Search: “Islamic State”

I don’t get it.  We make a big deal of terrorism these days, too big in my opinion, but we have collectively decided that terrorism is a serious threat (which it is) and that we need to deal with it. Part of our response is making sure organisations like CSIS and the RCMP have enough […]

And so the debate continues on which terrorist movement(s) poses a bigger threat in the West.  Is it really Islamic State and IS-inspired extremists or is this belief a symptom of Islamophobia?  Or is it the collection of hate-filled racists and white supremacists as everyone seems to be saying?  And what about the rise of […]

Before this piece goes any further I need to spell out that I am not a big fan of the use of force unless absolutely necessary (and when necessary it is best to use it wisely while still protecting the lives of the force wielders).  Clearly it is required in some situations but if public […]

There is a theory out there that killing terrorists, especially those in leadership positions, acts to put a damper on violent extremism, especially for those not quite committed to the cause.  The idea is that if wannabes see that joining a group leads to being targeted by an airstrike or a drone or special forces […]

When we come across a phenomenon that is new and strange to us we often struggle to gain an understanding.  What we are seeing or hearing is beyond our realm of experience and hence our ‘comfort zone’, and we don’t have a readily available framework to make sense of it.  As a result we have […]

The other day I had lunch with an old friend who, like me, worked in the Canadian intelligence community.  We had  a wide-ranging chat over a number of issues – Donald Trump, what each of us was up to these days – but as inevitably happens when two people with our backgrounds get together the […]

Now that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the horror in Barcelona many people are asking ‘Why Spain?’  France, the UK and Belgium they understand since there has been a spate of attacks in recent years.  Perhaps even Sweden and Germany are on some peoples’ list even if these nations have suffered comparatively less. In […]

The carnage unfolding in Barcelona as I type is getting to be depressingly familiar.  An individual drives a vehicle (car, van, 18-wheeler) into an unsuspecting crowd of people, strewing them like bowling pins.  Innocent people are injured, some horribly, and some die (maybe mercifully quickly or agonisingly slowly).  While no group has yet to claim […]

The Globe and Mail featured a fascinating story in its weekend edition (August 12) on suicides in Toronto in which people throw themselves in front of subway cars. This has to be a particularly gruesome way to take one’s life and I really feel for the drivers of the subway.  I have heard that they […]

I see that Ernst Zundel died the other day.  For many Canadians of a certain age Mr. Zundel was famous, or rather infamous, for being, well, to be blunt, a pain in the ass.  He was a Holocaust denier, a neo-Nazi and an all-around rabble-rouser.  He often surrounded himself with hard-hatted supporters when he made […]