Muslims in the West have a legitimate beef when it comes to how their societies see terrorism. Whenever a violent attack takes place and the perpetrator is, or merely appears, Muslim everyone yells “terrorism!” whereas if the attacker is not Muslim everyone yells “mentally ill” or “lone wolf nutjob!” Consistency this is not. Combined with that […]
A lot of people in Canada, particularly Muslims and even more narrowly Muslims in Quebec, are frightened today. The massacre at the Islamic Cultural Centre in the provincial capital of la belle province has many worried about their safety and mosques across the country are upping security and receiving special attention from local law enforcement. […]
Here we go again. The fact that Alexandre Bissonnette was able to get a gun, walk into a mosque, slaughter innocent people and not be detected is a failure. On whom? On everyone – CSIS, the RCMP, la police de la ville de Quebec, the Surete, the government of Canada, average Canadians for not standing […]
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Just what is terrorism anyway?
I feel for politicians and public leaders – sometimes. True, they do come out with some stupid things on occasion, but I want to give them credit for assuming the role they do. It cannot be an easy job. When it comes to terrorism, and more specifically talking about a specific act as terrorist or […]
Look, I get it. When something along the lines of the shooting in Quebec City on Sunday evening occurs, people want to know what is happening. And they want to know NOW. So, the army of experts – a few actual and most fake – rise up and fill the airwaves with “analysis”. The fact […]
In the wake of the tragic events in Quebec City Sunday evening there is much more that we don’t know than what we do know. We now know the identity of the one suspect as well as those who lost their lives. We have some idea of what transpired and when. But we have nothing […]
Phil Gurski, former CSIS analyst, discusses with Ben Mulroney about what is known of the suspect so far, and why this hasn’t been called an act of terrorism yet.
Well, if there was any doubt about what a Trump presidency means for the US, and by extension for all of us, over the next four years there is little doubt now. In the first week alone a flurry of executive orders have been signed on a whole bunch of issues that Mr. Trump promised […]
There has been an interesting development in a terrorist court case in Ottawa. The lawyers for Awso Peshdary, accused of being a terrorism financier and recruiter, have argued that in order to defend their client properly they need all the information that the national spy service, CSIS, has collected on him. Complicating matters somewhat (but […]
Last week news came out that two grassroots organisations in Minneapolis had received between them over $600,000 to do CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) work in the state of Minnesota, as part of a $10 million disbursement by the US Department of Homeland Security in what has been called an ongoing, but controversial, programme. Minneapolis is […]