Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingIf there is one myth in the ever increasing world of ‘alternative facts’ (i.e. lies) that has otherworldly strength and perseverance it is the whopper that some of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. This inaccurate account of recent history has been repeated by people who should have known better – e.g. former Democratic presidential […]
There have been many times in history where statements made publicly have turned out to be somewhat less than true. Remember the famous “Dewey defeats Truman” headline in the 1948 US Presidential election? What about then CIA Director George Tenet’s claim that intelligence pointing to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a “slam […]
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice through the looking glass Humpty-Dumpty delivers this famous line: “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Alice replied: “he question is whether you can make words mean so many different things.” I think this notion that anyone can say anything they like […]
I think we can all agree – well except maybe some in the new Trump administration – that the US decision to use the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba to hold terrorist suspects extra-judicially was a particularly bad idea. Not only did the practice sully the US image as the protector of democratic values, it […]
Canada has been in the news a lot lately for things it is not normally associated with. Things like mass shootings, online hate and an overall atmosphere of intolerance. We here used to pride ourselves on openness, the embrace of difference and acceptance and like to highlight how we have built a social model that […]
After Lord knows how many attempts to come up with what causes terrorism, and just as many inadequate theories, models, paradigms, and frameworks, you would think that serious scholars would realise that this quest is a fool’s errand. The simple – and correct as far as I am concerned – answer to the question ‘why?’ […]
CVE – short for Countering Violent Extremism – gets a bad rap sometimes, and the criticism is not always unwarranted. The term has come to mean whatever people want it to mean as its remit expands into all kinds of areas of social engineering and capacity building. Many movements have received funding from governments by […]
It has now been a few weeks since Alexandre Bissonnette walked into the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City armed to the teeth and carried out his cowardly slaughter of six Muslims at isha prayers (yes, this attack, unlike a suicide one, was cowardly since Mr. Bissonnette’s victims had no way to defend themselves AND […]
It is natural for like to gravitate to like. We tend to associate with people that look like us, think like us, have the same fundamental beliefs as us. We also tend to read news items with which we agree, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. There is probably something to do with evolution behind […]
In all the articles, radio show talks, television coverage and social media posts about the massacre of innocent Muslims at prayer in Quebec City on a Sunday evening in late January the issue of whether or not this heinous crime qualifies as an act of terrorism is predominant. I have certainly devoted enough blog posts […]