GOP TRUMPERS - Threats to 7 Republican Senators

IMHO just more proof that today's GOP has been radicalized by Trump.  They no longer true conservatives nor believe in democracy and our Constitution and ONLY want more power, party before country.  Today's GOP do not support the poor or middle class citizen, they support only the very wealthy who can buy the GOP.

"Republican Senators who voted to convict Trump face political peril at home" PBS NewsHour 2/22/2021

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It is a time of political peril for the seven Republican Senators who voted to convict the dominant figure of their party.  State and local Republican parties have censured -- or are thinking about censuring -- several of those Senators.  And Donald Trump himself is set to re-emerge for his first public appearance as former President this coming weekend.  Yamiche Alcindor reports.

QUESTION - Reverse Radicalization?

"Can we reverse radicalization with counseling?" PBS NewsHour 11/22/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Can aggressive counseling bring someone back from the brink of radicalization?  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien explores the psychological basis for why people are drawn to extremist groups and how a bold experiment in criminal justice and clinical psychology taking place in Minnesota may offer a solution.

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  In a federal courtroom in Minneapolis, they are facing the threat of homegrown terrorism in a manner that has never been tried before in this country.  It is a bold experiment in criminal justice and clinical psychology.  The question?  Can aggressive counseling bring someone back from the brink of radicalization?

MANNY ATWAL, Federal Defender:  What we have started here is revolutionary.  I think it's great.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Manny Atwal is a federal public defender representing 20-year-old Abdullahi Yusuf.  He (Yusuf) is one of eight first-generation Somali Americans, all in their teens or early 20s, convicted in May of plotting to go to Syria and fight for the Islamic State.

MANNY ATWAL:  I know we punish juveniles.  I get that, and I understand that.  And I know we punish young adults, and I get that and understand that.  But, at the same time, to say let's just lock them up for a lifetime is not the right solution.

MILES O'BRIEN:  While he was in jail awaiting sentencing, Abdullahi Yusuf became the nation's first convicted terrorist to undergo terrorism rehabilitation.  He has two mentors who counsel him regularly and a wide-ranging reading list.

MANNY ATWAL:  He will have like a week to read this, write up a book report and then discuss it with us.

MILES O'BRIEN:  So, it's a real assignment for him?

MANNY ATWAL:  Yes.  Yes.

Learning American civics, learning about American culture, learning about the East and West just — it just opened up his eyes.  And that, I think, is the disengagement that I speak of, to try and get these kids to disengage from some of their thinking that's been put in their heads, and to get them back to be good citizens that they were before this all happened.

MILES O'BRIEN:  It appears the effort might have held sway with the judge.  Yusuf, who also testified against his friends, was sentenced to time served.  Most of the others received long prison terms.  The case of these men is one chapter in a long, sad story.

CHIEF JUDGE JOHN TUNHEIM, District of Minnesota:  Minnesota has the greatest number of terrorism prosecutions of any of the federal districts in the United States.

MILES O'BRIEN:  John Tunheim is the chief federal judge for the District of Minnesota, home to the largest Somali American community in the U.S.

He watched from the bench as a tragic exodus began in 2007; 23 young Somali Americans from Minnesota joined the ranks of the al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabaab terror group as it tried to topple the government of Somalia.  More recently, the call to arms has come from the Islamic State.

For judges trying to mete out fair sentences, it is uncharted territory.  There are no guidelines.

CHIEF JUDGE JOHN TUNHEIM:  They're different from a bank robber or someone who sells drugs.  I mean, we understand those cases.  We have had many of those cases in our courts.  We haven't had many terrorism cases.  We need to understand them.  We need to make sure that we can keep them, to the best effort that we possibly can, from becoming terrorists again.

BOSNIA - The Sarajevo Mosque

"Is Saudi-funded mosque in Sarajevo threat to Bosnia's moderate Muslims?" PBS NewsHour 5/16/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  International officials are convinced that Bosnia's brand of Westernized, moderate Islam is the best possible bulwark against radicalization.  The nation's official Islamic Community is cracking down on rural mosques that it says are too in line with Islamists — but some say the true extremist threat lies in the heart of the capital itself.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  I'm in Central Bosnia, about 100 miles from the capital, Sarajevo.

