Search: “far right”

I have spent much of today on my cellphone taking interview requests from a variety of Canadian media outlets.  The current interest is what has happened in New York and elsewhere in the US over the past few days when several very public personalities – former presidents Obama and Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder, […]

Well, the Saudis may have really put their foot in it this time.  The mystery surrounding the disappearance of vocal Saudi critic and journalist Jamal Kashoggi at the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul ten days ago is deepening.  Saudi claims that he left of his own accord are laughable: his fiancee was waiting for him outside […]

The stories of so-called ‘foreign fighters’ – outsiders who left their homelands to hook up with terrorist groups like Islamic State (IS), Al Qaeda (AQ) and others – are a dime a dozen.  Literally.  As estimates range up to 40,000 who joined IS alone over the past five years or so, one can be excused […]

Do you know the old saying “Fool me once, shame on  you.  Fool me twice, shame on me”?  It refers to the notion that we may be hoodwinked by an unscrupulous character once for no fault of our own (aside from having a poor judge of character perhaps), but if we have the wool pulled […]

Ready for a “where were you when…?”  question?  I launched my first book last week in Ottawa and my host, the CBC’s Hannah Thibedeau, asked me what my favourite part of ‘An end to the war on terrorism‘ was.  She had warned me she was going to throw that one at me so I had […]

This post appeared in The Hill Times on October 1, 2018. In 1964 US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart came up with a now famous comment that has become a meme (not there were memes back in 1964).   During a threshold case on obscenity he stated “I shall not today attempt further to define the […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on September 24, 2018. We are now in year 17 of the ‘war on terrorism’.  After the catastrophic terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 the US, and many of its allies, declared war on violent extremism.  The initial effort to locate and punish the perpetrators […]

I am trying very hard not to sound like a broken record (maybe it is time to update that analogy: like a CD that skips – or does no one besides me listen to CDs anymore?) but a recent news item has me very angry and makes me have to talk – once again – […]

When you work in security intelligence or law enforcement showing up late is usually a very bad thing.  I am not talking about a neighbourhood party or a movie but rather getting to the scene of a crime or identifying a terrorist cell AFTER the act has been carried out.  When that happens, people have […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on September 10, 2018 “Islam should be banned like we ban pit bulls”.  You read that right.  This was a Twitter post by an erstwhile candidate for the Parti Quebecois in the upcoming Quebec election.  Suffice to say he is no longer on the PQ slate.  But let […]