If former Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes is an antisemite, then George Bush is Mahatma Gandhi, Stephen Harper is Mother Theresa and Stephane Dion is capable of leading Canada.
Of course, none of the above is true. In dumping Hughes, a well respected Winnipeg journalist and social activist, Dion has buckled under the pressure of the pro-Israel lobby and proven himself incapable of developing independent foreign policy for Canada. How else are we to judge a man who accepts the nonsense that any criticism of Israel, no matter how minor, is antisemitic?
The article that cut short Hughes brief career as a Liberal candidate, Get the Truth, raises a series of questions about the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The sad irony is that the article did not even criticize Israel. Here is what she had to say:
Many official sources are claiming to have warned the American intelligence community, which spends $30 billion a year gathering information, about the attacks on the twin towers on that heartbreaking day.
German Intelligence (BND) claims to have warned the U.S. last June, the Israeli Mossad and Russian Intelligence in August. Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3000 Americans working there were not so lucky.
If anything, Hughes credits Israeli inteligence with attempting to warn the Americans of an impending attack on the Twin Towers, one which they obviously ignored.
Dion’s spinelessness is not unique, unfortunately. It is difficult to find any political leader who is willing to be critical of Israeli policies. In this instance, though, his gutlessness was stupendous, because Hughes did not “blame the Jews” for anything. The point of her article was to raise questions about the genesis of 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. As she put it:
If the work of Internet journalists is correct, then the war is neither a holy war, not a grand clash of civilizations between East and West, and our soldiers were lost to us and to their families to keep drugs and oil profits flowing in the U.S.
Until we know the truth, we should refuse to add one more Canadian body to the pile of dead in Afghanistan. Not one. Canada should get the truth or get out.
Hughes has been unfairly maligned. Fortunately, many Canadians, especially those who are familiar with her and her work refuse to join the witchhunt that has been mounted by right wing media, zionist apologists and barely literate bloggers.
In an online readers poll today, the Winnipeg Free Press asked: “Do you think Liberal leader Stephane Dion was right to turf Lesley Hughes over 9/11 conspiracy writings?” Of the 2,469 readers who have responded to date, 73 percent have said “No.”
Stephane Dione has not done his party any favours in Winnipeg. However, he may have done Lesley Hughes a big favour. Had she succeeded in her election bid, I doubt she would have been happy for long.
Paul S. Graham 
Couldn’t had put it better myself. In fact I think the Conservatives had in on this one: Do you think its a coincidence she was canned after the deadline had passed to put in another candidate? She is running in a Conservative/Liberal swing riding and now Dion has basically handed Harper a seat in Parliament! Are you actually dumb enough to fall into that trap so easily Stephane? Or is someone been writing you cheques on the side?? I may put an open letter to Stephane Dion to reinstate Hugh’s on my website.
Wow, very well said! Seriously, Dion is a clown. And Hughes was a huge loss for their party. – And then we speak of freedom of speech –
That shows the liberal side of the Liberal Party of Canada. The party wants to be seen as different from Harper’s ultra right in name only, and that for the purpose of elections. No wonder, though unfortunately, that liberals are trailing conservatives in polls. Martin threw out some of the gems of the party and it was now time for Dion to do his bit to create a party of unthinking robots so that he can rule the dust in desert party. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals want true spirit of democracy to prevail in Canada; they want controlled democracy. That is why voices like ‘Democracy Now’ and ‘Alternative Radio’ are gaining respectable ground .
Lesley, you paid the price which any one who dare speak the truth must pay. You have not done any crime by questioning the validity of the truth propagated by the mainstream media.You have proven to be true a human being rather than the mouth piece of mass of millions of morons who speak the words, language and the logic given to them by others who have vested interest in projecting their points of view.
Brave, Keep it up. There shall not be dearth of those who stand by you in solidarity in your solitary mission to speak nothing but the truth as they see it.
