Search: “Iraq”

Once in a while I come across (or, in this case, have someone point me in the right direction) a story related to terrorism that surprises even  me, a 30-year grizzled veteran of intelligence and counter terrorism.  I saw a lot in my time at CSIS and had the incredibly amazing opportunity to work on […]

It was the US artist Andy Warhol who once said “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, a phrase that seems to have underscored a universal desire to get noticed.  There is no question that it is much easier in a world of 24/7 news to have one’s story told: recall the […]

I had the pleasure last week of hearing former Canadian Senator Hugh Segal give a talk at an event sponsored by the Canadian International Council on his book ‘Two Freedoms: Canada’s global future‘. He spoke of the famous ‘freedoms’ first put forward by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941: freedom of worship, freedom of […]

You all know what a Rorschach ink blot test is.  Invented back in 1917 by a Swiss psychiatrist working on his own in an asylum, the test has been used for decades and has also been the butt of jokes for almost as long. In the movie What About Bob, hypochondriac Bill Murray relates the […]

There sure seems to be a lot of hand wringing over travel these days.  We have had two bans imposed by the US, one ridiculous (the generic ban on anyone coming from 6 Muslim countries) and one more realistic, albeit still open to question (the ban on electronic devices for passengers boarding aircraft in 10 […]

Here we go again, an alleged terrorist plot against planes.  We have been there before – far too often.  There was 9/11 of course, and the 2002 ‘shoebomber’, and the 2006 liquid plot, and the 2009 ‘underwear bomber’, and the 2010 printer cartridge plot – clearly there is a trend here.  As a result of […]

We seem to be having a hard time figuring out what to call our struggle with terrorism.   Leaving aside the belief, held by me and others, that framing counter terrorism in terms of war is a bad idea, it is clear that we keep changing our minds about what we are really involved in. […]

There have been many times in history where statements made publicly have turned out to be somewhat less than true.   Remember the famous “Dewey defeats Truman” headline in the 1948 US Presidential election?  What about then CIA Director George Tenet’s claim that intelligence pointing to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a “slam […]

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 […]

It is natural for like to gravitate to like.  We tend to associate with people that look like us, think like us, have the same fundamental beliefs as us.  We also tend to read news items with which we agree, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.  There is probably something to do with evolution behind […]