When the Terrorists Come Home
British security services estimate that
of the 850 Brits that left the country to fight for ISIS in Iraq and
Syria, 400 have returned. Yet, none of them to date have been charged
with war crimes.
The Council of Europe’s legal affairs committee recently ruled that
merely joining ISIS is enough for prosecution at The Hague’s
International Criminal Court (ICC). Still, no prosecutions, not even any
reported arrests.
Even though while these jihadis were in the Middle East, they were
outside the jurisdiction of the ICC, once they returned, they could
legally be deported to The Hague.
“This cannot possibly be justice. The government must look again at
throwing the full weight of international law at those who took part in
crimes against humanity,” said Labour MP Liam Byrne, expressing the
sentiments of many.
While inaction is clearly not the solution to the problem of returning jihadis, the question remains, what is?
It is something that will become increasingly relevant as the jihadis
that escape the resounding defeat at the hands of coalition forces seek
to reenter their countries of origin. It is also a question with
far-reaching consequences that will haunt these countries for decades if
they fail to get it right.
Yet, “getting it right” is profoundly complicated.
Writing in The Guardian, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini , co-founder and executive director of the International Civil Society Action Network, lays out the different options and the drawbacks of various solutions, which basically look like this:
1.Bar ISIS Fighters From Returning
Some countries, like the UK, have passed laws to strip returningjihadis of their citizenship if they were naturalized or hold dual
citizenship. While this strategy is good for self-preservation –
certainly a sane approach in today’s world – it also means that ISIS
fighters, alive and well, will be devising plans to enter other
countries and potentially wreak their havoc there.
This approach has also been fraught with politics. Take the case of
Canada. Addressing the problem of returning as well as internal jihadis,
the previous Conservative government passed a law stripping the
citizenship from known ISIS fighters. The Liberal Trudeau reversed the law.
As a result, outraged citizens in Canada have seen the re-instatement of citizenship of the leader of an al-Qaeda plot to send truck bombs into downtown Toronto during rush hour.
Speaking on the radio, one ISIS returnee to Canada, simply stated, “We all do things that we regret…All that’s behind me.”
For six months, this young man, originally from Pakistan, worked for
ISIS’ “morality police,” meting out brutal punishments for infractions.
He trapped people in cages for flirting, gave lashes for smoking a
cigarette and beat women who were not veiled.
He says he was motivated to join ISIS by the promise of an “Islamic
utopia,” (which he didn’t find). Now he says he’s sorry, and that’s it?
We are supposed to accept such a man back into society? In Canada, the
answer is apparently “Yes.”
2.Put Returning ISIS Fighters in Prison
Considering the current situation in prisons, the prospects forrehabilitation in prison are slim to none. Radicalization in prisons is
the number one issue of those behind bars. Not only are prisons not set
up with effective deradicalization programs, most likely imprisoned
returning jihadis will merely contribute to radicalizing others while
there.
At the very least, these fighters would need to be isolated and not
released until they are really truly rehabilitated (once we figure out
how to do that).
3.Rehabilitation Programs
Some European countries like Sweden and Finland seem to think thatgiving returning jihadis extra privileges – jobs and houses (even
skipping the normal wait) – and allowing them to keep their children
will somehow rehabilitate them into upstanding European citizens.
Most people would consider that a pipe dream.
To be effective, studies have shown that
deradicalization/rehabilitation programs have to come from within the
jihadis’ own communities. Responsible societies should also not allow
those in such a program freedom of movement.
Andrelini rightly points out that while it is tempting to merely lump
these fighters into one category, short of locking them up and throwing
away the key (certainly an option), their varying motivations for
joining such an enterprise from the beginning may play a part in
determining if there is any hope for their rehabilitation.
And this brings us to the most effective solution: prevention.
Those who join ISIS do so for a number of reasons – all of which need to be addressed on a societal level:- Feeling disenfranchised from Western society
- Anger at perceived injustice to Muslims
- Attraction to freedom, adventure and power
- Gullibility
- Dedication to spiritual ideals (however warped)
Bangladesh, says disaffected youth from Muslim migrant families are
drawn to extremist versions of Islam to find a sense of identity.
Children are often taught by their families to be suspicious of Western
society and that the West is the source of their problems.
“Where they tend to find a sense of identity is in Islam but a
particular brand of it, one which they show through outer markers like
hijabs or beards,” he said. “’Underneath that exterior though sometimes
it can be a sense of opposition to mainstream society, what Canadian
author Tarek Fatah calls a middle finger to the West.”
Ahmed, who has counselled troubled Muslim youth, continued, “It pains
me to say it because I’m talking about my relatives and friends here.
Muslims wrap their identity so closely around Islam so it’s not easy for
them to challenge the ideas within it.”
In this environment, it is a short step for many from disaffection to radicalization.
Ahmed believes one solution is that countries should not be taking in Muslim immigrants who are not qualified for skilled jobs.
However, what about Muslims who are already in the West? If
integration is a key to counter disenfranchisement, then the West itself
must begin operating from a sense of moral clarity. Western freedoms,
tolerance and human rights were once values envied worldwide – certainly
they attracted many first-generation immigrants from Muslim countries.
Yet in Europe, immigrants were met with the doctrine of
multiculturalism, which ultimately prevented integration, encouraged
isolation and provided a breeding ground for extremist ideology being
exported and bank-rolled by Saudi Arabia and the like.
In America, where the doctrine of the “melting pot” served to prevent
a good amount of those problems in previous generations, today’s
leftist dogma of entitlement, microagressions and grievances provide the
perfect breeding ground for disenfranchisement of Muslim youth.
Muslim Brotherhood
organizations like CAIR have gleefully joined in the fray, targeting
the Muslim community with a carefully written script of discrimination
and Islamophobia, pulling Muslims farther and farther from the mainstream and making their youth more and more susceptible to radicalization.
While we address the problem of returning jihadis, we must, at the
same time, address the direction in which our country is headed – either
an affirmation of the values and rights from which America was founded
and built on or the tearing down of those values and the chaos that will
ensue.
When the Terrorists Come Home | Clarion Project Clarion Project – Re-Shared and administered by Aaron Halim
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