Balraj Cheema
Hughes isn’t an anti-semite, of course. Unlike the bigot who wrote this foolish article. Whenever anyone starts riffing on the canard of the all powerful Israel [read:Jewish] lobby it’s obvious they are from the David Duke / Zundel school of thought. Hughes, however,is simply an idiot. Anyone who believes the 9/11 attacks were an inside job should seek immediate psychiatric help.
I am literate and impervious to pro-Israel propaganda, and I have the blogposts to prove it. But this was just too much:
Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it. About 3000 Americans working there were not so lucky.
This is just a reformulation of the anti-Semitic meme that circulated through the Internet after the attacks–that Jews stayed away from the WTC that day, presumably having been warned in advance. Hal Turner and other neo-Nazis were pushing that one hard.
Now we have this “Israeli businesses” variant: the workers there being opposed to “Americans.” Ah, the aliens among us–who didn’t have the decency to warn their co-workers in the Towers that they were about to be killed.
Personally, having checked out Hughes and her background, I don’t think she’s an anti-Semite in the mold of, say, David Duke. She’s just very silly and naive, like Troothers in general. But it was still an unconscionable thing for her to say, and it’s right for her to be accountable for it.
Now: let’s move on to Peter Kent of Toronto Thornhill, and his relations with the far-right “Canadian Coalition for Democracies.”
Let’s talk about Andrew McKeever.
I disagree, Dawg. My beef with many truthers is that their hyperbole and imaginative leaps alienate people who might otherwise be interested in discovering the truth, but that’s hardly a basis on which to dismiss any investigaton of their claims. For instance, Haaretz can hardly be accused of anti-semitism.
Haaretz, Sept 26, 2001
“Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.
Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya. “
Alison, you fail to mention the message received by Odigo concluded with an anti-semitic slur and contained no specific information regarding the attacks. How this proves that the JOOOOOOOOOOOS were complicit in the 9/11 attacks is ridiculous. You’ll have to try harder next time. This story, nonetheless, has been widely disseminated and embellished by Lesley Hughes’ fellow troofers at stormfront.org, davidduke.com, etc. etc. etc.
The mainstream media reports on the Stéphane Dion firing of Leslie Hughes, the former Liberal candidate in Kildonan–St Paul, fill all the offensive reporting criteria we have become, Oh so used to. For example, instead of addressing the issues, the reporter Dan Lett, uses name calling tactics in his WFP, September 27 article titled, “Altar of Google Ravenous for Sacrifices.” Dan Lett writes that Hughes has “curious views” and is a “9/11 conspiracy theorist.” (Lett doesn’t stop there, he takes a swipe also at Barrie Zwicker and those who question the “official 9/11 conspiracy story of record”, calling them “infamous”. Lett, unlike Hughes and Zwicker, however, never addresses the as yet unanswered questions and unreported and under-reported information surrounding 9/11 which the mainstream media has so far meticulously ignored. For doing her job as a journalist and reporting the news Hughes is now the victim of a smear campaign. The WFP, or any other paper, should not be able to smear journalists reputations just because they report the facts people don’t want to hear.
Valerie Gaffray
I guess the real question here is, is there any evidence that Israeli businesses did vacate the WTC before the attack? It seems to me like something that one should definitely be able to prove or disprove.
