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UK mulling treating Islamist extremists as brainwashing victims
LAHORE: British Home Secretary Charles Clarke is studying proposals to combat Islamic terrorist groups by treating them as religious cults, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Sources told the newspaper that Clarke believes that anti-brainwashing techniques used to âdeprogrammeâ cult members could represent a useful weapon in the war against extremism, especially in the wake of the London bombings. 
| If you're not going to simply blow their brains out when you catch them, I suppose this is the next best thing. If they were to put me in charge of designing the program, I'd work real hard to convert them to agnosticism. |
| I think .com can get us the necessary equipment at wholesale prices. |
Sources close to the Home Secretary told the Sunday Telegraph that he thinks it misguided to categorise Islamist extremists in the âclassicâ mould of revolutionaries fighting for a political cause. Instead, a closer parallel should be drawn with recruits to cults, who often come from educated backgrounds and are âbrainwashedâ into renouncing society. One example, Clarke said, was Mohammed Atta, the leader of the September 11 hijackers, who was an architect graduate. Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the London bombers, was a classroom assistant in Leeds and was married with a baby daughter.
| Except that professional revolutionaries are usually drawn from the ranks of the upper middle classes. But loosening their turbans might help, and will probably be more effective than having the local holy men chat with them, like they do in Soddy Arabia and Yemen. But I'd still overfeed them, just in case. |
The Home Secretary made special reference to work of Inform, an organisation specialising in cults, which emphasises the need to perceive how victims of brainwashing see their circumstances, the paper reported.
Posted by: Fred 2005-10-03 |
