[MadIvan]

The Sunday Times is reprinting this article which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Well worth a re-post, I thought.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Read this one before... VERY GOOD.

You find the greatest stuff. Thanks!

[Bulldogs22]

"Had Mr Clinton spent less time with voluptuous girls"


Monica?

[Poincare]

Read it in the WSJ Thursday or so. Surprized that it did not turn up on FR sooner.

That's a bump.

[Asclepius]

As a proud defender of the West?s civilisation, and decided to defend it to the last breath, without reservations I should join Mr Bush and Mr Blair barricaded in a new Fort Alamo. Without reluctance I should fight and die with them. And this is the only thing about which I have no doubts at all.

Indeed. We should all take our places on the barricades.

I respectfully disagree with Fallaci about the "texture of Islam" etc. People generally prefer freedom to oppression, even our Muslim brothers and sisters.

[AZLiberty]

This is as confusing to read in The Sunday Times as it was in the Wall Street Journal. She argues so much with herself that it's hard to see what she really wants to happen. But the last two paragraphs maks it clear: the battle is to defend Western civilization against Islamic fundamentalism and oppression. This battle, like the Alamo, is worth dying for.

[Gritty]

What you quietly call “differences of opinion” are in reality pure hate... Do you know why? Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors.

In a large sense, she is very correct.

Europe has forsaken it's Christian roots and replaced them with the shallow tendrils of secular humanism, which is best exemplified by their socialism. They have lost their moral compass, so they don't even know which way to turn to get back home.

The Islamics have merely seen the wide-open rotting breach and poured their alien masses through into a decaying civilization which they intend to eventually rule by the bloody sword.

[eleni121]

Oriana started to see the light when she wrote her book on Lebanon and the horrors commited by the Muslims there. My, she has certainly come around to the right! As many of us have...

[Lanza]

Wow. I got really scared after reading that. I feel we are very alone, and most of Europe will be Muslim in 50 years. These idiot peaceniks HERE need to knock it off.

Ivan, your posts are excellent.

[SarahW]

"When in the name of peace we surrender to violence, tyranny, when in the name of peace we resign to fear, we give up dignity and freedom, it is no longer peace. It’s suicide. "

Patrick Henry redux - and truer words were never spoken.

[Truthsearcher]

I agree with some of her points but I disagree with just as much.

How can she compare the USSR's presence in Afghanistan to ours? The USSR did ask the women to take off their Burka's, but they did not liberate the Afghan people, they merely went to impose a different form of oppression: communism.

Her article is full of a kind of European chauvinism, that some how Europeans have the capacity to appreciate liberty but that the people in the middle east aren't. She completely glosses over how we established freedom in Japan, and complete ignores that we created or help maintain the viability of democracies in many places in Asia, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Phillipines, etc, none of which have a historical affinity for liberty prior to our arrival.

She goes on about how liberty was "returned" to the Eurpoeans and that in the Middle East they never had it and therefore won't really want it.
I say she is wrong. Human being are born with the asperation to be free, that longing is in all of us, including those living under tyranny in the middle east.

[marron]

I love this woman.

[rageaholic]

Excellent article, since 9/11 I've come to be an admirer of Oriana Fallaci, hadn't heard of her before.

As for wars of survival, the situation is not nearly so grim. So far we're fighting a relative handfull of cave dwelling extremists.

I don't disagree with Fallaci's characterizaion of islam as a primitive cult of mindless godbots, but the fact of the matter is, now that 9/11 awoke America from our PC stupor, islam simply cannot mobilize the force necessary to seriously threaten our civilization. If they were even fractionally capable of this kind of effort, Israel would have ceased to exist long ago.

That being said, Europe may eventually be swallowed up by islamic immigration and birth rates, but I suspect they'll be awoken by their own 9/11 type attacks before its too late.

At least now its fair to call Islam the malevolent virus that it is. Imagine saying that before 9/11!

[Diddle E. Squat]

She paints an overly dark picture, perhaps to capture attention and make some good points. But her near-doom conclusion overlooks an important fact: Whether or not the people of Iraq are ready to earn its freedom, the people of Iran ARE ready and most likely will be able to form a functional democratic form of government, if/when they are able to depose the current regime.

[Interesting Times]

In a world of yappy talking heads and interchangeable pundits, Oriana Fallaci stands alone.

[Nachum]

Great post.

[185JHP]

One smart biscotti.

[Eva]

This was on Opinion Journal a few days ago. It is really very well written and very moving. I think that I am going to buy her book. She sounds like quite a woman.

[denydenydeny]

Indexing.

[katnip]

Besides, Europe does not care for the 221,484 Americans who died for her in the second world war, sir.

This is the most heartbreaking.

That so many Americans died for their freedom and they will so smugly give it away is nauseating.

To think so many Americans are descendants of these people is astounding.

Something magic must happen to people after they come to America.