Quora Answer: How Should Western Countries Treat Citizens Who Have Left to Join ISIS & Want to Return?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How should Western countries treat citizens who have left, to join ISIS, and now want to come back?”

They should be treated with suspicion.  These are people who willingly betrayed the values of their society for another, and were willing to kill the people of their former community for their new one.  They have returned because ISIS lost territory, not because they had a change of heart.

We live in what we believe to be civilised times, which means that sometimes sentiment overrides logic.  It is sentiment that states we should give them a trial, or rehabilitate them, or even pardon them.  It is utter foolishness. It is logic that we should simply have the lot killed, and their bodies disposed of, lest they become martyrs and recruitment tools for the cause.  When there is a cancerous tumour, that tumour should be cut out and disposed of, lest it infect the rest of the body.