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We can’t fight what we fail to label correctly

If you have never heard the comedy routine ‘The 2,000 year old man” by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, you are really missing something. The original dates back to 1961 but it is still very, very relevant and very, very funny. In one part, Mel Brooks, playing the 2,000 year-old man, says that WWII lasted […]

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We must call the Poway synagogue attack what it was – Christian extremism

When did we become so reluctant to call a spade a spade? Or a terrorist a terrorist? Or a religious terrorist a religious terrorist? Are we so fearful of offending anyone for the slightest of reasons that we are incapable of labelling things what they are (NB I will not get into the inability of […]

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Are anti-vaxxers the new terrorists?

How many of you remember the mumps? The mumps is a viral infection that affects the salivary glands and is often associated with trouble swallowing or earaches. I think I had them as a kid – then again I don’t have a really good memory of my early childhood. I just read that the mumps […]

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The return of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and the danger of over-analysis

He’s back!!!! Just when you thought – or at least when the US President thought (hey, at least he didn’t say, er I mean tweet, ‘Mission Accomplished!!’) – that Islamic State (IS) was yesterday’ problem, lo and behold a video appears in which the leader of the terrorist group and ex-‘Caliph’ (of a pretend ‘Caliphate’) […]

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When politics dictates who is a terrorist – and who is not (part two)

Has something happened to Rudy Giuliani? The iconic former mayor of New York – remember the important role he played in the aftermath of 9/11, rallying Americans? – seems, to me at least, to have ‘lost it’. And I am not referring to his obsequious ass-kissing of boy President Trump, for whom he acts as […]

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When politics dictate who is a terrorist – and who is not (part 1)

The Muslim Brotherhood (or MB as it is often abbreviated to, not to be confused with MBS, which is Muhammad bin Salman, or ‘Mister Bone Saw’, Saudi Arabia’s powerful king-in-waiting) has been around for a long time – since the 1920s. It is a political party infused with Islamic principles that seeks to govern by […]

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Call religious extremism what it is – terrorism

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 22, 2019. Pop quiz! How can you tell an election is coming up in Canada? a) the government puts out a report that some identifiable part of our society takes offence to; b) that part happens to be concentrated in several ridings the ruling party currently […]

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Another vehicle ramming that was not a terrorist attack – or was – or ??

The news cycle is an unforgiving beast. Especially today when far flung events in hitherto remote corners of the world are made available to us in a flash thanks to the wonders of the Internet and social media (question: how many of us remember what it was like to keep up on such events before […]

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What do you do if you are the parent of a terrorist?

Parenting is hard. I have first-hand experience as I am the father of three children – all wonderful of course;) But they were not always wonderful. Or rather there were challenges along the way, from fussy infants to sullen teens. Every parent goes through these phases and – one hopes – comes out still sane […]

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One person’s terrorist is another person’s son?

There are few terms that rank up there with terrorism when it comes to emotional responses and controversy. The word is associated with one of the most serious crimes humans can commit: I think that ‘genocide’ is maybe the only worse act we are capable of. And while there are multiple legal definitions around the […]