Peter Kent, WikiLeaks and Why we Should be Concerned

During the 2008 election campaign, popular CBC radio personality Leslie Hughes, was running for the Liberal Party in the Winnipeg riding riding of Kildonan—St. Paul, against Conservative incumbent Joy Smith. A close friend of Stockwell Day, Smith had managed his successful Alliance Party leadership contest in 2000, for her area.

The day after the deadline for presenting candidates, the B'Nai Brith launched a formal complaint against Ms Hughes, claiming that in an old blog posting she had suggested that 9/11 was the result of a Jewish conspiracy. And they were supported in their claim by Conservative Peter Kent.

It was all nonsense. I have read the blog posting in question, and there is absolutely nothing in it that could be deemed anti-Semitic. See for yourself. She was only reacting to the "friendly fire" death of 4 Canadian soldiers.

But the media had a field day with it and Stephen Dion had little choice but to ask her to step down. She is now suing both Peter Kent and B'Nai Brith and I hope she nails them to the wall. This was a character assassination that not only cost her the election but her career, as few in the media want to hire her now that she is deemed to be anti-Semitic.

Omar Alghabra

Omar Alghabra was a former Liberal MP for the riding of Mississauga-Erindale, and is a wonderful man. I've had the opportunity to speak with him on-line and he is intelligent, funny and a champion of human rights.

But in 2005, immediately after winning his party's nomination, he was the victim of a smear campaign, in which several people claimed that in his victory speech he commented: "This is a victory for Islam! Islam won! Islam Won!" It wasn't true, and those involved were forced to publicly apologize. But that didn't stop neocon insider Tim Powers from trashing him publicly and calling him anti-Semitic.

Omar lost his seat in 2008 to Alliance party faithful Bob Dechert, but will be running again. I am so pleased. Dechert is a disaster.

Canadian Coalition for Democracies

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies was a group founded to incite hatred against Islamic Canadians, in a large part, by erroneously labelling public figures, anti-Semitic. They also lent support to Ezra Levant in his battle over publishing the horrendous Danish Cartoons.

Peter Kent was a founding member and Tony Clement was head of their Advisory Board. They were extremely pro-Israel:

The CCD generally supported the policies of the Conservative Party government of Stephen Harper, and the organization's leadership has urged its members to view support for the Conservative Party of Canada as equivalent to support for Israel. (Wikipedia)

The group also supported the controversial Falun Gong and a continued Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

Other members of the group included:

Michael Mostyn: the Director of Government Relations for B'nai Brith Canada. When Ralph Reed, founder of the Christian Coalition, spoke in Canada to drum up support for Stephen Harper, Mostyn was in attendance and he ran unsuccessfully for the party himself.

Rochelle Wilner: past president of B'nai Brith Canada and the Conservative Party's federal candidate for York Centre.

Naresh Raghubeer: founder and former executive director of the of the CDD. In November 2004, the CCD, along with Stockwell Day, held a press conference calling the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) of having links to the terrorist organization Hamas and of providing financial support to them. Subsequently, IRFAN-Canada filed a defamation claim against CCD officials Alastair Gordon and Naresh Raghubeer, as well as against Stockwell Day. IRFAN-Canada firmly held that the accusations were "false and malicious" and, to paraphrase their lawyer, wanted to clear their name from the allegations.

Raminder Singh Gill: Former member of Mike Harris's government, he has ran unsuccessfully for a spot in the Harper caucus. He has however, been given a patronage position under Jason Kenney, where he acts as a citizenship judge. The same citizenship department that says "no Muslims".

David Harris: is a Canadian lawyer and former senior fellow with the CCD. He was chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and has suggested that Canada's immigration policy encourages the use of Canada as a base for terrorists, and has consistently advocated for harsher Canadian laws to combat terrorism. He is an outspoken defender of the Canadian government's use of security certificates to detain terrorism suspects without trial.

Salim Mansur: is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario and a contributor to the conservative blog Proud To Be Canadian, the same blog where American Anne Coulter has found a home. He is also featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and ran unsuccessfully for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.