I have edited this comment for length and added a link to an article written by Lesley Hughes on Mr. James’ story. – PG
http://WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM- WE ARE CANADIANS ATTACKED in the United States and placed through Extrajudicial (illegal/covert) persecution and ongoing threats and attempts upon our LIVES [ . . . ]
Lesley tried to give public notice to our account- National Post Globe and Mail and others HAVE CENSORED- WE SP0KE DIRECTLY TO STEPHAN DION IN WINNIPEG AT THEIR LIBERAL CONVENTION-he and his senior executive adviser Jean Luca Cairo promised us assistance-THEY LIED AND LEFT MY MOTHER AND I OUT IN THE COLD- Now 14 ATTEMPTS UPON OUR LIVES LATER we have been turned away by government who’s U.S. affiliated monetary interests far outweigh and interests towards the sanctity of human life decency or compassion. [ . . . ]
My 64 year old mother and my family continue to suffer while Dion and the rest of government turn the other way with deliberate media censorship designed to allow government the opportunity to work with the U.S. to carry about our abduction or murders under a veil of collusion and without the scrutiny of public knowledge- without warrant without charges and because we are exposing the draconian mechanisms of Post 9/11 based persecution and Orwellian corruption being cast upon society across the world exploiting the false war on terror in a sea of carnage and at the expense of human lives- for monetary and military interests alone-an abomination . The Bush administration is currently under investigation for WAR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY- google BUGLIOSI- he has appeared amidst hearings for the trials and denouncement of the Bush Admin with his book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” and legal attorney Kuzinich is in full support of the indictment of the administration as a whole. [ . . . ]
Look at the U.S atmosphere as it is today because of the FALSE WAR ON TERROR- removal of Habeus corpus, the Security Commissions Act, the removal of the 1st and 4 amendments which give the citizen protection against arbitrary search and seizure and in Canada the egregious security certificates persecution immigrants and scrutinizing them as “potential terrorists” in a violation of the charter of rights and freedoms as we formerly knew it.
Lesley Hughes like many notable civil rights activists and defenders of the oppressed (Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Malcolm X, Kennedy etc…) has now faced the insipid persecution of an establishment that would censor defame and ridicule motivated by the atrocities it must hide from public knowledge and scrutiny and the wickedness it conceals. WE MUST ALL SUPPORT DEFENDERS OF LIBERTY AND TRUTH LEST WE SUCCUMB TO THE FACTIONS AND IDEOLOGIES OF DECADENCE OPPRESSION AND TYRANNY.
http://aaronjamesstory.com Exposing the TRUTH BEHIND THE LIES- 14 Attempts Upon Our LIVES by the Administrations Lesley Exposes. NOW WE KNOW WHO THE TRUE VILLAINS ARE!
204 296 6497 / 204 509 1944 to contact us directly.
Lesley sounds a lot like Jeremiah Wright and his conspiracies — only not as mean. That’s why she got canned.
I looked up the article in Ha’aretz about the two, that’s right — two — Ondigo workers who allegedly were warned of the attack. There was no copy of the message. It’s pretty slim evidence isn’t it.
The one article that mentioned the content of the message claimed that it did not identify the World Trade Center as the attack target. Who knows what was going on here.
But for her to make so many extraordinary claims without any proof, does make her seem a bit odd.
Mackenzie King was apparently, an anti-semite and believed that he could communicate with spirits spoke to spirits but that was’t public information. Once this was out very few people would vote for Lesley. Her candidacy was ruined before she got cut.
Don’t be churlish, Neville. It’s an initial news report from Haaretz, a Jewish paper which is decidedly not in the business of pretending “that the JOOOOOOOOOOOS were complicit in the 9/11 attacks”. You could always try clicking the Haaretz link I provided above – it makes no mention of any “anti-Semitic slur”.
73 percent of respondents in an online survey didn’t agree that Hughes be canned. I don’t think it would had hurt her bid much at all.
Good work Paul. Great community support Progressive Winnipeg. The Winnipeg activist community is great. People are starting to watch this story far beyond Canada.And so they should. Its far from over. Help raise up a fuss if you can. The introduction to my article, “A Clash of Conspiracy Theories”at 911 Blogger.com gives links to help give the history and context of the Hughes affair.
Cy Gonig posted my article at the Canadian Dimension web site. Is it Lesley or Leslie?
Basta!
Anthony J. Hall
Anthony,
It is spelled ‘Lesley’ but you’d never know it from Dimension which spells it both ways. (Lack of respect is apparent, no?) 6 out of 10 stars for Dimension for at least publishing Lesley’s stuff.
» Lay off Lesley Hughes! Jerks!…
If former Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes is an antisemite, then George Bush is Mahatma Gandhi, Stephen Harper is Mother Theresa and Stephane Dion is capable of leading Canada.
Of course, none of the above is true. In dumping Hughes, a well respected …