Search: “russia”

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  My first day at CSE was July 14, 1983.  I moved to Ottawa from London (ON) and went to the Sir Leonard Tilley Building where I was brought to a former RCMP officer I’ll call ‘Joe’ who provided me my security indoctrination.  After outlining what CSE did […]

You have to hand it to Islamic State (IS) and its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi – whose demise by the way has achieved Mark Twainian status (“rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated”).  Despite the loss of the Caliphate, the deaths of thousands of its members, the virtual drying up of its fighter pipeline […]

I was very privileged to work in the Canadian intelligence community for more than 3 decades.  My career spanned 17 years with CSE – Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency – and 15 with CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.  There was not a day when I could not wait to get to […]

Tunisia presents an interesting case study when it comes to terrorism.  The North African country was, of course, where the ‘Arab Spring’ began on December 18, 2010 (coincidentally my birthday!) when a crowd protested the self immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi who killed himself the day before when police had confiscated his wares and a female […]

The US intelligence community is huge.  I mean HUGE.  At least 16 separate agencies and hundreds of thousands of men and women, civilian and military, all dedicated to doing their utmost to keep America safe and protect US interests.  Is the community perfect? Of course it isn’t.  The Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction debacle […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 11, 2018. All is takes is a cursory glance at the news on any given day to conclude – erroneously as I hope to show – that Islamist extremist terrorism is a daily event that threatens us all.  We read of bombings in Afghanistan, beheadings in […]

Hubris, defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence or arrogance”, is a human emotion that has long fascinated me.  There are individuals who exercise it with alarming regularity – a certain US President whose name rhymes with ‘dump’ readily comes to mind – and it is often seen as a fatal flaw that results in someone’s downfall.  For  instance, Napoleon could […]

Quick!  Name the top ten causes of death in Canada!  Can you?  Here is one list I found in the wondrous playground and source of all wisdom we call the Internet (the data is from 2012: the rightmost column is percentage of yearly deaths:   1. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 30.2 2 Diseases of heart (heart […]

China is getting a lot of headline attention these days in Canada and elsewhere.  Most of this coverage revolves around Chinese attempts to have its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) buy up Western companies.  Some of these deals have been cancelled by Western authorities over security concerns.  The bottom line seems to be we in the West […]

In the wake of the van attack in Toronto last week there has been a lot of ink spilled and airtime filled on the problem of what to do with young men. Regardless of motive, it seems that serious violence is carried out overwhelmingly by the male half of the human species.  Many researchers and […]