Peter Kent and Canwest Global

The late media mogul, Izzy Asper, hated the CBC. And he especially hated Neil Macdonald, the CBC's Middle East correspondent from 1998 to 2003, who contradicted his notion of Israel as a victim.

Macdonald was based in Jerusalem for five years, and was not shy about injecting his opinions on the Arab-Israeli conflict into his reports. His bosses back in Toronto were supportive. "To suggest that most of the world's media are involved in a conspiracy against Israel, it's just a totally extreme conception on Asper's part," declared Tony Burman, then head of CBC News. "There is something profoundly ironic about being told off about media bias by someone like Izzy Asper." This was a thinly veiled reference to the Aspers' practice of urging their papers to publish company-written editorials that expressed their owner's views ... (1)

And MacDonald was appalled that Asper's employees allowed their boss to engage in the suppression of journalism, which only escalated Asper's attacks against him, though he was not surprised.

"I expect more bullying, more bombast, more ideological, anti-journalistic nonsense. I used to work for the newspapers they now own. Several of my ex-colleagues, still there, tell me they find the Aspers' approach to journalism an embarrassment. But they cannot speak publicly. Thank heavens I can." (1)

And the bias in Asper's papers and television reporting didn't go unnoticed by others.

Asper's diatribe garnered him respect among Canada's Jewish community but condemnation elsewhere. British journalist Robert, Fisk, who writes for the Independent and had been a long-time critic of Israeli policies, labelled Asper's speeches "gutless and repulsive. "These vile slanders," he said, "are familiar to any reporter trying to do his work on the ground in the Middle East. They are made ever more revolting by inaccuracies." Fisk specifically took issue with Asper's interpretation of British-Palestinian history—pointing out that, for example, the expression used in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was "a national home for the Jewish people," rather than a "Jewish State," as Asper had suggested.

More to the point, Asper didn't give a damn. He practised what he preached. Canwest Global was "unabashedly pro-Israel," declared Murdoch Davis, who spent several years as Canwest's Winnipeg-based editor-in-chief. He wasn't kidding. (1)

Eventually after fighting for freedom of the press, many of Izzy's journalists just refused to write anything at all about Israel. Peter C. Newman in his book Izzy, says "At the same time, there was no question that the worst form of censorship in this kind of editorial climate was the self-censorship writers and editors applied to their assignments and their copy, usually by avoiding the subject entirely."

But one Canwest Global media personality and executive, had no problem sticking with Izzy's guidelines. His name: Peter Kent. The same Peter Kent who is now the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Americas, in Stephen Harper's cabinet. The same Stephen Harper who allowed Izzy Asper to help write the foreign policy of his Reform Party, in exchange for his financial and communications support. "Izzy pulled out all the stops on that one. He was prepared to invest his personal time and capital for the cause." (2)

Peter Kent and WikiLeaks

Yesterday, one of the WikiLeak documents revealed that the U.S. was angered at Canada's approach to Cuba. Peter Kent was personally named and his office responded by saying that their party's official policy is to not respond to any of the WikiLeak announcements.

Fine.

But when I hear Peter Kent's name, the only Canadian who is possibly more pro-Israel than Stephen Harper, I pay attention.

And bypassing the mainstream Canadian media, who wouldn't be allowed to pursue the story even if they wanted to, I instead went right to the source for any information regarding Canada and this foreign country. And the Israel Resource Review didn't disappoint.

Peter Kent's Canadian tax payer financed job, has been to protect Israel's interests in Latin America.

Kent noted that “ Canada ... has also represented Israel’s interests in Cuba through its embassy in Havana. There is a 1,500-member Jewish community in Cuba and as Kent said “It’s now possible for Cuban Jews to make aliyah.” ... Canada and Israel are also working together to pressure the government of Argentina to make reparations for the botched investigation of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Kent said Canadian and Israel also have (sic?) are concerned about involvement of ‘Latin American states with Iran.”

And remember, Kent recently suggested that it was not a matter of if there would be a preemptive strike agaisnt Iran, but when. (3)

Canadians are not anti-Israel, but we are rightfully concerned when our Canadian government consistently puts Israel's interests above those of ours. That is not what we pay them for.

