If there is one thing that frustrates me most it is the tendency of a lot of people, well-intentioned or otherwise, to make sweeping statements about terrorism – what it is, what causes it, etc.- without doing the minimum amount of real research to back up their claims. I am sure you have read much […]
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When you try to think of London and terrorism, what comes to mind? I’d wager the 7/7 attacks in 2005 and any number of similar incidents. Or that fact that the UK Security Service has identified 23,000 radicalised Britons they worry about. What I would be surprised at would be if your immediate thoughts turned […]
It is a little past 7 PM on Monday, April 23 as I pen this op-ed in Ottawa. A little more than 5 hours ago a rented van appeared to jump a curb and run down pedestrians near the corner of Finch and Yonge streets in North Toronto. A man is in custody following an […]
This piece appeared in the April 23 edition of The Hill Times In a very funny Monty Python skit John Cleese plays a drill sergeant who is trying to teach a bunch of skinny recruits to defend themselves against foes wielding fresh fruit (oranges, apples, grapefruit, pomegranates….) with typical hilarious results. Cleese gets the underwear-clad […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on February 26, 2018 I still remember my first day at CSE. I had moved to Ottawa from London (Ontario) where I had been interviewed by CSE representatives and later offered a job. I knew little of what I was being asked to do since the poster […]
Is it any surprise that citizens distrust governments in the West? Whether it is the assumption that those in power are only after their own interests or that regimes are really bad at what they do with taxpayers’ money, it is hard to find examples where a country’s population is satisfied with the level of […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on January 15, 2018 There are many reasons why citizens dislike City Hall. You might have a beef over the taxes you pay. Perhaps you are not happy with snow removal or garbage collection. You may even have a bone to pick with a parking ticket you received. […]
When I was growing up in London (Ontario) there was a famous quasi-mythical family that lived near the town of Lucan, about a half-hour away, in the 19th century. The Donnellys, or the ‘Black Donnellys’ as we were taught about them, were Irish immigrants who were killed by a mob in 1880 in a feud […]
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War with an ‘ism’ is a bad idea
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 18 http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/12/18/war-ism-bad-idea/128951 Last week I was invited to a conference in the UK hosted by the Henry Jackson Society, a US-UK think tank that looks at a variety of issues. At this particular conference, entitled ‘A wake-up call for all: creating a trans-Atlantic network to battle radical […]
Another successful terrorist attack, another inquiry as to why it was not stopped. This is becoming a common occurrence at least in Western societies where the exigencies of liberal democracies demand accountability. There may very well be post facto reviews in non-democracies like Russia and Saudi Arabia as well but we do not tend to […]