Search: “9/11”

Canadians remember the 1988 Seoul Olympics when “our” sprinter Ben Johnson won gold in the 100-metre dash.  Celebrations turned to sorrow quickly, however, when accusations began to surface that Ben doped up before the race (it turned out he had been doping up for years).  A hero became a pariah. What was interesting, however, about […]

Remember John Kerry?  He’s the guy who ran against George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election.  Like most campaigns, this one had its controversies – like Swift Boat –  perhaps none greater than when Kerry said that the US had to get to a point where terrorism was not the primary focus of society […]

Intelligence agencies can get quite creative when developing ways to collect information.  But sometimes they get too creative that lead to more problems.  Not to mention endangering thousands of lives – innocent lives. Take the case of Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor in jail for his involvement in the terrorist group Laskhar-e-Islam.  What is far […]

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attack against Air India flight 182 which fell into the sea off the coast of Ireland, taking with it 329 lives, the vast majority of them Canadians.  Many fail to recognise that the bombing was the largest single terrorist attack prior to 9/11. So as we remember […]

I have often noted in my presentations that the terrorism analysis business is booming – pun intended.  By some estimates, more than 10,000 books on terrorism have been published since 9/11, and that is just counting the English-language ones. Many of these books are excellent and insightful: some are atrocious.  The same can be said for […]