We expect a balanced approach to foreign policy, not a one-sided approach that allows another country to get away with horrendous crimes against humanity.

We have got to start paying attention.

But how sad is it that the only one providing us with information to pay attention to, is an Australian activist?

Sources:

1. Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada's Media Mogul, By Peter C. Newman, Harper-Collins, 2008, ISBN: 978-1-55468-089-4, Pg. 254-256

2. Newman, 2008, Pg. 83

3. Canada’s international do-gooder image shattered: Ottawa Loses Bid for UN Security Council, by Eric Walberg, Global Research, October 23, 2010

Tory Caucus Supports Child Trafficking in Shocking Tape

Gotcha didn't I? However, that headline is no more convoluted than the one in the

Karl Rove style pamphlets distributed by the Conservatives in Bloc ridings recently.

After voting against a hurriedly drafted human trafficking bill, presented by Stockwell Day's pet, Joy Smith, because they didn't want to take power away from judges, they have been accused of supporting pedophiles.

However, when you listen to the Lisa Raitt tapes bashing Joy Smith, and the resulting comments made by the Tory caucus, you can see clearly that it was a political move that carried with it a lot of hard feelings.

Kind of like kids saying that their sibling got a bigger piece of cake than them, Smith's colleagues were clearly jealous and saw this as favouritism.

And what did they say about the importance of the bill? Absolutely nothing. So who's supporting child trafficking now?

"Raitt said Smith had made a bad move by introducing a private member's bill to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for human trafficking of children."Speaking of career-limiting moves, I’m in shock that that MP, Joy Smith, brought forward private member’s legislation on human trafficking," Raitt says on the tape.

"She’s on Canada AM. And the reason being is that there’s no way any of us should be introducing anything around justice issues or finance issues right now.

You just can’t touch those two things."It was widely known among Conservatives that bills dealing with justice or finance issues were to be introduced by cabinet only, as justice and the economy are the pillars of this government.

At least one Conservative however suggested Raitt's comments about Smith reflected what a lot of people in the caucus thought then.

The fact that the Conservatives can treat such a sensitive subject in so callous a manner as using it for attack ads, shows they don't care so much about children, as they do about their careers.

Tory Caucus Upset With Both Lisa Raitt and Joy Smith

Members of the Conservative caucus feel that Lisa Raitt should use a different kind of tape the next time she opens her mouth, but also agree with her concerns over backbencher Joy Smith.

Smith is now part of a controversy over irregularities during the 2008 election campaign, that has resulted in a lawsuit against Peter Kent and several Jewish organizations.

It is not a religious matter, however, but a political one, that has some people wondering what was behind the whole fiasco.

As a strong social conservative and longtime friend and supporter of Stockwell Day, the Conservatives pulled out all the stops to make sure she held onto her seat.

However, in the infamous tape that Lisa Raitt's assistant accidentally turned on during a road trip, we learned that Raitt was surprised that Joy Smith was allowed to present a bill that should have been the responsibility of a high ranking cabinet minister, and not a backbencher. Apparently, other members of the Party agree with her.

Raitt's shot at Manitoba MP Joy Smith caught on tape
Winnipeg Free Press
By: Mia Rabson
June 9, 2009

OTTAWA - A Winnipeg Conservative MP who was among the targets of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt caught on tape is keeping her opinions of the incident to herself.

Joy Smith, the MP from Kildonan-St. Paul, said Tuesday she would not comment about the tape.

The tape of Raitt, having a conversation with her director of communications, Jasmine MacDonnell, was made accidentally while the two were in a car on a trip to British Columbia in January.

The tape recorder was later forgotten by MacDonnell in a media office on Parliament Hill. She said she would come back for it, but it was never retrieved. Last week when MacDonnell resigned after leaving secret government documents at another media office in Ottawa, Steve Maher, a reporter from the Halifax Chronicle Herald, listened to it.

Raitt makes disparaging remarks about both Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Smith.

Raitt said Smith had made a bad move by introducing a private member's bill to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for human trafficking of children.

