Search: “Al Qaeda”

I know I have gone over this material before but there is nothing like an anniversary to occasion yet another look at an incident.  The ‘incident’ I am referring to is the 15th anniversary of the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003.  No matter what side of the political spectrum you belong to I […]

Canada was long known as a nation of peacekeepers, of the multinational kind.  We used to send lots of our men and women to conflict zones around the world to do our part in keeping warring parties from slaughtering each other in the hopes that the UN, under which we served, could cobble together some […]

There is an interesting debate in Canada over what are called ‘mandatory minimums’, i.e. a government/court-imposed set of rules on how crimes are to be treated.  This is an attempt to establish minimum sentences for certain offences, supposedly tied to how society views certain criminal acts.  In jurisdictions that have such strictures judges are bound […]

Quick, what is the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word ‘Buddhist”?  The Dalaï Lama?  Saffron robes?  One hand clapping?  I would wager though that the last thing that comes to you is violent extremism.  Maybe it should. I cannot claim to know a lot about Buddhism (a gap I intend […]

I am enjoying a relaxing weekend at my brother’s house in London, Ontario, a welcome respite after a number of speaking engagements in a variety of places recently.  This is where I was born, where I grew up, where I went to school – elementary, secondary and university – and where I will always consider […]

One would think that a state has fundamental rights and obligations in the same way that people do.  Any state must, for instance, have a monopoly on the use of force since in the absence of such we would live in anarchy.  I agree that the state exists only – or rather should exist only […]

I am a parent and that means I worry about my kids.  Not that I have any real reason to do so since my three are all grown up, on their own, doing well and appear for all intents and purposes to be well-adjusted, functioning human beings (thanks in no small part to their mother!).  […]

It stands to reason that senior officials, be they civilian leaders or military officers, want to provide the public with good news.  Whether it is to gain votes or to instill pride in a country’s armed forces, these individuals see the benefit of telling the (voting) population that success is at hand or that whatever […]

When I was growing up in London (Ontario) there was a famous quasi-mythical family that lived near the town of Lucan, about a half-hour away, in the 19th  century.  The Donnellys, or the ‘Black Donnellys’ as we were taught about them, were Irish immigrants who were killed by a mob in 1880 in a feud […]

Are we in the West suffering from collective naivete?  Are we ignoring an obvious threat to public safety?  Are we failing to understand that there are citizens among us who can do real harm? I am referring of course to the phenomenon of ‘foreign fighters’, Westerners who left of their own free will to join […]