[LINK] "Mother of dead Canadian jihadi launches de-radicalization effort"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's Adrienne Arsenault reports on the efforts of a mother of a Canadian who died fighting with the Islamic State to set up a deradicalization effort for returnees. Christianne Boudreau, mother of Damian Clairmont who I noted this January was one of several Canadians killed waging Islamist terrorist campaigns at that time.

I might understand where she's coming from in wishing CSIS told her about her son, but the police and security agencies had no way of knowing what her sympathies were.

Also: Is it wrong for me to think, still, that the world is best rid of her son if he wanted to travel around the world to murder?

The mother of Damian Clairmont, a Calgary man who in January died fighting with ISIS in Syria, says she's tired of waiting for Canada to take action on de-radicalization. She is starting her own program for families of Canadian jihadis so other mothers don't lose their sons to the clutches of extremism.

"It's a lot to take on, but I don't know what else to do," Christianne Boudreau said.

"I have no choice at this point, because I can't just let Damian die in vain and that's the end of it, and just walk away from it and let it happen to another family ... I can't."

In her Calgary basement office, Boudreau's computer fights for space on her small desk with copies of letters that were sent over the past year and rarely answered; to the Prime Minister, to the chief of the Calgary police, to the head of CSIS.

Her questions were broad and pained; How is it that even though CSIS was apparently watching and worrying about her son’s growing extremism, no one informed her until it was too late and he was already in Syria?

In one letter she asks, “If my son was under surveillance for two years in respect to the suspicion of his participation in a potential terrorist organization, how was he able to obtain a passport two months prior to his leaving Canada?”

She has also been desperate for emotional support for both herself and her other children, who are still trying to fathom how their big brother Damian could transform so profoundly and become a fighter with ISIS.</blockquote?