Search: “Islamic State”

I can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child arrested.  My children were no different than most I suppose, occasionally doing things they should not have, but nothing too serious, nothing that warranted police attention.  Thankfully, I was never placed in that position. Now imagine that authorities arrest your child after you called […]

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. […]

If there is one myth in the ever increasing world of ‘alternative facts’ (i.e. lies) that has otherworldly strength and perseverance it is the whopper that some of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada.  This inaccurate account of recent history has been repeated by people who should have known better – e.g. former Democratic presidential […]

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 […]

In all the articles, radio show talks, television coverage and social media posts about the massacre of innocent Muslims at prayer in Quebec City on a Sunday evening in late January the issue of whether or not this heinous crime qualifies as an act of terrorism is predominant.  I have certainly devoted enough blog posts […]

Well, if there was any doubt about what a Trump presidency means for the US, and by extension for all of us, over the next four years there is little doubt now.  In the first week alone a flurry of executive orders have been signed on a whole bunch of issues that Mr. Trump promised […]

Quebec is a very interesting province for many reasons, not least of which is the tremendous change in the role of religion over time.  It is no exaggeration to state that the Catholic Church ruled the roost for centuries, telling Quebecers how to live, how to procreate and who to vote for.  This dominance came […]

Terrorists do awful things.  We need not try to find more proof of this, what with two and a half years of subhuman brutality by Islamic State – beheadings, drowning people in cages, burning people alive, throwing people off buildings to their deaths, raping children…  The list goes on and on.  It would be hard […]

The debate over what to do with terrorists is neverending.  Positions range from one extreme to another, from “kill them all”  to “maybe it’s our fault they are they way they are”.  I would hope that by now we have learned beyond any doubt that there is no one cause, one driver, one explanation for […]

There is no doubt that throughout much of the West these days there is considerable angst over immigration and the impacts of new arrivals on Western societies.  Whether it is the real – but largely exaggerated – fear that terrorist groups like Islamic State are seeding refugee flows with operatives ready to unleash carnage on […]