The level of idiocy required for Germany to have released Abdel Ballout, the 21-year-old man who drove a van through the immense crowds of parade-goers at the Berlin Pride parade, killing one elderly lady and injuring 29 others, is astonishing.
Ballout also rampaged through the crowd, brandishing a machete and striking several people. There were 2,200 police patrolling the venue, and it will be fascinating to hear how they all managed to ignore Ballout, even allowing him to escape.
The terrorist was shot and killed 24 hours later.
“How did he even get into the Tiergarten?” one attendee was quoted as asking. “There were anti-car and anti-truck barriers everywhere.”
The simple answer, according to Matt Taibbi, is that the police almost escorted him to the killing zone.
"In sum, a Berlin-born man of Lebanese descent left Germany last year to join the ISIS militia, failed to reach Mauritania, failed to reach Syria, got arrested and sentenced in his family’s home country of Lebanon for 'incitement to religious and sectarian conflict,' then successfully returned to Germany to be arrested again," Taibbi writes.
"He was convicted for planning a serious act of terrorist violence, but released despite a Prosecutor’s request for a 'longer, non-probationary sentence for the juvenile' — the 21-year-old juvenile — and put into 'deradicalization counseling,' which was about to report him for being 'inscrutable,' evasive, and a threat," Taibbi continued.
Ballout's family is from Lebanon, although he was born in Germany. In addition to classifying a 21-year-old man as a "juvenile," the German judicial system refused to put a man convicted of planning violence behind bars. Instead, he was trundled off to a "deradicalization" program.
Germany claims that its deradicalization program “builds on cutting-edge research and analysis” and “also provides ideas on how to account for gender-specific needs in prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration efforts.”
WTF? What does accounting for "gender-specific needs in prevention" have to do with "deradicalization"? I guess that's what makes it "cutting-edge."
Saudi Arabia, a country full of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, also has a "deradicalization" program. Over 130 Saudis captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere (some with ties to al-Qaeda or the 9/11 plot, such as high-value detainees repatriated for medical/psychiatric care) were sent through the Saudi program upon return. Thousands of young Saudis arrested for extremist recruitment, online propaganda, or local militant activities also went through the program.
The program was "religious-based," with the re-education goal of deconstructing extremist interpretations of jihad, takfirism (declaring other Muslims infidels), and allegiance to extremist networks like al-Qaeda or ISIS.
A significant minority of graduates — including several prominent former Guantanamo detainees — rejoined terrorist groups (such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) shortly after release. Security analysts and human rights groups have noted that compliance during the program is often performed to gain release, leading some deradicalization centers to note cases of "fake cooperation" among hardened militants.
In short, it didn't take. And this is what Germany was depending on to "deradicalize" terrorists?
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"Instead of examining border control policies that welcome back terrorist offenders so they can immediately be put into a criminal justice system that bars long sentences for 21-year-old 'juveniles,' or a probation policy that thinks it can counsel people out of religious fanaticism, the [New York] Times points the finger at a chancellor who refused to fly a Pride flag over parliament," writes Taibbi.
Incredibly, the Times tried to blame the right-wing German political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), for the attack.
Some people at the memorial on Sunday said German leaders had contributed to a sense of insecurity. They singled out the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has climbed in national polls with a platform that defines a family as a man and a woman with children. Others criticized Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, who defended a decision not to fly a Pride flag over the federal parliament building last year by saying Parliament was “not a circus tent.”
"Now we have to wait for the West to wake from a different psychosis, one that feels so phobic about protecting itself that it will bring a wannabe ISIS warrior back from the Middle East and deposit him on the doorstep of a Pride parade before sending him to paradise in a shootout," writes Taibbi.
Ballout didn't kill that woman or injure those parade goers. The German government did by adopting insane, guilt-ridden policies that made some Germans feel better about themselves but led to the attack.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law-and-order agenda.
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