Search: “Boko Haram”

I am a glass half full kind of guy, someone who seeks to find the positive in life.  I am an optimist tinged with realism.  Three decades in intelligence and 15 years in counter terrorism do tend to give one a good look at the less savoury aspects of life on this planet and as […]

You have all heard of the butterfly effect, right? The idea that a very small event can have enormous implications well beyond its initial parametres.  The official definition, courtesy of Wikipedia, is “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large […]

I was saddened to hear recently that a member of one of the funniest group of comedians ever to grace the screen is suffering from dementia.  Terry Jones of the irreverent and very clever Monty Python troupe announced that he has the condition and will no longer be able to give interviews.  A very dark […]

In the Harry Potter novels the villain is known as Lord Voldemort.  He is in many ways a terrorist.  He is ideologically driven (he wants to take over the wizarding world and force everyone to conform to his way of doing things) and he uses violence to achieve his goals.  He recruits followers and tortures […]

People react in different ways to terrorism.  Some panic.  Some lash out at what they think are those responsible (Muslims, people with head coverings, places of worship).  Some take it all in stride – Keep calm and carry on – aware of the fact that terrorism, irrespective of what media images tell us, remains a […]

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 […]

Although most countries cannot agree on what constitutes terrorism, if we judge by the number of definitions that are out there, they do seem to do a better job at determining what a terrorist group is.  There are so-called terrorist listings in the US, the UN, the EU, and the UK among other jurisdictions.  We […]

I swore to myself I would never argue with anything that comes out of the mouth of aspiring Clown in Chief Donald Trump for fear of lowering myself to whatever abyss he calls home, but here I am doing exactly that.  Thankfully, since I am really only keen to talk about terrorism in this blog, […]

One of the most central tenets of the ideology that drives terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram and others is the belief that Islam and the West are in a state of war.  This war, they maintain, was not instigated from within or by the Ummah, or Islamic world, but rather is […]

Foreign policy is tough.  I say that not with any hands-on experience as a former foreign affairs officer but as a former intelligence analyst who worked alongside many people at GAC (Global Affairs Canada, formerly DFATD, formerly DFAIT, formerly EAC, formerly…) on international security issues.  I learned that Canada has a very good reputation internationally […]