I'm heading up to a remote mountain village called Osve, which is a place where, supposedly, there are some supporters of the so-called Islamic State.  There have been people who've gone from this village to fight in Syria.  Some have reportedly been killed.  And we're going to meet somebody who used to play rock ‘n' roll, but is now labeled by the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia as someone who is a terrorist.

Izet Hadzic used to be lead guitarist in a band called Black Lady.  After fighting in the Bosnian War, he abandoned what he thought was a decadent lifestyle and sought peace in religion.  He leads one of these so-called radical mosques.  While he's in dispute with the Islamic establishment, he insists he's no terrorist.

IZET HADZIC, Mosque Leader (through interpreter):  Where does it come from to call us terrorists?  It is because that people who look like us, have these beards, are doing such acts in the world, specifically ISIS and this cretin Baghdadi.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Two doors away from Hadzic's small holding is the father of a young man killed in Syria.  Next door is a family Hadzic regards as extreme.  Bosnian intelligence officers are frequent visitors.

Hadzic unequivocally condemns Islamic State.

IZET HADZIC (through interpreter):  You can't call this jihad.  To take a gun while someone is walking down the street with his family and begin to shoot?  Can you imagine soldier doing this?  These people are equal to cowards.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  We had a polite, but frosty reception in Bocinje, a nearby village that was a stronghold of foreign mujahideen during the Bosnian War.  We hoped to interview a man who returned from Syria in 2014, but he didn't want to be filmed because of an impending court case.  His name is Ibrahim Delic.

Dozens of other Bosnians now in Syria are said to want to return because they are horrified by ISIS atrocities.  Crippled and radicalized during the Bosnian War, Delic recently talked to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.  Significantly, he criticized the Free Syrian Army, who are enemies of ISIS.

PARIS RECKONING - Anti-Radicalization Conference

"Relatives of Western jihadist fighters go public, hoping to stop others" PBS NewsHour 5/3/2016

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Relatives of fighters who joined the Islamic State militants and other groups came together at an anti-radicalization conference in Paris with hopes of reaching a turning point in the fight against extremism.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  While we’re reporting on that war-torn country, for months, we have reported on Western-born young people who travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Parents and relatives of some of the young European men who’d joined ISIS and other extremist groups met late last week at a conference in Paris.  Among the group were also family members of victims of the terrorist attacks last fall in Paris.  They gathered to grieve, to condemn terrorism and the extremism that drives it, and look for ways to prevent other young people from following the fates of their loved ones.

From Paris, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  This is the Bataclan club, where Islamist gunmen slaughtered 89 concert-goers last November the 13th.

It was, briefly, a place of pilgrimage for a group of people inextricably linked to the massacre through the ideology embraced by their relatives, even though they didn’t participate in the attack.

Karolina Dam, mother of 18-year-old Lukas, a boy with learning difficulties, converted and radicalized in Denmark and believed killed in an airstrike on the Syrian Turkish border.  Janne Mortensen (ph), also from Denmark, whose convert foster son, Kenneth, was killed in Syria three years ago.

Briton Michael Evans, whose brother Thomas converted and joined Al-Shabaab in Africa.  This footage shows the jihadist with the nom de guerre Abdul Hakim just before he was killed in a battle with Kenyan troops.

MICHAEL EVANS, Brother of Killed Foreign Fighter:  It’s just such a tragic waste of life.  You know, people out just enjoying their night were cut down for nothing.  It’s so sad to be here.  I don’t understand how someone who is my own flesh and blood could be — could think like this.  I just don’t understand.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Canadian Christianne Boudreau wants deradicalization programs to make the most of the experiences of families like these, by using them as educators, helpers, and guides.

She’s campaigning in memory of her convert son Damian killed in fighting near Aleppo in Syria.
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BJORN IHLER, Utoya Survivor:  All forms of extremism are very similar in many ways.  Extremism thrives on the same kind of factors regardless of what ideology is titled.  And at the end of the day, their ideology very quickly becomes just an excuse, essentially, for being violent.

The issues we need to address are not necessarily the theological issues, but rather the ideological issue of violence and how violence is being used for political means.