Lay off Lesley Hughes! Jerks!

If former Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes is an antisemite, then George Bush is Mahatma Ghandi, 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.