Tunisia presents an interesting case study when it comes to terrorism. The North African country was, of course, where the ‘Arab Spring’ began on December 18, 2010 (coincidentally my birthday!) when a crowd protested the self immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi who killed himself the day before when police had confiscated his wares and a female […]
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This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 11, 2018. All is takes is a cursory glance at the news on any given day to conclude – erroneously as I hope to show – that Islamist extremist terrorism is a daily event that threatens us all. We read of bombings in Afghanistan, beheadings in […]
Hubris, defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence or arrogance”, is a human emotion that has long fascinated me. There are individuals who exercise it with alarming regularity – a certain US President whose name rhymes with ‘dump’ readily comes to mind – and it is often seen as a fatal flaw that results in someone’s downfall. For instance, Napoleon could […]
Imagine the following scenario. There is a person who comes from a good home, not necessarily privileged perhaps, but who ‘has it good’. Despite this advantage in life – let’s face it, many people don’t have it so good – this person becomes bored. In their boredom, this person hooks up with a gang that […]
As I -and many others – have mentioned before, Indonesia is by far the largest Muslim nation on Earth. This often comes to a surprise to many as the southeast Asian country is not located within the ‘normal’ region we associate with Islam (i.e. the Middle East) and is surrounded by nations that are most […]
If you were to listen to enough news these days you’d think that Canadians have little, if anything, to celebrate this day, our 151st birthday as an independent nation. An ‘epidemic’ of shootings in Toronto. A trade war with our neighbour and (erstwhile?) closest ally. Yet another year and no Stanley Cup winner among Canada’s […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 18, 2018 Well, the G7 in La Malbaie, Quebec, is over and some would say ‘Thank God!’ It would be hard to imagine a weirder summit than the one Canada just hosted. The group of seven powerful economic and political nations usually gathers to talk shop, […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 4, 2018 Carrying out a terrorism investigation is not easy. The stakes are high since many (erroneously) see terrorism as an existential, pervasive threat and no one is willing to accept failure as an option: dead bodies in our streets are not something anyone wants to […]
Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? It goes like this. There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a […]
A common refrain to many issues is ‘follow the money’. Whether we are talking about organised crime or campaign irregularities or other social ills it is believed that if you can establish who is paying who you can devise ways to interdict that cash flow and hamper the activities that it is supporting. If successful, […]