Just watched, via Youtube, much of the excellent Lt. Col. Allen West (US Army, ret.), GOP candidate for Florida's 22nd District, debating incumbent Rep. Ron Klein (D), who, not at all incidentally these days, is the recipient of $789,238 in campaign contributions from the financial services industry--more than top leaders of his own financial-services-friendly Democratic party. Not suprisingly, Klein supported the bailout bill, which West, bless him, opposed.
Fireworks in Segment 3 began at about 1:00 into the tape with West's answer, as transcribed below, to whether he would militarily support Israel in the event Israel attacked Iranian nukes:
West: "Absolutely I would. It's very important that we send a message to those who would seek to destroy us. And understand this: This war that we're fighting against, we have been very narrow-minded. It goes from the Phillipines with Abu Sayyaf, it goes into Southeast Asia, it goes into the Middle East, it goes into Europe, it comes right here to Broward County where five or six of the 9/11 terrorists infiltrated and attacked, eventually, the World Trade Towers. We have to tell anyone that threatens Western civilization, democratic ideals, rule of law, individual rights and freedoms, that we will not tolerate that. So yes, I would stand hand in hand with my Israeli brothers and sisters to let them we will not abandon them, and in my lifetime, Never Again."
Klein added his support for such an Israeli course of action, pitching it in terms of approval for Israel's prior strikes against Iraqi and Syrian nuclear installations. Then he added: "But at the same time, when we talk about threats of terrorism around the world and all the things we want to be rough and tumble about ... it seems to me we took our eye off the ball...Osama bin Laden is free today...I haven't received any intelligence reports that he has been or is in Iraq. The fact that this man is still alive and hasn't been punished, killed or brought to justice should be a moral outrage to every American.
West replied that OBL "stated the central front in the War on Terror to him was Iraq...You can go after one person, you can kill that one person, it will not make a difference with this enemy...."
Klein: "With all due respect, I have had the opportunity to meet with our generals, meet our State Department people who have worked in this area [derisive noise from the audience]...and it is very, very clear to me that you go after Osama bin Laden, you kill him or bring him to justice--don't give me this spider web kind of thing. He is the one who admitted this crime along with his colleagues. He needs to be brought to justice." Along with his network, he added.
Welcome to the political chasm. Allen West sees global jihad; Ron Klein derides this concept as a "spider web kind of thing," seeing instead a criminal who, along with his "colleagues" needs to be "brought to justice." Here's hoping the voters deputize Ron Klein to bring OBL in, and elect Allen West to lead in Congress.