A lot of people have spent a lot of time and a lot of money especially in recent years trying to figure out how to ‘undo’ terrorism. By this I am referring to programs and efforts to ‘deradicalise’ or ‘disengage’ those who have embraced terrorism and joined terrorist groups, even if not all have participated […]
Author: Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. Phil is a 32-year veteran of CSE and CSIS and the author of six books on terrorism.
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Blasphemy gives Muslims a bad name
This post appeared in The Hill Times on May 27, 2019. As noted on many, many (too many?) occasions I am a very devoted Monty Python fan. Some of my readers may not share my taste in humour, but then again they do say that what makes you laugh is very personal. Of all the […]
We appear to be surrounded by ‘experts’ these days. And that is a good thing, right? After all, if there are all those amazingly bright, capable people out there we should benefit from their experience and smarts to solve all kinds of problems and make the world a better place. Who would be against such […]
If you have been following the news/analysis cycle over the past few years with respect to terrorism you will already know that there is a massive debate going, especially in the West, on which bunch of terrorists poses a greater public safety threat to our societies: Islamist extremists or far right ones. There are proponents […]
I suppose that for many people the right to travel is seen as a freedom that no one, including the state, can mess with. Humans have been on the move for hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years and the world would not be what it is if we had not had this population exchange. I […]
You catch a terrorist, you go to trial , you gain a conviction, you throw that person in jail. Game over, right? Not so fast!
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 20, 2019. When I was a kid one of my favourite movies was The Vikings with Kirk Douglas (father of the much more famous, at least today, Michael) and Tony Curtis. It follows the story of a bunch of, well Vikings, in which, and here I […]
Just what constitutes ‘terrorism’? Ah, that is a tricky question, the answer to which depends on the respondent. We have legal, common, informed (and uninformed) definitions galore, which makes this issue hard to nail down. And, if you add in the emotional context it gets even more complicated. We read reports all the time on […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 13, 2019. If there are any people at Public Safety Canada (PSC) who do not already dislike me, perhaps intensely, I am confident that this column will quickly lead them to the vast majority who have already PNGed me from the department (full disclosure: I worked […]
I have to confess to an embarrassing secret: I used to read the National Enquirer. Not today’s National Enquirer which seems to be all about Hillary Clinton and dying (or cheating) movie stars. No, I am referring to the older versions which had truly preposterous stories that no one could ever believe were true – […]