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What is the balance between free speech and support for terrorism?

In the wake of yet another horrific – but not ‘cowardly’: the terrorists most likely knew they would die in their efforts – attack  in London, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said ‘enough is enough‘!  She added that there was ‘too much tolerance of extremism’ in her country and that the UK’s counter terrorism […]

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Terrorism or hate crime – does it matter?

Terrorism is a charged term and for good reason.  The crime  evokes fear and an inability of states to keep their citizens safe from outside (or inside forces).  And fear of course is the goal of those who are behind this nature of attack.  Even if there is little agreement on how terrorism is defined […]

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The difficult question on when to release terrorist prisoners

No Canadian is unfamiliar with the name Karla Homolka.  She was the wife, and partner in crime, of Paul Bernardo, currently serving a life sentence for the brutal sex slayings of two young women in southern Ontario in the early 1990s.  Ms. Homolka only got a lesser punishment because of a controversial side deal with […]

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Making deals with the terrorist devil

Terrorism is a dirty, dangerous business.  Terrorists are nasty people who  engage in nasty acts.  To thwart attacks you have to work with sources and groups whose reputations are, shall we say, unsavoury.  As former CSIS Deputy Director Jack Hooper once said, however indelicately, “sometimes you have to take the ugly girl to the dance”. […]

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How can terrorists justify targeting children?

Terrorist acts are often heinous in nature.  People targeted at a club in Orlando (or Istanbul) dancing the night away.  Passengers on a city bus in Tel Aviv.  Young political activists on an island in Norway.  When we are happily doing whatever it is that we like and we are felled by indiscriminate terror and […]

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Why the President was wrong to disclose intelligence

The President of the US is a very powerful person.  The so-called leader of the free world has a lot of influence on all kinds of issues and has a great deal of leeway in deciding what to say and do (within the system of checks and balances of course).  The current holder of office, […]

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Canadian terrorists who live forever in infamy

It was the US artist Andy Warhol who once said “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, a phrase that seems to have underscored a universal desire to get noticed.  There is no question that it is much easier in a world of 24/7 news to have one’s story told: recall the […]

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When is a terrorist attack not a terrorist attack?

It is really hard to come up with a definition of terrorism that all agree on.  Every country seems to have its own version and while there are of course similarities there are also differences and some of these may have legal ramifications.  Then there is the non-legal definition: i.e. what the average person thinks […]

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Should we charge returning foreign fighters with terrorism?

The RCMP announced yesterday that they have arrested Pamir Hakimzadah and charged him with leaving Canada to join Islamic State, meaning that he is charged with terrorism. This is a big deal.  It represents, to my knowledge, the first returning foreign fighter to be charged under the provisions of section 83.01 of the Canadian Criminal […]

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Trains, plane and automobiles…and terrorism

Terrorism is sure getting complicated.  The good old days, if I may call them that, were easy by comparison. Terrorists were easy to spot because they tended to chuck bombs or fire weapons at people, the larger the crowd the better.  Then we got to the airline hijacking phase in which most incidents ended relatively […]