When it comes to terrorism we have this odd obsession with groups. We study them, we dissect them, we map their internal organisations, we draw up ‘top-ten’ most wanted members, and in many instances countries have created ‘terrorist entity lists’ (here is a link to Canada’s for example). It is as if groups are what […]
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In many ways you have to feel for security intelligence agencies. I know full well that this is not an easy thing to ask as I cannot imagine most citizens want to cut these organisations any slack, or acknowledge that what they are called on to do – what WE demand they do, i.e. to […]
You gotta feel for Sri Lanka. The island nation went through a full quarter century of civil war as the government tried, and ultimately succeeded, in defeating a separatist movement led by an actual terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE for short. The war ended in 2009, allowing Sri Lanka to […]
No sooner had the smoke cleared from the multiple terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday than many immediately said, some with alarming certainty, that the acts were definitely carried out by Islamic State (IS). These claims were made despite the complete lack of evidence at the time and seemed to suggest that IS, […]
We Canadians are a deferential bunch. Our national phrase is ‘sorry’ (NB if you want to find a Canadian in a crowd quickly just step on everyone’s toes. The first person to say ‘sorry’ to you is the Canadian). We really try not to offend anyone. This deep-seated desire to be inoffensive even extends to […]
If you have never heard the comedy routine ‘The 2,000 year old man” by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, you are really missing something. The original dates back to 1961 but it is still very, very relevant and very, very funny. In one part, Mel Brooks, playing the 2,000 year-old man, says that WWII lasted […]
When did we become so reluctant to call a spade a spade? Or a terrorist a terrorist? Or a religious terrorist a religious terrorist? Are we so fearful of offending anyone for the slightest of reasons that we are incapable of labelling things what they are (NB I will not get into the inability of […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 22, 2019. Pop quiz! How can you tell an election is coming up in Canada? a) the government puts out a report that some identifiable part of our society takes offence to; b) that part happens to be concentrated in several ridings the ruling party currently […]
The news cycle is an unforgiving beast. Especially today when far flung events in hitherto remote corners of the world are made available to us in a flash thanks to the wonders of the Internet and social media (question: how many of us remember what it was like to keep up on such events before […]
There are few terms that rank up there with terrorism when it comes to emotional responses and controversy. The word is associated with one of the most serious crimes humans can commit: I think that ‘genocide’ is maybe the only worse act we are capable of. And while there are multiple legal definitions around the […]