"Speaking of career-limiting moves, I’m in shock that that MP, Joy Smith, brought forward private member’s legislation on human trafficking," Raitt says on the tape.

Smith had just introduced the bill that week.

"She’s on Canada AM. And the reason being is that there’s no way any of us should be introducing anything around justice issues or finance issues right now. You just can’t touch those two things."

It was widely known among Conservatives that bills dealing with justice or finance issues were to be introduced by cabinet only, as justice and the economy are the pillars of this government.

At least one Conservative however suggested Raitt's comments about Smith reflected what a lot of people in the caucus thought then.

However the legislation has done quite well, has received a lot of attention and got the backing from the NDP and the Liberals. It passed a parliamentary committee Monday and if there is not an election in the interim, it has a good chance to pass through the house and the Senate this fall, and become law before the Olympics in Vancouver next winter.

Many fear the Olympics will draw human traffickers in large numbers.

The bill also has served, albeit in a very small way to boost Conservative esteem in Quebec, where the party is faltering badly.

Quebec, particularly the Montreal area, is considered one of the hot beds of human trafficking in Canada and a lot of non-governmental organizations and the police are dismayed the Bloc Quebecois are voting against Smith's bill.

Recent polls have the Conservatives with very little support in Quebec, severely affecting the party's chance to ever form a majority government.

Smith has a personal stake in another part of the Raitt tape controversy as well.

Raitt, in discussing the problems at the Chalk River nuclear reactor and the resulting the shortage of isotopes for cancer tests, appeared excited at the prospect the issue would help her career and said the issue was "sexy" because it involved "radioactive leaks" and "cancer".

Smith's husband is battling cancer.

The comments about the Chalk River are likely to be the biggest problem for Raitt, who so far has kept her job in spite of the controversy.

One Conservative said most people in the party seem upset by the comments. "You don't do this to further one's career," said the source.

A poll conducted by the Winnipeg Free Press, asking if readers thought that Lisa Raitt should resign, revealed that 73% of respondents felt that she should.

More Postings on Lisa Raitt:

1. Garth Turner Must Think He's Died and Gone to Heaven

2. Lisa Raitt Accuses Jim Prentice of Pandering to Oilfields

3. Harper's Misuse of Tapes is Coming Back to Bite Him

4. Lisa Raitt's Apology is as Empty as Her Head. WARNING: RANT IN PROGRESS!

5. Lisa Raitt Thinks Isotope Shortage is Sexy. Is She Kidding Me?

6. Will Jasmine MacDonnell Get the Last Laugh?

7. The Isotope Crisis Reveals More Conservative Deceit

8. Lisa Raitt Digs For Gold in Taxpayers Wallet

9. Don't Criticize Lisa Raitt or She'll Sue

10. Careless Lisa Raitt Passes the Buck

11. Canada For Sale and Has Lisa Raitt Got a Deal For You

12. Lisa Raitt Says "Not Now Dear, I've Got a Headache"

13. Lisa Raitt Not Yet Done Screwing Up it Would Seem

14. A Dying Man's Letter to Lisa Raitt. Cancer is Not Sexy!

Lesley Hughes Was Not the First Victim of the B'Nai Brith

The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "Religion is excellent stuff for keeping the common people quiet." Of course he also said: "Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich", though I suppose both quotes are relevant.

Like the U.S. Republicans, the Conservative party of Canada has latched onto religious and quasi religious groups like a baby to .... well never mind ... you get the picture.

To keep track of all the churches, para churches and non-profit organizations that prop up what passes for Tory these days, you'd need the equivalent of a debt clock, that is constantly in motion.

Once you track down one nefarious group, ten more rear their ugly heads, and you get lost in a cycle of deceit.

Now don't get me wrong. I have no problem with any religion that promotes human decency, and can even be tolerant to those that don't.

But once those religions cross the line into politics, they are fair game for political debate. It absolutely has to be that way before this government completely destroys our country.

This brings us to the Lesley Hughes' lawsuit against Peter Kent and the B'Nai Brith, who in may ways are one and the same.

Lesley Hughes, however, was not the first political candidate targeted by the B'Nai Brith.

