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Where are all the terrorist attacks in Canada?

In an era, the so-called post 9-11 age, where we are obsessed with terrorism we have a very awkward question to answer, if you happen to be a Canadian (or an American I think): where are all the terrorist attacks? If terrorism is all that prevalent, as we have been led to believe, and it […]

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We need to use the term genocide carefully before it loses all meaning – and impact

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 10, 2019. Boy am I ever going to get some flack from this post. I intend to take issue with some of the findings of the Canadian inquiry into the murder and disappearance of First Nations women, more specifically the use of the term ‘genocide’. For […]

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Perspectives

Yes states have an obligation to prevent citizens from leaving to join terrorist groups, but the story doesn’t end there

I suppose that for many people the right to travel is seen as a freedom that no one, including the state, can mess with. Humans have been on the move for hundreds of thousands (millions?) of years and the world would not be what it is if we had not had this population exchange. I […]

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Why I am becoming more fearful of yet another useless Middle East war

Is it just me or is it starting to feel like ‘deja vu all over again’, to quote the great New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra? Did I tumble down a time wormhole only to find myself back in 2003? Are we on the cusp of going to war in the Middle East – again? […]

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The unintended consequences of terrorist attacks

You gotta feel for Sri Lanka. The island nation went through a full quarter century of civil war as the government tried, and ultimately succeeded, in defeating a separatist movement led by an actual terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE for short. The war ended in 2009, allowing Sri Lanka to […]

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When politics dictates who is a terrorist – and who is not (part two)

Has something happened to Rudy Giuliani? The iconic former mayor of New York – remember the important role he played in the aftermath of 9/11, rallying Americans? – seems, to me at least, to have ‘lost it’. And I am not referring to his obsequious ass-kissing of boy President Trump, for whom he acts as […]

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When politics dictate who is a terrorist – and who is not (part 1)

The Muslim Brotherhood (or MB as it is often abbreviated to, not to be confused with MBS, which is Muhammad bin Salman, or ‘Mister Bone Saw’, Saudi Arabia’s powerful king-in-waiting) has been around for a long time – since the 1920s. It is a political party infused with Islamic principles that seeks to govern by […]

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Another vehicle ramming that was not a terrorist attack – or was – or ??

The news cycle is an unforgiving beast. Especially today when far flung events in hitherto remote corners of the world are made available to us in a flash thanks to the wonders of the Internet and social media (question: how many of us remember what it was like to keep up on such events before […]

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Are Christians targeted more by terrorists than others? No

They often say that truth is the first casualty of war. States and militaries have all kinds of reasons to hide facts if for no other one than to cover up their ‘mistakes’ (except that military ‘mistakes’ usually imply lots of meaningless deaths). A good example is the US insistence that few if any civilians […]

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It would be nice if we could agree on a definition of terrorism

If I were to ask ten people chosen at random what ‘terrorism’ means, I’d likely get some combinations of the following: it involves killing or trying to kill civilians; it is inspired by an idea – religious, political, ideological or something along that line; it is usually carried out by non-state actors; terrorists want to […]