Search: “war on terrorism”

Historical revisionism is inevitable I suppose. There are those who look back at events, both recent and less so, re-interpret them through a new paradigm, lens or self-interested agenda, re-package them, and present them to us in a way that goes against the previous collected wisdom. Sometimes this re-interpretation is necessary in the light of […]

I have a confession to make: I hate going through a metal detector whenever I attend an Ottawa Senators’ hockey game.  It isn’t that it takes too long (it doesn’t), or that the staff are mean (they are actually quite nice, very Canadian), or even that sometimes the line backs up out the door and […]

We seem to be having a hard time figuring out what to call our struggle with terrorism.   Leaving aside the belief, held by me and others, that framing counter terrorism in terms of war is a bad idea, it is clear that we keep changing our minds about what we are really involved in. […]

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 […]

I have been listening to the debate in Parliament about the Canadian government’s decision to continue the mission in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State (IS) but pull back the CF-18s that have been contributing airstrikes since last year.  There have been passionate speeches and what I saw as sincere calls for the government to […]

We’ve had a tough time coming up with a name for our fight against terrorism. Leaving aside the ill-considered “crusade” that was used right after 9/11 (who the hell thought that was a good idea?), we have cycled through the Global war on Terror (GWOT) to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE) – what […]

As we continually seek to understand terrorism and what makes a terrorist, we hear many reasons brought forward and defended as THE answer or cause.  I have already, on several occasions, discussed and dismissed the perennial disenfranchisement/alienation/poverty…. myth and will not return to it here. Now another “soupe du jour” has arisen, probably not coincidentally […]