B'Nai Brith Canada tells Liberals to dump star candidate
July 24, 2007

B'Nai Brith Canada has asked Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion to remove new star candidate Jocelyn Coulon from an upcoming byelection in Montreal's Outremont riding because of his past stance on Israel. It says Coulon has a "well-documented anti-Israel bias," including sympathy for Hamas, that is "out of step with current Liberal policy."

But of course, there's more to the story:

B'nai Brith is too quick to brand people as anti-Israel
Rights organization is guilty of overkill and risks undermining its own mission
JOSEE LEGAULT,
The Gazette
July 27 2007

Courtesy of the Quebec chapter of B'nai Brith, there's a very strange controversy brewing in the federal riding of Outremont where a by-election is due this fall.

B'nai Brith fired off a strongly worded press release demanding Liberal leader St?phane Dion dump his handpicked candidate, respected international relations expert Jocelyn Coulon, whom Dion wants as his foreign affairs minister should he ever form a government.

The human rights watchdog says Coulon has a "well-documented anti-Israel bias," a "hostile attitude toward Israel," "anti-U.S. rhetoric" and that his calls for the end of the isolation of Hamas "ought to disqualify him."

According to this week's West End Chronicle, Morse Moghrabi, B'nai Brith's legal counsel for Quebec, warned, in an email to B'nai Brith leadership, that Coulon "is a subtle individual with very pro-Arab/pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel/anti-American/anti-West views."

Steven Slomovitch, also of B'nai Brith, is quoted as saying Coulon's views are "obviously a grave concern to the Jewish people."

It is perhaps the last sentence that contains B'nai Brith's main problem here. It is growing increasingly tiresome to have that organization sound as if it speaks for the "Jewish people," among whom there is a much greater variety of viewpoints than there is at B'nai Brith. Regarding Coulon, it's important to note the Quebec-Israel Committee was quick to voice its disagreement with B'nai Brith.

But it's also troubling to see B'nai Brith act in a way that can undermine high-profile people's reputations by making an unfounded case against those it says are anti-Israel. Others have expressed views that B'nai Brith has labelled as anti-Semitic, xenophobic, intolerant, and so on.

Anyone who has read Coulon's columns, whether they agree with him or not, would need a very fertile imagination to brand his opinions as anti-Israel.

Last June, B'nai Brith also went after Serge Chapleau, La Presse's brilliant cartoonist. It called his cartoon of Mario Dumont dressed as a Hasid "grossly offensive" and a reminder of "the worst anti-Semitic ravings." To call this accusation false is an understatement.

In December 2000, Yves Michaud also got a taste of B'nai Brith's medicine. Saying that he had peppered an interview to CKAC with "insults against Jews," it also asked then-Premier Lucien Bouchard to dump him as a potential Parti Quebecois candidate for the riding of Mercier.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Two days later, the National Assembly adopted unanimously a shameful motion of censure against Michaud. Bouchard resigned on Jan. 11, jumping at the chance to dump the PQ and present himself as a paragon of tolerance against what he now saw as his party's xenophobic tendencies.

In its press release applauding Bouchard for fighting the PQ's "sectarian and intolerant" attitude, B'nai Brith referred to Michaud's "manifestations of xenophobia and intolerance."

To be sure, B'nai Brith has the freedom of expression. If it disagrees with some of Coulon's views, it can debate with him. But freedom of expression also carries the notion of responsibility.

Is it responsible to keep making these kinds of accusations without firm evidence or to try to keep honest citizens out of politics by calling on their leaders to axe them?

It not only risks hurting reputations needlessly - and a reputation is a precious thing in life. It can also have dire impact on careers. This is not a game. This is serious stuff. When B'nai Brith publishes its annual report on anti-Semitic incidents in Canada, it names people, sometimes with no reason, including respected journalists, without weighing the possible consequences.

When it does this, B'nai Brith also helps trivialize the real thing. Words have meaning. Being anti-Israel means something, so does being xenophobic, anti-Semitic, intolerant or racist.

By crying wolf, using such grave words when they're not warranted, we risk missing the real thing when it does rear its ugly head.

