Search: “afghanistan”

As scarcely a day goes by that we are not accosted with yet another story on a terrorist attack somewhere it is of little surprise that this form of violence has become a topic of conversation everywhere. What was once of interest to a niche market of specialists and confined to articles in little read […]

I have just finished watching a very interesting film, the 2012 drama The Company You Keep.  Starring Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Shia LaBoeuf and Julie Christie and based on a novel by Lem Dobbs, it tells the story of the Weather Underground (WU), a violent left wing group that came out the Students for a […]

In June 30, 2009 the bodies of three girls/young women and a middle-aged woman were found in a car that had been submerged in a lock along the Rideau Canal system just north of Kingston, Ontario.  Scarcely a month later, three people from the Shafia family, Afghan immigrants to Canada, were arrested and charged with […]

Surprisingly, if there is one issue many people differ on it is what constitutes terrorism.  There are so many different definitions and in some places, like my country (Canada), it is not even spelled out in law (the Canadian Criminal Code outlines what a terrorist act is, not terrorism per se).  You would think that […]

One of the main reasons I like to lecture at universities is that I find young people a breath of fresh air.  They are not as jaded as old farts like me and are not afraid to ask questions and challenge assumptions.  They may not be that knowledgeable on any given topic but they are […]

Terrorist groups are really good at telling a story.  This skill contributes to what we call narrative: a worldview that explains why a group does something, provides meaning and helps to draw others in.  Islamist extremists in particular have crafted what we call the “Single Narrative”, a wide historical and current canvas in which the […]

If there is one thing we know about terrorism it is that what we do – or what we don’t do – has a real chance of effecting what terrorist groups do.  For terrorist groups are really good at telling the world why they use violence and usually place the blame for their carnage on […]

Another set of terrorist attacks in the West, another desperate search for answers or explanations or rationale.  A man now in custody, Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalised US citizen of Afghan origin, is charged with planting a variety of bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey.  The targets selected and venues chosen to hide the explosives […]

It is obvious that a lot of people are worried about terrorism.  The news is full of stories of attacks, both successful and thwarted, and sometimes really alarming accounts like the news out of France that the government suspects that there are 15,000 French residents radicalising.  More than 70% of Americans think more terrorist attacks […]

Governments around the world have adopted a number of strategies to deal with their citizens who want to engage in terrorism.  At the far end of the scale investigations are carried out, arrests are made, trials are held and guilty parties are put in prison.  On the other end of the scale early intervention and […]