SINGAPORE — It has been more than a decade since the Sept 11 attacks catapulted counterterrorism to the top of many government agendas.

But despite the obvious benefits of rehabilitation programmes as a response to terrorism, many countries have yet to embrace the approach, partly because of anger and resentment, and also due to politicians’ fear that they could be deemed as singling out the Muslim community, said Dr Douglas Stone, who was formerly Commander of the United States detainee operations in Iraq.

Dr Stone, a retired Major-General from the US Marine Corps, is in town for a two-day International Conference on Terrorist Rehabilitation and Community Resilience, which starts today. As one of the speakers at the conference, he is slated to talk about the current rehabilitation initiatives around the world and discuss future trends.

Speaking to TODAY in an interview, Dr Stone — who has been a strong advocate of rehabilitation programmes — also urged Singapore to “get out and talk to every nation on the globe” and share its success in rehabilitation efforts.

Calling for a “global initiative” to sponsor rehabilitation programmes around the world, Dr Stone said the United Nations should, in fact, give the Singapore Government the opportunity to present its work in this area to the General Assembly.

More than 25 countries have signed the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s Rome Memorandum on Good Practices for Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders, Dr Stone said. “Yet, only 10 or so nations, globally, really have programmes, some of which have actually died off — the programme in Egypt is now gone, I think the programme in Yemen is now gone,” he said.

“Even my own nation, the United States, does not have a formal rehabilitation programme for any of its federal or state prisons. And it certainly does not have any programme in Guantanamo Bay, even now, 13 years or so after we’ve started to take prisoners.”

Dr Stone felt that the focus on the use of force to counter the terrorist threat was in part due to “anger and resentment” caused by the Sept 11 attacks. There is also the fear of being perceived to be anti-Muslim which holds politicians back from implementing rehabilitation programmes in some countries, he added.

“Anger and resentment to what happened (on Sept 11, 2001) caused a very direct military and kinetic response ... it’s quite clear that the United States, in particular, had been hit and they intended to hit somebody back,” he said.

Dr Stone added: “Probably a natural kind of response but obviously, as one of the leaders in that war in Iraq and also ... having served in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it’s not clear that that kind of response alone when you’re angry is going to necessarily get the desired outcome.

“You can be angry and be thoughtful at the same time ... sometimes, with the political agendas that we have, there’s a response which is maybe not as thoughtful as it could have been.”

While rehabilitation was a “more thoughtful and more appropriate response” to countering religious extremism, Dr Stone acknowledged that it is more difficult to implement because “it requires you to be very sensitive to what is in the mind of your perceived enemy”, alongside engagement with religious leaders and the community.

On Singapore’s rehabilitation programme, which he studied prior to taking up his appointment in Iraq, Dr Stone lauded it for being implemented in “an academic environment that is willing to study and constantly change”.

“I would certainly like to see the rest of the globe … to initiate what it is Singapore is doing,” he said, noting how the Singapore authorities pool together experts to study the concept of rehabilitation and “commit to a programme that is complementary with the use of force”.

Earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is also the Home Affairs Minister, said in Parliament that Singapore is concerned by terrorist elements’ growing use of social media to spread propaganda and recruit new radicals.

Mr Teo had added that it is not easy to de-radicalise someone who has imbibed terrorist ideology and former lawyer and polytechnic law lecturer Abdul Basheer Abdul Kader — who was re-detained after he was thought to have been successfully rehabilitated — is a “timely reminder that Singapore must continue to invest efforts in the rehabilitation of our terrorist detainees”.

On self-radicalisation, Dr Stone noted that “if you believe in the rule of law and if you believe in democracy, then you must also believe that the individual citizen has a right to a pretty broad range of beliefs”. The tipping point, he said, is when “they’re really going to do something to harm innocents or other civilians”.

He reiterated that governments have to “be as aggressive in communicating to the community and the population-at-risk” as extremists do.

“(Governments should) aggressively go and try to change the narrative and push back with a different narrative,” said Dr Stone, noting that the Internet can be a double-edged sword which authorities should harness to counter extremist ideologies.