Lesley Hughes was also not the first poltical candidate wrongly accused by the B'Nai Brith to sue:

B'nai B'rith Canada: With malice aforethought
Winnipeg Free Press
November 26, 1987

In 1984, while running for election to the Canadian Parliament as a Conservative Party candidate (this would be the Progressive Conservative Party, not the Reform/Alliance Conservative Party), Winnipeg schoolteacher Luba Fedorkiw, discovered, to her utter amazement, that B'nai B'rith Canada, a major so-called Jewish "anti-defamation" organization, had circulated an internal memo which accused the candidate of "Jew-baiting."

This allegation was subsequently repeated in the Winnipeg Sun, and the resulting defamation cost her the election. Luba Fedorkiw sued B'nai B'rith Canada for libel, with the result that she was eventually awarded $175,000 in actual damages and $225,000 in punitive damages against the organization.

And another viewpoint from an American scholar on Ms. Fedorkiw:

An American Professor Responds to a 'Jewish Activist'

Another example of behavior by Jewish organizations that tends to chill free expression involved the Canadian teacher Luba Fedorkiw. Running for the Canadian Parliament in 1984, she "discovered to her utter amazement that B'nai B'rith Canada ... had circulated an internal memo which accused her of 'Jew-baiting!'" (L. Wilcox, 1996, pp. 81-82). The allegation was repeated in the Winnipeg Sun along with the assertion that she was being investigated by B'nai B'rith on suspicion of anti-Semitism. The resulting defamation cost her the election to David Orlikow, and subjected her to malicious harassment.

According to Ms. Fedorkiw, when the investigation was publicized, she received obscene and harassing telephone calls, a swastika was spray-painted on her campaign office, and a number of her political supporters withdrew their backing. She sued for libel and won a $400,000 judgment on the basis that a claim that she had said her opponent was "controlled by the Jews" was not true.

This new attack on journalists is unprececedeted. We've seen in with the way that the Conservatives cherry picked articles written by Michael Ignatieff, to launch Karl Rove style attack ads.

I'm surprised that Peter Kent, who himself was once a journalist, would stoop to such tactics. He should know about things like 'freedom of the press' and 'freedom of speech'.

So B'Nai Brith cries wolf and Peter Kent cries 'yeah'. I cry 'enough is enough'. I want my country back.

The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

German poet and novelist, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, wrote: "It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it".

During the 2008 election campaign, a rather bizarre story came out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, concerning Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes, who was being accused of antisemitism.

What made the case even more bizarre was the involvement of Peter Kent, the Conservative MP representing a large, predominantly Jewish riding (IN ONTARIO!!!), and a close friend of the B'Nai Brith, one of the groups who lodged the complaint against Ms. Hughes.

Since there are few investigative reporters these days, unless they're uncovering a bogus nanny-gate scandal; I did a little bit of research on my own, curious thing that I am, and have discovered that this was more political then political correctness. Why else would they wait until the candidate replacement deadline had passed before forcing Dion's hand, and then make such a big splash about Liberals hating Jews, or some such nonsense?

I'm going to post a few related stories that all connect, even though on the surface they appear to be unrelated; but first to the article that got this former journalist in hot water (written in 2002).

Get the Truth -by Lesley Hughes

Last week Canada revealed itself once again as a truly unique nation. In a world where dead warriors are commonplace and taken for granted, this country stopped, paid attention, lowered the flags and gave full military honours to four soldiers, who died inexplicably and tragically at the hands of our allies. (Yet four years later Harper refused to honour Canada's fallen soldiers)

We all felt the shock and the sorrow. The corporate media, privately owned newspapers, television and radio chains lingered especially on the pain and dignity of their survivors.

This was hard to swallow, coming from the same media that, in a fit of Me-Too-ism, couldn't wait to send young Canadians into a war on terrorism, which they hardly bothered to investigate; the same media that show every willingness to sacrifice more lives and families without pausing to confront the most basic question Canadians want answered about Afghanistan. What, exactly, are we doing there? (ironically at about the time that the complaints were lodged against Ms. Hughes six years later, Canadians are still wondering what we're doing there)

Truth may have been the casualty of war in former ages, but this war is different. While major media busy themselves waving flags, a global network of independent journalists, who have no interests to protect, no secrets to hide, are tracking and documenting its development on a daily basis.

