Search: “ISIS”

I think we can all agree – well except maybe some in the new Trump administration – that the US decision to use the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba to hold terrorist suspects extra-judicially was a particularly bad idea.  Not only did the practice sully the US image as the protector of democratic values, it […]

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 […]

Years ago when I first joined CSIS there was a veteran CT (counter terrorism) guy whom I’ll call Mike.  He had been around a fair bit and I had a great deal of respect both for his experience and his insight into Islamist extremism.  In all his time in the trenches he had seen a […]

You  would have thought that after decades of study, dozens of books (including my own The Threat from Within) and hundreds of papers that we collectively would have a better grasp of violent radicalisation.  Countless individuals belonging to movements across the ideological spectrum have been adopting violent extremism for centuries.  This is not a new […]

As I have noted in an earlier blog,  I am a Sherlock Holmes fan.  The first story published in The Strand magazine under the “Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes” beginning in December 1892 was  ‘Silver Blaze’, in which  Holmes has to solve the disappearance of a famous race horse 0n the eve of a big race […]

In many instances historically amnesties were offered to former combatants in the interests of getting the violence to stop and giving a society a chance to rebuild itself.  A really good example where amnesty seemed to work would be in South Africa where it was part of that nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after Apartheid […]

The public has a complicated relationship with intelligence agencies.  On the one hand we love to watch James Bond and Jason Bourne films, despite the fact that the ways these spies work has very little if anything to do with how things really happen.  On the other we get frustrated because these agencies tell us […]

I apologise  for leading off with a statement of the obvious, but terrorism is real.  We in Canada were reminded of that this week when the RCMP and its partners thwarted an attack by Aaron Driver in Strathroy.  Regardless of whether Mr. Driver’s attempt was amateurish or not, whether he was an “A”-team member or […]

There is a very important distinction in most Western courts of law between actus reus and mens rea, Latin for respectively, guilty act and guilty mind (more or less).   We  have decided that in order for a crime to have been committed, the alleged guilty party had to have the intent to commit that […]

We are getting all too used to this.  A man (usually, but very occasionally a woman) walks into a theatre/school/office/restaurant with a weapon that has no place other than a war zone and kills dozens.  Sandy Hook. Aurora.  Columbine High School.  San Bernardino. Now Orlando.  More mass shootings in the US than there were days […]