Canadian Liberal candidate to step down over 9/11 "anti-Israel" comments

[MikeWB]

Dion asks Liberal candidate to step down over 9/11 comments

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has asked Winnipeg-area candidate Lesley Hughes to step down over comments she made in the past suggesting Israeli companies were given a heads-up ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

"I have reviewed the past comments of Lesley Hughes and it is clear they do not meet [our] standard," Dion said in a Friday release. "While I appreciate her apology, I cannot condone those sentiments in any way. I have therefore asked Ms. Hughes to step down as the Liberal party candidate in Kildonan-St. Paul."

On hearing the news, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper told reporters in Calgary he believed each case has to be looked at on its own merits, adding it's a "very serious thing" that Hughes wasn't disciplined after refusing to retract her comments.

"Is this the kind of political discourse that is tolerated in the Liberal party?" he said.

Earlier on Friday, Dion refused to discipline Hughes and repeated his calls for a Tory MP to be fired for his comments linking immigrants to crime.

Dion's news conference alongside former leadership rival Gerard Kennedy at a Toronto seniors home became heated as journalists questioning the Liberal leader were shouted down by party supporters attending the event, the CBC's Susan Bonner reported from the campaign.

Dion was pitching his party as the best to help seniors and protect Canada's economy in times of economic uncertainty, while Stephen Harper's "right-wing agenda" would hurt the economy.

But his message was quickly sidelined when he was asked about controversial comments by Hughes, the Liberal candidate in the Winnipeg riding of Kildonan-St. Paul.

Hughes has faced intense criticism for an old column she wrote as a freelance journalist, in which she suggests that Israeli intelligence warned the U.S. in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks and that Israeli businesses vacated the World Trade Center before two passenger planes struck the buildings.

Hughes, a former CBC journalist, also referred readers to websites that assert "CIA foreknowledge and complicity of highly placed officials in the U.S. administration around the attacks on the twin towers."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/stor ... ml?ref=rss



Hughes' original article is here. It's a very gentle piece of early 9/11 skepticism. The only mention of Israel is here, in the context of other intelligence warnings:

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.

Ironically, the stock market was also warning anyone who cared to notice that something peculiar was afoot: in the week prior to Sept. 11, unknown speculator(s) were suddenly betting that the stocks of United Airlines and American Airlines were going to fall in value; the trades were placed through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm formerly managed by Buzzy-Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.
http://members.shaw.ca/mclachla/page3.htm


From before Dion acted, some manufactured outrage from a conservative columnist:

Moreover, what Hughes said is about far more than anti-Semitism. Even if she had never mentioned the word "Israel" in any of her ravings, she is still guilty of accusing the United States — our best friend and largest trading partner — of perpetrating a gigantic warmongering fraud upon the world under the guise of international terrorism. Even if the CJC accepts Hughes' apology in the name of Canadian Jews and puts five gold stars on her forehead, how exactly does that absolve her of her poisonous anti-Americanism?

Speaking of Hughes' apology, let's have a read of it: "I am a lifelong friend and supporter of the Jewish community in Winnipeg and I am deeply distressed by any suggestion to the contrary. I find any interpretation of my journalism as anti-Semitic personally offensive and I heartily apologize for that perception." I'm sorry, Ms. Hughes ... you are offended? You write an article accusing the Jewish state of having foreknowledge of the worst terrorist attack in history — of being in cahoots with the U.S. government in hatching the 9/11 plot — then people call you on it, and now you are offended? Question 1: Who in Liberal HQ helped you write this narcissistic non-apology? Question 2: Why don't you think you have a duty to apologize to the Americans you equally offended with your discredited accusations. Thirdly, if you actually believed — and still believe — this nonsense, why are you apologizing at all? Since you have made exposing the "truth" of 9/11 part of your life's mission, why step back from that mission now?
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blog ... 93725.aspx

[mobes]

Even if she had never mentioned the word "Israel" in any of her ravings, she is still guilty of accusing the United States — our best friend and largest trading partner — of perpetrating a gigantic warmongering fraud upon the world under the guise of international terrorism.

This columnist is a complete idiot! I think we need to send him a copy of Missing Links, that ought to shut him up!

[Ralph Furely]

this shit angers me.  too bad it doesnt anger the rest of the country.