for Prevention, Integration and Citizenship — were meant to impose rigorous routines on those they housed, as well as to subject them to intense courses in French history and philosophy. As Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said while serving as interior minister last fall at the opening of the first center: “We can only fight against terrorism by respecting the principles of the Republic.”
But five months later, only one of 12 planned centers has opened, and that one — in an 18th-century chateau deep in the scenic Loire Valley — is empty.
“This failure fully illustrates the lack of evaluation of the mechanisms set up by the state in the area of taking responsibility for radicalization and the lack of a comprehensive prevention strategy,” Catherine Troendlé, a senator from the Republicans who signed the report, said in a statement.
The report concluded that the programs had been designed hastily without proper due diligence.
“Despite their goodwill, several associations, seeking public funding in times of fiscal shortage, turned to the deradicalization sector without any real experience,” said Esther Benbassa, a senator from the left-wing Europe Ecology party, another of the report’s authors. This, she added, created an unfortunate “business of deradicalization.”
The French security establishment had long criticized the government’s deradicalization effort as too little too late, a knee-jerk reaction designed to put an increasingly anxious electorate at ease.
“It’s impossible to deradicalize individuals,” Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence expert and director of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, said in an interview….