We all know that terrorism is an act of violence. While countries may not agree 100% on definitions – some note that terrorism has to be carried out for political and/or ideological and/or religious reasons (i.e. Canada) – they all agree that it is an act of serious violence or a plan to execute such […]
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A ruling on CSIS that is not helpful
If you were to ask most Canadians about our intelligence services the first response would very likely be “Wait! We have intelligence services??” I am being only slightly facetious. I imagine everyone knows about CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (where I worked for 15 years) – and maybe a few recognise CSE – […]
One thing that is confounding police and intelligence agencies the world over is what to do about car rammings/vehicular terrorist attacks. We read of them often – last week’s incident in London near the Parliament buildings in just the latest. Over the past five years or so there have been at least 20 such events, […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on August 20, 2018 I may not be a military expert and I am certainly not as knowledgeable as Scott Taylor, whose column often appears right above mine in The Hill Times, but I am pretty sure that whenever an army deploys abroad it relies a lot on […]
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Insecurity and security clearances
I was very privileged to work in the Canadian intelligence community for more than 3 decades. My career spanned 17 years with CSE – Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency – and 15 with CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. There was not a day when I could not wait to get to […]
Quick! What is your favourite oxymoron? Awfully good? Peacekeeping missile? Tight slacks? Jumbo fried shrimp? Military intelligence? How about ‘violent vegans’? I suppose there is a wide variety of opinion on veganism in many societies ranging from admiration for their campaign to get us to eat less meat in order to save the planet to […]
Well, you have to give terrorists some credit. They certainly have settled on a winning approach to carrying out acts of violence and causing mayhem. And that approach is remarkably simple and easily accessed. I am talking of course of vehicle attacks. We have seen a lot of these lately, in Barcelona, in Stockholm, in […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on August 6, 2018 Well, it has been a week since the mass shooting in Toronto’s Greektown and we have been subject to countless voices in the media as to what happened, what could have been done (if anything) to prevent it, and what it all means to […]
Charitable institutions are usually seen as good things in society. Ones we normally think of – the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Canadian Cancer Society, etc. – play a very important role in raising money and spending it on the most needy: people suffering in war zones, prisoners of conscience, those suffering from serious disease. […]
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Is Alex Jones a terrorist?
Alex Jones is many things. A social media star. A conspiracy theorist. An inspiration to many. A passionate defender of free speech. A king-size jerk. A very dangerous man. I suppose which one of these descriptions of him appeal to you will depend on whether you support what he does. Put simply, what he does […]