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Perspectives

Should Canada compensate citizens in ‘terrorism cases’? No

Well, the inevitable has happened.  We all knew it was coming.  Canada’s most famous ‘child soldier’, Omar Khadr , is about to receive an apology and a compensation package from the Canadian government – i.e. the Canadian tax payer – ” for abuses he suffered while detained in the U.S. military prison for captured and suspected […]

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An interim report card on the Trump administration’s approach to terrorism – in danger of failing the year

Well, we are coming up to the six-month mark of the Donald Trump era and it is time for a reckoning.  So much print and coverage has been devoted to the Donald that I hesitate to add to this amount.  And yet there is quite a bit that bears on counter terrorism policy and strategy […]

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Perspectives

What to do about Afghanistan?

I have come to know the journalist Michael Petrou over the past few years.  He would sometimes call me to seek my views on terrorism when he was with Macleans magazine and I relied heavily on his book ‘Renegades’ – the story of Canadians in the Spanish Civil War – for a section of my […]

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When terrorists become statesmen

I see that Martin McGuinness died the other day. Mr. McGuinness was an Irish republican, a member of the Sinn Fein political party and, until he left politics in part because he was stricken with cancer, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to early 2017. He was also, according to some, a […]

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The end of terrorism?

It should come as a surprise to no one that in a world apparently awash in terrorist groups and terrorist attacks that any glimpse of success is paraded loudly and widely.  We are desperate for a victory in this ill-named ‘war on terror’ and so we celebrate every drone strike that takes out a leader […]

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Who are the real victims of terrorism?

It is natural for like to gravitate to like.  We tend to associate with people that look like us, think like us, have the same fundamental beliefs as us.  We also tend to read news items with which we agree, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.  There is probably something to do with evolution behind […]

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What to do with IS defectors?

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 […]

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What Lord Voldemort and terrorism have in common

In the Harry Potter novels the villain is known as Lord Voldemort.  He is in many ways a terrorist.  He is ideologically driven (he wants to take over the wizarding world and force everyone to conform to his way of doing things) and he uses violence to achieve his goals.  He recruits followers and tortures […]

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How much fear over terrorism is warranted?

There is no question that terrorism gets a lot of attention these days.  Nary a day goes by without a story of an attack somewhere in the world.  Most – not all, but most – of these attacks are carried out by some individual, some small group or even a large bunch with some tie […]

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Perspectives

Was Omar Mateen a “soldier of Islam”?

As we continue to get more information on the terrorist who killed 50 people and injured as many more in Orlando yesterday we find ourselves yet again in the murky world of “Why?”  Why would someone kill dozens of innocent civilians?  Why was he not being followed?  Why was he able to get a gun […]