PING!!!
Ex-G.I. candidate finds election battle all too real
Updated Monday, July 28th 2008, 2:44 PM
An Al Jazeera spokesman says the network was not trying to kidnap Allen West.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West thought he’d left behind the specters of Iraq when he decided to run for Congress in Florida. But a recent interview request lead him to suspect he was a target for kidnapping.
West’s combat instincts flared a few days ago when his campaign office got a call from a young woman who identified herself as a booker for the Al Jazeera network’s English-language channel.
“She told my staff that she wanted to talk about the perceived uptick in violence in Afghanistan,” West tells us. “I found that strange, since I haven’t been in Afghanistan in eight months. There are a lot of other people better qualified to speak to that subject.
“But my b.s. flag really went up when they said they wanted my address, to pick me up at night. They said they would send a car but wouldn’t tell me where it was going.
“I don’t know if it was a kidnapping attempt,” says West, who is challenging first-term Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in the Sunshine State. “But I am not going to entrust Al Jazeera with my life. I said, ‘Cancel the interview!’”
West believes he has every reason to be wary. In 2003, while he was serving in the Sunni Triangle, his unit was targeted for an ambush. West’s controversial questioning of a suspect (he fired his pistol next to the suspect’s head) helped foil the assassination plot.
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Go, Col West!