If there is one myth about terrorism and terrorists that is really hard to shake it has to be the belief among many that those who engage in political or ideological violence must be mentally ill. After all, who in their right mind would don a suicide vest or run with a knife towards police […]
Category: Perspectives
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 17, 2019. It might strike the reader as odd that someone with so much invested in counter terrorism is here making the suggestion that we need to worry less about terrorism. After all, if we stopped spending so much time talking about it, wouldn’t that put […]
How many of you remember when Canadian PM Justin Trudeau greeted Syrian refugees a few years back at Pearson Airport in Toronto with the phrase “You are home”? Some may have seen this as a cynical ploy and there were certainly those who criticised him for telling refugees that Canada would welcome them, especially as […]
In an era, the so-called post 9-11 age, where we are obsessed with terrorism we have a very awkward question to answer, if you happen to be a Canadian (or an American I think): where are all the terrorist attacks? If terrorism is all that prevalent, as we have been led to believe, and it […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 10, 2019. Boy am I ever going to get some flack from this post. I intend to take issue with some of the findings of the Canadian inquiry into the murder and disappearance of First Nations women, more specifically the use of the term ‘genocide’. For […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 3, 2019 Canada had nothing to do with the US decision to use the anachronistic Guantanamo Bay military camp in Cuba as a highly controversial – if not internationally illegal – detention centre for suspected terrorists. That people alleged to have been linked to terrorist groups […]
A lot of people have spent a lot of time and a lot of money especially in recent years trying to figure out how to ‘undo’ terrorism. By this I am referring to programs and efforts to ‘deradicalise’ or ‘disengage’ those who have embraced terrorism and joined terrorist groups, even if not all have participated […]
Categories
Blasphemy gives Muslims a bad name
This post appeared in The Hill Times on May 27, 2019. As noted on many, many (too many?) occasions I am a very devoted Monty Python fan. Some of my readers may not share my taste in humour, but then again they do say that what makes you laugh is very personal. Of all the […]
We appear to be surrounded by ‘experts’ these days. And that is a good thing, right? After all, if there are all those amazingly bright, capable people out there we should benefit from their experience and smarts to solve all kinds of problems and make the world a better place. Who would be against such […]
If you have been following the news/analysis cycle over the past few years with respect to terrorism you will already know that there is a massive debate going, especially in the West, on which bunch of terrorists poses a greater public safety threat to our societies: Islamist extremists or far right ones. There are proponents […]