Posted on 04/17/2008 6:10:24 AM PDT by forkinsocket
What would it take to persuade a terrorist to give up the life? A growing number of specialists are trying to find out.
SAUDI ARABIA IS one of the last places on earth one would expect to find an art therapy course for convicted terrorists. The kingdom, after all, is known for an unforgiving approach to criminal justice: thieves risk having their hands amputated, "sexual deviance" is punishable by flogging, and drug dealers are beheaded.
And yet, over the past few years, jailed Saudi jihadis, led by therapists and motivated by the possibility of a shortened sentence, have been putting paint to paper to work their way through - and hopefully leave behind - the thoughts and feelings that drove them to support violent strains of Islam.
Extremist art therapy, it turns out, is only part of a new global movement to "deradicalize" terrorists. The Saudi program, a multipronged effort, is among the biggest and best-funded, but in recent years a growing number of Muslim countries and countries with large Muslim minorities have started similar ones: Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Singapore, Great Britain, and the Netherlands among them. Last September, the US-led military coalition in Iraq created an ambitious program of its own to handle its more than 24,000 detainees. And psychologists and political scientists are starting to take an interest in the topic.
Since 9/11, the focus of the war on terrorism, especially as prosecuted by the United States, has been to capture or kill terrorists. Some analysts have grappled with the question of what leads people to terrorism. Only now, however, are thinkers turning to the equally vital question of what can lead people away from it.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
How about a .45 JHP to the head?
That would open his mind to other ways of thinking....
A good 12 step program for violent Islam would start with conversion to Christianity, the true religion of peace.
“Extremist art therapy, it turns out, is only part of a new global movement to “deradicalize” terrorists.”
Lead therapy works everytime its been tried.
Art for terrorists. They should make them draw cartoons of Muhammad!
Arabic calligraphy is great for making pictures out of words....I wrote the word Islam (in Arabic) in the shape of a bomb once....
Isolate him (or her), and then detonate in place.
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