Mickaël Harpon’s drift toward fundamentalist Islam went undetected even though he worked in unit that tracked Islamist radicals.
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If you go far enough back in recent-ish history one of the terrorist groups that used to get a fair bit of attention was an outfit named Black September. Named after the month in 1970 during which the Jordanian armed forces clashed with fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO – remember them?), which led […]
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Once more into the breach
I remember my very first day as an ‘insider’ in the Canadian intelligence community as if it were yesterday. It was July 13,1983. I had moved to Ottawa from my hometown of London (Ontario) to accept a job at CSE – Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency. I had already been accorded a top […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on September 2, 2019. It should come as a surprise to no one that people in many parts of the world lack confidence in important public institutions. Whether we are talking about governments in general or more specifically agencies such as law enforcement and security intelligence, there is […]
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On existential threats
It is rare for the head of an intelligence agency to give a public talk. Spy services, as we all know, work in the shadows and do things that are sometimes not generally nice (like assassinating terrorists). We’ve all seen the Jason Bourne films, right? So when the leader of one of these organisations does […]
There is a constant battle between what are commonly called good and evil. Good in this case consists of the men and women who toil on our behalf to keep us safe: in Canada that would be the security service (CSIS), law enforcement agencies (RCMP as well as provincial and municipal police services) and others. […]
As hard as it is to believe we are approaching the 18th anniversary of 9/11. That event was for me, and many others I know, the ‘where were you when..’ time in our lives (interestingly, for my older brothers, born in 1949 and 1952, theirs was the JFK assassination: I was not quite 3 at […]
From time to time you will read articles or longer treatises about how this group or that one has in effect abandoned terrorism as its ethos. The reasons for this organisational decision range from outright military defeat by the state, loss of key leadership, declining support from the rank and file, etc. If all this […]
PLEASE! Before you excoriate me and engage in ad hominem attacks based on the title of this blog – not that I have not been subject to both before! – read to the end. Then, if you still think I am a knuckle-dragging troglodyte have at ‘er. Shortly after the creation of the Soviet Union […]
As some of you may know, I am a grandfather (yes, I am THAT old!). I have an almost 2-year old grandson and, duh!, he is the most perfect grandchild. Ever. In the history of the planet. Of that there is no doubt and I should know since I am his grandfather. What is that […]