Most citizens don’t like terrorists and think they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. I suppose there is something about terrorism – the targeting of innocent people, the levels of carnage, the boastful statements by groups and threats of future attacks – that really bothers people. It is hard to find […]
Category: Perspectives
Last Saturday’s arrest in Sydney, Australia of four men in an alleged terrorism plot was the latest in a series of interdictions by Australian authorities. In this supposed plot, four men are being held under special anti-terrorism powers for planning to place a bomb on an aircraft, hidden in a ‘meat mincer’. Other reports noted […]
One country that remains a mystery to many is Saudi Arabia. A relatively new state – it really only dates from 1930 – this desert land sprang from an odd mid 18th century agreement between a very conservative religious tradition, Wahhabism, and the rule of a single family, the Al Sauds. The Wahhabis care for […]
July 1 is of course an important day for Canadians. We may not wear our patriotism on our sleeve as often as out southern neighbours in the US, but July 1 – Canada Day – is an exception. Average Canadians drape themselves in the national red and white flag, paint maple leaves on their cheeks […]
Most people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the sanity behind terrorism. Surely those who knowingly and willingly kill themselves by detonating a bomb strapped to their waist or driving a booby-trapped car into a crowd of people cannot be psychologically normal, can they? It is probable that we also have a hard […]
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Suffer the children of IS
If there is one searing image of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe it is that of the orphanages of Romania. The regime of President Nicolae Ceausescu outlawed both contraception and abortion. As a consequence, thousands of women left babies that were either unwanted or for which they could not care at state institutions. […]
In the wake of the Omar Khadr $10.5 million payout furour another potential point of divisiveness among Canadians has hit the proverbial fan. There are reports coming out of Iraq, yet to be confirmed, that two Canadian women have been captured in the rubble that is now Mosul and that they had been part of […]
Ever since Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star broke the news of a $35 million lawsuit by 5 CSIS employees I have agonised over what to write and even whether to write about this issue. I turned down several requests for interviews from major Canadian TV networks and a few radio stations since I did […]
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A tale of two combatants
In November 2015 my eldest daughter and I were in northern France at a B&B near Beaumont-Hamel, the site of a day of infamy a century ago. On July 1, 1916 members of the Newfoundland Regiment went ‘over the top’ in the first action in what we know as the Battle of the Somme, a […]
Oh no, you are probably saying! Please, dear God, not another column on Omar Khadr! Make it stop! Sorry, dear readers, but I feel compelled to address an issue that seems to have been overlooked in the polarising saga of the son of one of Canada’s most infamous terrorists. That issue is not whether he […]