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. Lesley Hughes - Get the Truth

h/t Dawg/ Black Rod

(I have been trying to reach Ms. Hughes campaign office for confirmation…line’s busy.)

UpDate: Reached the Campaign Office and spoke to the very pleasant campaign manager, Selina Bieber. They are aware of the story…the Globe and Mail had called. they are trying to verify it. I left my number and said I’d be happy to talk to the candidate.)

Update II Smoking Gun! At the lovely “Canada Wants the Truth Blog” from 2007 “Barrie Zwicker and Lesley Hughes to speak Thursday September 6th, Winnipeg MB Canada

Thursday on the 3rd floor of Mondragon (91 Albert street.) for 7:30 PM, featuring Author, Media Critic Barrie Zwicker & Fromer CBC jounalist, Editor of Canadian Dimension (www.canadiandimension.com) Leslie Hughes will be discussing 9/11.”

Hey, isn’t Barry Zwicker Smilin Jack’s Troother pal??

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Update III And here is a report of Ms. Hughes as a panelist at a Troother event.

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Update IV: Here we go. Thank you Kate, Blazing, Daimnation and Jonathan Kay at the National Post for linking into this story. With Jonathan we now have MSM ignition….The Post breaks stories, let’s see who follows.

On a side note - I wrote Jonathan to ask him to credit Dr. Dawg and The Black Rod from whom I got the details. So far no call back from Ms. Hughes or her campaign office.

Selina Bieber, Ms. Hughes’ campaign manger who I had a nice chat with this afternoon told me she had already heard from the Globe and Mail - question of the day - will the G&M go with the story or will they sit on it? I am not optimistic. And what of poor Jason? Crickets? Or a head explosion of Biblical proportions?

Update V: The Globe and Mail weighs in - by basically burying the story (they hope) blending it with assorted other candidate outrages.

Winnipeg-area Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes was forced to explain an article she had written about conspiracy theories alleging that the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that Israeli businesses had advance warning to vacate the premises. The remarks surfaced a day after she joined Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion in a major public outreach to Canada’s Jewish community.

“I find any interpretation of my journalism as anti-Semitic personally offensive and I heartily apologize for that perception,” she said in a statement released late yesterday. globe and mail

Non-apology, apology not accepted: yes, the underlying narrative of the Troothers is implicitly ante-Semitic; but, more importantly, it is batshit crazy. You cannot apologize for being insane - you just have to live with it. But the Liberals are surely not so desperate that they have to nominate crazy people.

But what were the Liberals thinking having Dion sign her nomination papers? More on that tomorrow.

Past the falling bodies, the smoke, the second plane it is the blue sky which stays with me.

We were lucky enough to have a warning as bright as the sun on 9/11. Which, to a degree, we have heeded.

But there will be other blue skies.

Hang on: he got a grave? The UK actually shipped his body back to Pakistan for a “proper burial” and didn’t wrap it in bacon first? kathy

Garlic for vampires, dogs and pigs for Islamists: works like the wonderfully ancient charm it is. If you are fighting the 7th century you need to use 7th century tactics.

Hitchens’ second go, which is what I think the video is of, lasts, perhaps 15 seconds and half a cup of water. No question, the Hitchens gag reflex and fear of drowning leave him wide open to the fear which waterboarding creates.

And, equally no question, this is a horribly effective means of scaring the living daylights out of someone.

Which is, of course, the point.

Hitchens’ conclusion is that this is torture and that “I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.” And, of course, he’s right. We all wish that waterboarding, leave aside the nastier, leaves marks - visible and invisible - end of of torture, need never be associated with our names. But have we that luxury?

At the moment I think we do which is why Graydon Carter was happy to dare Hitch to go mano mano with a damp towel. It is a luxury hard won by 4000 dead in Iraq, dead Canadians in Afghanistan, a series of successes against a strategically inept al Qaeda, the beclowing of radical Islam and, frankly, a great deal of very good luck.

Will that luck hold; Lord I hope so.

