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Perspectives

December 4, 1975: Hostage saga lasts several weeks in the Netherlands

On December 4, 1975 seven armed South Moluccan terrorists occupied the Indonesian Consulate in Amsterdam, taking 41 hostages, including 16 children.

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Perspectives

May 23, 1977: Terrorists take hundreds of hostages in the Netherlands

Starting on May 23, 1977 a terrorist group known as the South Moluccans initiated two hostage taking incidents in the Netherlands.

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Podcast Quick Hits

Is an act of violence terrorism if there is no underlying coherent ideology?

Episode 254 – Is the Magdeburg Christmas market attack an other example of ‘cafeteria terrorism’? Another mass gathering, another vehicular attack, this time in Magdeburg, Germany. This is a trend, especially amongst Islamist jihadis (Nice, Barcelona, London, Berlin…) in recent years. This case is different, though, as the alleged motive of the alleged attacker seems, […]

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Podcast Quick Hits

The 5 eyes are skewing ‘radicalisation’ data

Episode 254 – Is it helpful to ignore the jihadi elephant in the room? Ever since 9/11, Western nations have devoted a lot of time and money trying to understand ‘radicalisation’, and more narrowly the kind of radicalisation that leads to violence. In essence, this is what causes terrorism (terrorists are made, not born). Our […]

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Podcast Quick Hits

Democracies of the world unite!

Episode 253 – The West needs to stand up more to autocracy The world is in a terrible mess right now. Autocracies like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and others are running roughshod over human rights and international norms. All this has huge implications for national – and international – security. The democracies on […]

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Podcast Quick Hits

Political correctness is making us less safe

Episode 252 – Why are we so afraid to call things what they are? It does not take much these days to be called a ‘racist’ or a ‘misogynist’ or an ‘Islamophobe’. Just question accepted woke views on any matter and you are immediately labeled an enemy of progress. As a consequence, some, including perhaps […]

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Canadian Intelligence Eh!

The next generation of the intelligence community

All professions need to regenerate themselves over time. So how do we in the intelligence community ensure that we have a steady stream of outstanding candidates?

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Canadian Intelligence Eh!

National security depends critically on international intelligence sharing

Countries which get more intelligence than they give cannot afford to abandon sharing with international partners

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Perspectives

Is ISIS back? Actually, it never left the building

Those who stated confidently that ISIS had been ‘defeated’ in 2019 were totally, totally wrong

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Perspectives

What does it take to list a terrorist group in Canada?

To paraphrase Justin Trudeau, “a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist’. Can naming a group as such be that complicated?