Among the best: the Web site The Emperor's New Clothes (www.tenc.net) and Mike Ruppert, editor and publisher of From the Wilderness newsletter out of California (www.copvcia.com) .

Using and sharing only published and sourced news stories from world media, and official documents of various governments either leaked or available under freedom of information acts, these journalists have assembled a disturbing picture, which suggests CIA foreknowledge and complicity of highly placed officials in the U.S. government around the attacks on the World Trade Center Sept. 11.

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.

(I have to stop here because the above is the paragraph that was used to call her antisemitic. She does not suggest that the Jewish people were behind the attack, only that Israeli intelligence had warned the Bush Administration weeks prior to the attack, and since it looked like nothing was being done in the U.S., Israel was not about to let their people be victimized, just in case the reports were true.

This doesn't make them complicit, only wise. If they hadn't vacated their offices they would have been accused of knowing the attack was imminent but doing nothing to protect their people. She can be called anti-American (a stretch), or anti-war, but definitely not antisemitic.)

Her story continues:

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.

So far, no one has been bold enough to claim $2.5 million in profits. No serious search for the speculator is under way.

More important to Canadians, the facts uncovered by Internet journalism suggest that the war in Afghanistan has little to do with the attacks of Sept.11; that it's the result of lengthy failed negotiations between American businessmen and the Taliban over access to drugs and oil.

Mike Ruppert, a former LAPD narcotics officer turned journalist, maintains that Wall Street, (from whom the CIA gets its strategists and directions) is heavily dependent on laundered drug money, which helps keep the Fortune 500 and the stock market afloat. The IMF recently estimated that about $1.5 trillion goes through the world's banks every year, at least $500 billion of it from drugs.

His documents show that in January, 2001, the Taliban destroyed their opium crops, which normally supply 70 per cent of the world's heroin. In May, the U.S. gave the Taliban $43 Million in mysterious aid. Sept. 11 was a turning point.

The U.S. bombed, invaded, captured the Taliban, and opium farms are now back in business. The Financial Times has reported that the next harvest will be a record breaking 4,500 tonnes, much of it headed to the U.S.A.

Ruppert and others have tracked the progress of an urgent pipeline, which American oilmen have been trying to build through Afghanistan since 1991. They stated publicly that they could not do it without a sympathetic Afghan government in place. Newly installed prime minister Hamid Karzai is a former employee of Unocal Oil.

Negotiations on the Central Asian pipeline resumed in October and an agreement to proceed with it was announced in February.

Ruppert also notes that Osama Bin Laden was treated for his chronic kidney disease at the American Hospital in Dubai last summer. Although wanted for the bombing of two U.S. embassies and eligible for execution by American agents, he flew away undisturbed. The sole coverage of these events in Canada has come from Barrie Zwicker, media critic at Vision TV.

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.

Lesley Hughes is a freelance writer and broadcaster in Winnipeg. Reprinted with permission. Since Lesley’s column on May 1, the mainstream media have at last also "discovered" elements of this deeper, more sinister, story.

Since that article was written, many books have been published, agreeing with Lesley Hughes and all of the intelligent and insightful people she has mentioned. These were not her musings but a simple attempt by a caring journalist to encourage Canadians to question the needless deaths of our soldiers.

When Harper changed our mission, the death toll has risen significantly, and yet today we are still putting our fingers in our ears and chanting "la la la la la la la la"

I recently read the book, 9/11 and American empire: Intellectuals speak out / edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, and in it they go even further, suggesting that if the Bush Administration did not directly instigate the attacks, they at least allowed them to happen to further their agenda. The evidence is overwhelming and we owe it to ourselves to at least open our minds to the possibility.

Remember the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour? Not a surprise as It turns out.

The wonderful Helen Thomas, who was a member of the White House press corps for sixty years, recently made a comment about journalists today. She suggested that they lack the gift of skepticism. Well apparently, so do we.