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Are Christians targeted more by terrorists than others? No

They often say that truth is the first casualty of war. States and militaries have all kinds of reasons to hide facts if for no other one than to cover up their ‘mistakes’ (except that military ‘mistakes’ usually imply lots of meaningless deaths). A good example is the US insistence that few if any civilians […]

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Perspectives

Podcast #8 of An Intelligent Look at Terrorism: What happened in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday?

Episode #8 of the podcast series An Intelligent Look at Terrorism is now available on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Podbean! My take on the Sri Lankan attacks  Youtube https://youtu.be/ckw6haPYDLI LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6527265196837343232 Facebook https://twitter.com/ResiliencePost/status/1121498494924140546 Twitter https://twitter.com/ResiliencePost/status/1121498494924140546 Podbean https://anintelligentlookatterrorism.podbean.com/e/on-the-terrorist-attacks-in-sri-lanka/

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Sri Lanka’s terrorist attacks and intelligence failure? What intelligence failure??

Imagine the following scenario. The weather outside is awful. It has been snowing for three days now and a lot of the white stuff has accumulated on the ground. In addition, the temperatures have hovered around zero (Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit) so there is a real risk of ice on the roads. Every TV station, […]

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Is tit for tat terrorism now inevitable?

When you are a child your first instinct is to hit back at others who have hit you or with whom you are frustrated (I see this a bit with my 19-month old grandson). We have to be taught not to lash out at others – in other words to resist our natural reactions. This […]

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Maybe Alek Minassian wasn’t an ‘incel’ terrorist after all

I am not a “I told you so” kinda guy. I have been wrong enough times in my life, even as an intelligence analyst, to know that thinking I am always right is not a good strategy. Not too mention annoyingly arrogant. Still, I want to return to the attack on Yonge Street in Toronto […]

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Something about the Sri Lankan terrorist attacks does not add up

As I continue to read and hear more about yesterday’s horrific terrorist attacks across Sri Lanka I find I am left with more questions than answers. I am supposed to be a terrorism ‘expert’ – how I dislike that term since it appears that just about everyone (and everything, including my dead cat) seems to […]

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Afghanistan, terrorism and Canada: the nexus that never goes away

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 15, 2019 As all Canadians know, our country has a longstanding relationship with Afghanistan. In the aftermath of 9/11 the government decided to send our military, first special forces, then regular troops, to engage in what began as counter terrorism (CT) and ended as a combination […]

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Sri Lanka has seen its share of terrorism. Today is no exception alas

If there is one nation that for many of us evoked the spectre of terrorism at one time in recent history it could be Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist organisation that fought what it saw as egregious Sinhalese domination in the country (most Sri Lankans – 67% – are […]

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The terrorist who took his time

If you are really seized with an issue – and I mean really, really burning with zeal and a desire to right a perceived wrong – would you not want to put your commitment to the test as soon as you could? Would you not want to show the world that what you fervently believe […]

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Perspectives

When headlines on terrorism may lead us astray

For this blog I had to consult my eldest daughter, who is a Carleton University journalism grad. I wanted to confirm, as I had suspected, that those who write articles are not necessarily the same ones who write headlines. She also added that when it came to online news stories headlines are constructed to garner […]