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Perspectives

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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Perspectives

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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Perspectives

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 […]

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Perspectives

How NOT to wage the ‘war on terrorism

For those who have been following me over the years you know that the title of this blog is a little facetious. I have been arguing for a long time that the phrase ‘the war on terrorism’ is not helpful and should be dropped. Hell, I even wrote a book about it! Still, even I […]

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Do convicted terrorists deserve a second chance?

You know you are getting old when you come across a story about an event you were heavily involved in and realise that it happened so long ago that most of your friends, family and acquaintances really have no idea what you are talking about when you raise it. In my case the story centres […]

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Let’s not make the same mistake with far right terrorism as we did with the Islamist brand

As I have written on many occasions in the past, we have ‘terrorism on the brain’. I wish I could write otherwise, but in a world where something happens somewhere on almost a daily basis it would be disingenuous of me to say that terrorism is not a frequent scourge, and hence it is on […]

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The links between genocide and terrorism

If there is one activity that humans engage in that is worse than genocide I’d like to know what it is. Genocide is the deliberate intent to wipe an entire people off the face of the earth. The UN defines it as: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or […]

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Perspectives

And the terrorism merry-go-round continues…..sigh

As we still try to process the horrific attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an Australian white supremacist we are also immersed into a debate, less fruitful than many think in my opinion, over whether far right extremism presents more of a menace than Islamist extremism. I and many others have taken […]

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Perspectives

Podcast #5: China is getting CT all wrong

Here is a link to the YouTube version of podcast (it is also available on iTunes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uy_S0Inojk Here are some informative links about China’s campaign against the Uyghurs https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/are-indonesia-and-malaysia-ready-to-stand-up-for-chinas-muslims/ https://www.rfa.org/english/women/suffering-01302019152956.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/02/07/uighurs-australia/?utm_term=.59e0784d5aea https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2186446/beijing-backs-patriotic-actions-chinese-students-who-reported https://ent.siteintelgroup.com/Chatter/is-supporter-calls-to-kill-chinese-in-defense-of-islam-and-uyghurs.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/21/how-china-tried-stop-my-freedom-speech-canada/?utm_term=.214ddb57f282&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&wpmm=1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/china-has-put-1-million-muslims-in-concentration-camps-mbs-had-nothing-to-say/2019/02/24/370be676-36e4-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html?utm_term=.84e60354c337&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&wpmm=1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/chinas-expanding-war-on-islam-now-theyre-coming-for-the-kazakhs/2019/03/01/16ebbe76-38ff-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.0e75941659e5&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&wpmm=1 Featured terrorist attack – Kashmir https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/02/15/a-deadly-bombing-provokes-a-crisis-between-india-and-pakistan Terrorism this fortnight (Feb 12-25) Afghanistan Afghan Intelligence forces arrested two members of […]