Search: “RWE”

In all the articles, radio show talks, television coverage and social media posts about the massacre of innocent Muslims at prayer in Quebec City on a Sunday evening in late January the issue of whether or not this heinous crime qualifies as an act of terrorism is predominant.  I have certainly devoted enough blog posts […]

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. […]

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 […]

The debate over what to do with terrorists is neverending.  Positions range from one extreme to another, from “kill them all”  to “maybe it’s our fault they are they way they are”.  I would hope that by now we have learned beyond any doubt that there is no one cause, one driver, one explanation for […]

Years ago when I first joined CSIS there was a veteran CT (counter terrorism) guy whom I’ll call Mike.  He had been around a fair bit and I had a great deal of respect both for his experience and his insight into Islamist extremism.  In all his time in the trenches he had seen a […]

If there is one cardinal rule about the study of terrorism that everyone should commit to memory it is this: do not extrapolate unnecessarily and unadvisedly from one region to the other.  While there are certainly some fundamental commonalities to violent extremism and to particular groups or brands of terrorism, it is usually a bad […]

It is pretty obvious that for some people immigration is an issue.  There are those who think countries like Canada are taking in too many new immigrants (i.e. Syrians) and we have even seen a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party put out a letter calling for prospective immigrants to be vetted for […]

Governments around the world have adopted a number of strategies to deal with their citizens who want to engage in terrorism.  At the far end of the scale investigations are carried out, arrests are made, trials are held and guilty parties are put in prison.  On the other end of the scale early intervention and […]

We learned today (April 25) that a Canadian citizen, John Ridsdel, was killed by a terrorist group that had been holding him and three others, including another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filippino, hostage since last September.  The extremist organisation, Abu Sayyaf, had made several demands for ransom and appears to have beheaded Mr.Ridsdel when […]

The famous French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has penned an op-ed piece in which he asks whether there is a fight within Islam for the soul of the faith.  He makes the familiar argument that there are elements within the global Muslim polity that are at a minimum grossly fundamentalist and intolerant and at a maximum […]