Search: “Terrorists”

A little less than a month ago we marked (‘celebrated’ is definitely the wrong word) the centenary of the end of the First World War.  This was a solemn occasion on which we recalled the deaths, injuries and destruction in not only the ‘Great War’ but also in WWII, the Korean War and others.  It […]

If there is one story that has grabbed worldwide attention lately it has to be the American Christian missionary who died trying to bring the Gospel to a people off the coast of India who have made it quite clear that they want nothing to do with the outside world, let alone be converted to […]

For those who do not know this I am a hockey goaltender.  I am not a very good one, mind you, but I love playing ‘net’.  This is of course an absurd attitude as a goalie in hockey has to do everything in his or her power to get the body between a hard, vulcanised […]

This piece appeared  in The Ottawa Citizen (online) on November 12, 2018. I never knew my maternal grandfather.  He emigrated to Canada in the early part of the 20th century from western Ukraine (or eastern Poland, the details on that are fuzzy) and settled in Montreal where he worked at the CPR’s Angus workshops, along […]

Here we go again.  Another terrorist attack, this time in Melbourne, Australia, another chorus of ‘he was mentally ill’ and, I guess, not responsible.  Last Friday (November 9) an ethnic Somali man drove to that city’s central business district with a bunch of gas cylinders turned to the open position (seeking one surmises to cause […]

In the US there is a big debate going on, at least among some in Democratic Party circles, to do away with ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  In truth, parts of ICE have been involved in activities that some seen as inhuman such as the location, detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have […]

OK, it is probably best to get this out right at the start.  When it comes to ‘terrorism experts’ I have a HUGE bias.  As a former practitioner, someone who spent decades in counter terrorism as an analyst for a security intelligence service, I lean heavily in favour of listening to those who work in […]

There is so much to write about when it comes to pointing out the lies, exaggerations and outright whoppers spewed by US President Trump that it is almost not worth doing anymore.  There is no challenge to it: it is like shooting fish in a barrel.  I am not suggesting that no one monitor the […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on November 5, 2018. For a country that is thankfully rarely touched by terrorism we in Canada sure seem to talk about it a lot.  I suppose I am partly responsible for this as I tend to write about violent extremism ad nauseum, but given my career in […]

Sophie’s Choice is a 1982 film (starring Meryl Streep in the title role) of a woman sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz who is forced by a sadistic doctor to make a terrible choice: she can save only one of her two children and must choose.  One will live and the other will die, […]