For those who do not know this I am a hockey goaltender. I am not a very good one, mind you, but I love playing ‘net’. This is of course an absurd attitude as a goalie in hockey has to do everything in his or her power to get the body between a hard, vulcanised […]
If you live in the National Capital Region of Canada and have never been to one of the public talks organised by The Panel or – horror of horrors! – never heard of The Panel you really need to do your homework. The Panel is an Ottawa-based organisation that hosts two live events each year […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on November 12, 2018. Australia and Canada are very similar countries in many ways. Both former British colonies, both (relatively) open to immigration, both members of the 5 eyes intelligence community. I have visited Australia on many occasions and I must admit that I always feel at home […]
This piece appeared in The Ottawa Citizen (online) on November 12, 2018. I never knew my maternal grandfather. He emigrated to Canada in the early part of the 20th century from western Ukraine (or eastern Poland, the details on that are fuzzy) and settled in Montreal where he worked at the CPR’s Angus workshops, along […]
Have you been following the tortuous twists and turns surrounding the brutal torture, killing and apparent dismemberment of Saudi journalist and critic Jamal Kashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2? Can you make sense of all the claims and counterclaims? Do you know who ‘did’ the deed? If you answer yes to […]
Here we go again. Another terrorist attack, this time in Melbourne, Australia, another chorus of ‘he was mentally ill’ and, I guess, not responsible. Last Friday (November 9) an ethnic Somali man drove to that city’s central business district with a bunch of gas cylinders turned to the open position (seeking one surmises to cause […]
I suppose that the literal definition of a ‘moonshot’ is the act of sending a rocket to the moon. Interestingly, there is another set of metaphorical definitions I found online which include: an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of […]
In the US there is a big debate going on, at least among some in Democratic Party circles, to do away with ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In truth, parts of ICE have been involved in activities that some seen as inhuman such as the location, detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have […]
On at least a weekly basis I get an email or a LinkedIn message from someone, usually in Canada, who has an interest in terrorism. Wait, let me clarify that – an interest in either studying terrorism or working in counter terrorism. Phew! If it were another interest I’d have to tell my friends at […]
OK, it is probably best to get this out right at the start. When it comes to ‘terrorism experts’ I have a HUGE bias. As a former practitioner, someone who spent decades in counter terrorism as an analyst for a security intelligence service, I lean heavily in favour of listening to those who work in […]