Another attack has hit France – this one is particularly heinous, the murder of an 85-year old priest – and the critics are out in full force, all of whom know what is wrong with France and what the French should do about it. I certainly would not want to be French President Hollande or […]
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Terrorism and the fear factor
It has been an awful few weeks. Terrorist attacks in Munich, Ansbach, Nice, Kabul, Baghdad…and those are just the major ones. Thousands killed and wounded. In what is more frightening to many, the tools of the terrorist have evolved from guns and bombs to knives, axes and even a truck. The banal has become […]
In 1996 then First Lady Hillary Clinton published a book It Takes a Village which was essentially a tome on how to raise children. The main argument centred on the responsibilities that everyone has to contribute to the shaping of productive, well-adjusted citizens and was a bit of a call to an earlier age where this […]
Although most countries cannot agree on what constitutes terrorism, if we judge by the number of definitions that are out there, they do seem to do a better job at determining what a terrorist group is. There are so-called terrorist listings in the US, the UN, the EU, and the UK among other jurisdictions. We […]
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The perils of “instant analysis”
Today (July 22) marks the fifth anniversary of one of the darkest days in Norway’s history. Anders Behring Breivik set off bombs outside a government complex in Oslo, killing 8, then traveled to an island called Utoya where a young person’s political function was occurring and massacred 69 people. Today also marks the fifth anniversary […]
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No terrorist is an island
Another terrorist attack another claim that a – pick one – mentally ill/alienated/uneducated/inherently violent/disenfranchised young man “self-radicalised” and went on to commit a terrorist act. The case this time is the axe attack on a train in Germany by an Afghan (or Pakistani – the information on this is not yet clear) immigrant. German officials […]
The general public has little insight into how intelligence agencies operate. That is good on one level since these organisations’ success depends in large part on their ability to work in the shadows. On another level, however, the information vacuum invariably opens the door wide open for anyone – and I do mean anyone, qualified […]
Like a lot of people I enjoy traveling. I had some amazing opportunities to see the world while I worked in intelligence and I have continued to voyage abroad in retirement. There is so much that our planet has to offer and it is indeed a privilege to see it close up. When I […]
If there is one thing that is true about all Islamist extremist groups is that they are full of hate. They hate other Muslims. They hate the Shia. They hate the Sufis. They hate non-Muslims. They hate LGBT. They hate choice. They hate everything in their warped world view. Hate. Hate. Hate. One other thing […]
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Why France – again?
The horror of what happened in Nice compounds the horror of what happened in Paris in January and November of last year. These large-scale attacks got a lot of attention, but there were also some smaller ones like the killing of a police officer and his wife and an attempt to blow up a gas […]