People react in different ways to terrorism. Some panic. Some lash out at what they think are those responsible (Muslims, people with head coverings, places of worship). Some take it all in stride – Keep calm and carry on – aware of the fact that terrorism, irrespective of what media images tell us, remains a […]
The US has suffered through two scary incidents in the past 24 hours. Fortunately, as of the time of writing, no one has died in either event. A man dressed in a security uniform knifed 8 people at a mall in central Minnesota. There are reports he talked of Allah and asked at least one […]
If there is one cardinal rule about the study of terrorism that everyone should commit to memory it is this: do not extrapolate unnecessarily and unadvisedly from one region to the other. While there are certainly some fundamental commonalities to violent extremism and to particular groups or brands of terrorism, it is usually a bad […]
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Black and white and grey all over
Did you ever have one of those days where in a matter of minutes you were exposed to things that when you compared them turned out to be polar opposites? I had one of those days today. I had traveled from The Hague to Utrecht in the Netherlands to meet with a university professor. I […]
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Why I support CVE
For some it might seem a bit odd that a person who spent three decades in intelligence, and half of that in counter terrorism especially, might think that there is a solution other than investigation and incarceration for terrorists. After all, terrorism is a real threat and we cannot be naive about it. How can […]
If there is one thing I have noticed in my post-intelligence life it is the quality of reporting on terrorism and violent radicalisation. When I worked for CSIS I had access to far more information, not available to the public of course, on these two issues and was thus very well schooled in the who, […]
No, you are not watching the US Republican Party propose measures to stop terrorism that each time are more and more draconian and more and more dismissive of basic human rights. This is the Conservative Party of Canada talking, the holders – until recently – of government in this country. And yet if you didn’t […]
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Lies, damned lies and statistics
It is obvious that a lot of people are worried about terrorism. The news is full of stories of attacks, both successful and thwarted, and sometimes really alarming accounts like the news out of France that the government suspects that there are 15,000 French residents radicalising. More than 70% of Americans think more terrorist attacks […]
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National security and Joe Canadian
The new Trudeau government is clearly in a consulting mood. It seems that they want to get Canadians’ views on a whole bunch of things, ranging from climate change to pipelines to refugee policy. And now they are asking what Canadians think on national security. Last week Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale made […]
A very odd thing happened yesterday in Canada. A poll appeared to show that a majority of my fellow citizens support the screening of potential immigrants by giving them some sort of “values test“, in keeping with a suggestion by a wannabe Conservative leadership candidate, Kellie Leitch. Canada thus appears to be following in the […]