Episode 282 – How a cipher clerk opened the door on Soviet spying in the West Ah the Cold War! Those were the good old days when we knew the enemy and he knew us. Few know that the decades-long slowly simmering conflict began in Ottawa when Igor Gouzenko defected from the Soviet Embassy with […]
Category: Podcast
Episode 281 – The Horn of Africa is beset by a new, albeit odd, alliance To say that the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia) is unstable is an understatement. Whether we are talking about war, famine or terrorism, the region has had its challenges for decades. Now a working relationship between Al Qaeda-affiliated Al […]
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Did Canada just dodge a RW bullet?
Episode 268 – How serious is the RW threat to Canada? If you listen to many ‘experts’ the biggest threat to world safety emanates from the far right (what normal people call right-wing terrorism (RW) but the Canadian government calls IMVE – ideologically-motivated violent extremism). Recent RCMP arrests in Quebec hit the news yesterday and […]
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Was 7/7 a UK intelligence failure?
Episode 267 – A look back at the 7/7 London (UK) bombings twenty years later. When it comes to major terrorist attacks that grab the world’s attention a few rise to the top. 9/11 (of course!), the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the Bataclan/Stade de France massacre and the Madrid metro attack in 2004 […]
Episode 280 – A deep look at how drug gangs are abusing the homeless in Canada When we talk about national security and public safety most people would likely go immediately to issues such as terrorism and espionage. And yet, there are many other things that pose a more immediate threat in most societies. Drug […]
Season 2 Episode 39 What do you get when you let three former spies loose on questions from their ‘fans’? The regular ‘ask us’ episode! We bet you have never had to think about the importance of a Farsi (Persian)-speaking parrot. Only here… Substack link Spotify link Spies Like Us With a combined 90+ years […]
Episode 279 – What, another ISIS affiliate in Africa? Mozambique achieved independence in 1974 after a long civil war with its former Portuguese colonial power. Like most African nations, however, peace and stability are not that common in the post European power era. The southeastern country has been facing down a jihadi movement affiliated with […]
Episode 266 – Why did Canada’s protectors not prevent a terrorist attack by Sikh extremists in June 1985? For those of us who work(ed) in national security the job boils down to one thing and one thing only: stop bad things from happening. So what gives if we screw up and a bomb on an […]
Episode 278 – The spate of attacks on Jewish targets in the West is most definitely on the rise with no end in sight You would have to be asleep over the past year and a half to not notice a precipitous rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the West. Some of this is tied to […]
Episode 277 – Forty years after the Air India attack and a few years after an Indian killing of a Sikh extremist on Canadian soil Everyone remembers 9/11. That single event has become a ‘where were you when’ moment in human history. Few know, however, that prior to that cataclysmic attack, a bomb on an […]