[Itse]

Originally Posted by T@T

It is religion, how many of these suicidal idiots would carry out their mission if they knew there was no paradise waiting for them?

Atheists are perfectly capable of self-sacrifice.

As for proved-to-work ways to combat radicalization, I recommend reading up on the Aarhus-model. (As in Aarhus, Denmark.)

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...away-from-isis

The rest of Europe came down hard on citizens who had traveled to Syria. France shut down mosques it suspected of harboring radicals. The U.K. declared citizens who had gone to help ISIS enemies of the state. Several countries threatened to take away their passports — a move formerly reserved for convicted traitors.

But the Danish police officers took a different approach: They made it clear to citizens of Denmark who had traveled to Syria that they were welcome to come home, and that when they did, they would receive help with going back to school, finding an apartment, meeting with a psychiatrist or a mentor, or whatever they needed to fully integrate back into society.

Their program came to be known as the "Aarhus model." It's been called the "hug a terrorist" model in the media, but this description never sits well with the cops. They see themselves as making an entirely practical decision designed to keep their city safe.

As they see it, coming down hard on young, radicalized Muslims will only make them angrier and more of a danger to society. Helping them is the only chance to keep an eye on them and also to keep the peace in their town.

"The original response was to fight [extremism] through military and policing efforts, and they didn't fare too well," says Arie Kruglanski, a social psychologist at the University of Maryland who studies violent extremism. "That kind of response that puts them as suspects and constrains them and promotes discrimination — that is only likely to exacerbate the problem. It's only likely to inflame the sense there's discrimination and motivate young people to act against society."

"Aarhus is the first, to my knowledge, to grapple with [extremism] based on sound social psychology evidence and principles," Kruglanski says. What Link and Aarslev were doing was so unexpected that it created an opening for people to think differently about their ideology. "They expect to be treated harshly," Kruglanski says. Instead, they got the opposite. "That kind of shock opens people's minds to maybe they were wrong about their society that they perceived as their enemy. It opens a possible window into rethinking and re-evaluating."

Starting in 2012, 34 people went from Aarhus to Syria. As far as the police know, six were killed and 10 are still over there. Of the 18 who came back home, all showed up in Aarslev and Link's office, as did hundreds of other potential radicals in Aarhus — about 330 in total.

But the program is admired for another accomplishment: Since the initial exodus of young people, very few have left from Aarhus for Syria, even when traffic from the rest of Europe was spiking. Last year, in 2015, it was just one person.

The program is still precarious, though. One terrorist attack in Aarhus could undo much of the work that has been done. But the officers are willing to keep trying. As Link put it, there are still "strong forces" out there tempting young Muslims to leave their lives in the West and join the battle.