But here, via Andrew Sullivan, is the case for the other side:

But at yesterday’s Aspen panel on nuclear non-proliferation, the general consensus was that there’s a reasonably high likelihood that a nuclear device will be detonated in an American city, New York or Washington most likely, at some point in the next ten years. And the experts on the panel, John Holdren and Joe Cirincione among them, are not exactly attached to the Bush Administration worldview. After such an attack, we’ll look back — those of us still around, obviously — on our efforts to combat al Qaeda and judge them inadequate to the task, just as we look back now on the Clinton Administration’s pre-9/11 preparations (and the Bush Administration’s, as well) as thoroughly inadequate. So I suppose I’m convinced of two things simultaneously: Al Qaeda is fairly weak, and not very popular at all, and that this might not matter as much as people think. jeffrey goldberg, the atlantic

Dr. Dawg has seen the movie and didn’t like the tie in between the Koran and the ongoing Islamic terrorism which Wilders’ film underscores. Dawg drags out the hoary idea that the Bible has blood curdling passages too, so there. Which explains all the headlines we see about Anglicans beheading the infidels and Biblically inspired Amish hostage takings. I don’t have time for a point refutation of Dawg and I doubt it is necessary - the best example he can come up with is Fred Phelps who, one must admit is pretty horrible and has a following which numbers in the tens none of whom, so far as I am aware, has crashed a jet into a building while singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

It is much worse than a sad day for free speech on the net - it is proof that militant Islam can overpower our most basic rights. Fitna was political commentary. It had footage which was widely available. What made it unacceptable to the Islamofascists is that it made the direct link between the terror and atrocities committed by radical Islamists and the nature of Islam.

HotAir reassures:

Don’t worry, the film’s still around. Google Video has it for the moment and I hear that it’s up and down on YouTube too. When all else fails, just search for “fitna” and “torrent” and all should be well. They don’t call it “viral video” for nothing: Once it’s released into the population, you can never quite stamp it out. LiveLeak did its job for as long as it needed to. hotair

And HotAir points out that the threats which caused LiveLeak to pull the film has pretty much proven Wilders’ point.

I have downloaded a copy from http://www.sendspace.com/file/bodnck

h/t sda

This is pretty damned powerful.

It takes fifteen minutes to watch.

I suspect by putting a link to it on my blog I might be in violation of s.13 of the Human Rights Act.

Somethings are important enough that you have to take that risk.

Update: LiveLeak demonstrates what real freedom of speech is about:

That being said, our being offended is no reason to deny Mr Wilders the right to have his film seen. Pre-emptive censorship or a discriminatory policy towards freedom of speech are both things we oppose here on LiveLeak.com. A person has a simple, clear choice about whether to view this film. No one is being forced to view it and nor is it being broadcasted on every channel on their television set. If you click on media simply to be annoyed, it is pointless to blame others for your choice. liveleak

1.5 million views in English, 2.5 in Dutch (population of the Netherlands 16.57 million). Isn’t the net grand!

Balousheh’s three children — 3-year-old Salam, 6-year-old Ahmed and 9-year-old Osama — were in the family car on their way to school when gunmen opened fire from two vehicles. The three were killed along with their driver. Doctors said one of the boys was hit by 10 bullets to the head. Dr. Yael Kaynan, PJ media

Quite a message. Gaza is tragic; it is also redeemable if its inhabitants are willing to forsake the gunmen.

I have, as far back as I can remember, opposed the ideas of multiculturalism. The notion that all cultures - and therefore all ideas and values - are equal is appalling. It is at best moral equivalence and at worst plain racism under an “enlightened” guise. I also don’t remember inviting any Muslims into Canada, I have invited some Portuguese relatives - any country could always do with more Portuguese people, especially Portugal which seems to have gone all Belgian in the last twenty years.

As for inviting Muslims, I wouldn’t mind doing that at all. In doing so I’d just remind them that they are living in Canada now, and if they’d like to stay they must be loyal to ours laws, our values and our Queen. There are over 200 countries in the world, we are objectively one of the best. If you are honest enough to understand and admit this, act accordingly. Like the old British official who promised to hang widow killers, we should stand ready to do the same. the gods of the copybook headings

When I wrote below of the need for an open, no holds barred, immigration debate in Canada this is exactly the sort of position I was hoping to hear. It is not my position as I am increasingly inclined to believe that sorting Muslims from Islamists is near impossible and that the perversion of Islam preached and practiced by Islamists is entirely incompatible with liberal, secular democracy; but Publius’ suggestion had the merit of presuming nothing.

Now, whether Canadian society can shuck off thirty or forty years of the multicultural delusion is a whole other story. But it is a story which needs to be openly debated.

h/t the flea who has a long and interesting post on one of my all time favorite Frank Herbert novels