Search: “Syria”

For many people the solution to terrorism is quite simple.  Those who are fighting with groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State and others can be killed in airstrikes, drone strikes or armed combat.  Those who are captured alive can be turned over to local officials or brought home for trial where they can be […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 7, 2018 Pop quiz!  What is Canada’s ‘national game’?  Duh it’s hockey of course (or ‘ice hockey’ as the rest of the world knows it as if it needed to be distinguished from ‘field hockey’).  What with the NHL playoffs on and one Canadian team still […]

As more and more of the New York Times podcasts created by journalist Rukmini Callimachi and her team are released we are learning more and more of the adventures of a Canadian member of Islamic State (IS) codenamed Abu Huzayfah.  The Pakistani-Canadian left of his own accord to join IS, admits to killing at least […]

There is a brilliant set of podcasts on the New York Times Web site by reporter Rukmini Callimachi and her team on Islamic State (IS).  If you haven’t listened to it and are interested in a first-hand account of what it was like to live in the so-called ‘Caliphate ‘ you are missing out. Yes, […]

In the wake of the van attack in Toronto last week there has been a lot of ink spilled and airtime filled on the problem of what to do with young men. Regardless of motive, it seems that serious violence is carried out overwhelmingly by the male half of the human species.  Many researchers and […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 23, 2018 Way back when I was an analyst at CSE I recall a conversation with an workmate about who was more important to the organisation (we were both young and full of piss and vinegar).  He worked on the ‘Soviet problem’: I was assigned along […]

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 […]

There is an old saying that goes “If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bus (or a bike, apparently. in the original Spanish)”.  This very silly sentence means that there are things that are unlikely to happen and therefore are not worth mentioning. This phrase was the very first thing that came to my […]

One of the most difficult challenges for governments around the world is what to do with their citizens who left to join Islamic State (IS) or other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq from 2013ish to 2017.  As we all know, IS is a shadow of its former self. It has lost swaths of territory.  […]

Now that Alexandre Bissonnette has pleaded guilty to killing six people (and wounding 19 others) at a Quebec City mosque in January 2017  and we are seeing at last some of the evidence mounted against him (largely his 911 call and his jail cell ‘confession’), we are getting a much clearer picture of why he […]