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The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt
Wall St Journal ^ | 3-13-03 | Oriana Fallaci

Posted on 03/13/2003 4:13:00 AM PST by SJackson

Edited on 04/22/2004 11:48:26 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

NEW YORK -- To avoid the dilemma of whether this war should take place or not, to overcome the reservations and the reluctance and the doubts that still lacerate me, I often say to myself: "How good if the Iraqis would get free of Saddam Hussein by themselves. How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini." But it does not help. Or it helps in one way only. The Italians, in fact, could get free of Mussolini because in 1945 the Allies had conquered almost four-fifths of Italy. In other words, because the Second World War had taken place. A war without which we would have kept Mussolini (and Hitler) forever. A war during which the allies had pitilessly bombed us and we had died like mosquitoes. The Allies, too. At Salerno, at Anzio, at Cassino. Along the road from Rome to Florence, then on the terrible Gothic Line. In less than two years, 45,806 dead among the Americans and 17,500 among the English, the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, the Indians, the Brazilians. And also the French who had chosen De Gaulle, also the Italians who had chosen the Fifth or the Eighth Army. (Can anybody guess how many cemeteries of Allied soldiers there are in Italy? More than sixty. And the largest, the most crowded, are the American ones. At Nettuno, 10,950 graves. At Falciani, near Florence, 5,811. Each time I pass in front of it and see that lake of crosses, I shiver with grief and gratitude.) There was also a National Liberation Front in Italy. A Resistance that the Allies supplied with weapons and ammunition. As in spite of my tender age (14), I was involved in the matter, I remember well the American plane that, braving anti-aircraft fire, parachuted those supplies to Tuscany. To be exact, onto Mount Giovi where one night they air-dropped commandos with the task of activating a short-wave network named Radio Cora. Ten smiling Americans who spoke very good Italian and who three months later were captured by the SS, tortured, and executed with a Florentine partisan girl: Anna Maria Enriquez-Agnoletti.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 03/13/2003 4:13:00 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson
She brings up the Alamo but does not mention San Jacinto.The Republic of Texas was the result.Expecting perfection is folly.
2 posted on 03/13/2003 4:20:13 AM PST by MEG33
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To: SJackson
Orianna Fallaci is my favorite author, living or dead, bar none. The clarity of her writing is amazing, matched only by the strength of its compelling logic.
3 posted on 03/13/2003 4:27:37 AM PST by xm177e2 (Stalinists, Maoists, Ba'athists, Pacifists: Why are they always on the same side?)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
4 posted on 03/13/2003 4:34:52 AM PST by SJackson
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To: MEG33
Nor does she mention Monsieur Rose of Nacogdoches, the Frenchman who wouldn't cross the line (I know it might not have happened that way, but it's a great story) and was allowed to leave, live to a ripe old age and tell stories of the Alamo.
5 posted on 03/13/2003 4:38:22 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson
Outstanding.
6 posted on 03/13/2003 4:48:23 AM PST by Alouette
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To: SJackson
How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini.


7 posted on 03/13/2003 4:57:11 AM PST by Alouette
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To: dighton; general_re; SJackson
Brilliance ping.
8 posted on 03/13/2003 5:09:32 AM PST by aculeus
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To: SJackson
I never grow tired of reading Orriana Fallaci's prose.

She is the prophet for our times.

A generaton from now, when she, and many of us are dead, her clarion calls to the danger of these times will be revisited.

I hope they will be read with relief, as a revived civilization reads its foremothers counsel, and not as a warning missed by those of this generation.

9 posted on 03/13/2003 5:28:31 AM PST by happygrl
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To: SJackson
Fallaci bump.
10 posted on 03/13/2003 5:37:41 AM PST by Ben Chad
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To: xm177e2
I like Signora Fallaci's stuff, and greatly respect her, but this is one of her less coherent pieces. She's torn, she think's we've botched things up, but still realizes we're doing what we have to to. She also suspects the road ahead may be a mess, and she may also be right about that, but she fails to see how we had to take the slow course we have in order to have our assets in place. She's a reporter, essayist, and old fighter, but she's no logician.

Amatuers talk of tactics and strategy, professionals of logistics!

11 posted on 03/13/2003 5:49:43 AM PST by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Mesopotamiam Esse Delendam)
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To: SJackson
As I write in my book when I call bin Laden the tip of the iceberg and I define the iceberg as a mountain that has not moved for 1,400 years, that for 1,400 years has not changed, that has not emerged from its blindness, freedom and democracy are totally unrelated to the ideological texture of Islam. To the tyranny of theocratic states. So their people refuse them, and even more they want to erase ours.

She sees the problem very well. When you're dealing with Muslims, Western logic doesn't apply. It isn't anything like changing Shinto Japan into a modern democracy, it's handling something far more primitive and much larger.

12 posted on 03/13/2003 6:26:07 AM PST by xJones
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To: xm177e2
Orianna Fallaci is my favorite author, living or dead, bar none.

She's damn good!

13 posted on 03/13/2003 6:31:25 AM PST by tsomer
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To: SJackson
"As I write in my book when I call bin Laden the tip of the iceberg and I define the iceberg as a mountain that has not moved for 1,400 years, that for 1,400 years has not changed, that has not emerged from its blindness, freedom and democracy are totally unrelated to the ideological texture of Islam. To the tyranny of theocratic states. So their people refuse them, and even more they want to erase ours. "

* * *
This is the crucks of the matter. Many refuse to see that we are dealing with a medieval mindset. They believe that Western logic will save the day, but that logic is anathema to the Muslim sense of superiority.
I pray that Bush understands this chasm and doesn't go soft.
14 posted on 03/13/2003 7:53:00 AM PST by CaptainK
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To: SJackson
Bravo! Bravo!

Oriana! eccellente, il la cosa migliore!

Hank

15 posted on 03/13/2003 9:40:09 AM PST by Hank Kerchief
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To: SJackson
Late bump for a brilliant article.

Islamic immigration. Just say no.

16 posted on 03/14/2003 5:44:45 PM PST by dagnabbit
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To: happygrl
keyword - civilization - we'll see if there is one afterward.
17 posted on 03/15/2003 6:04:54 AM PST by flamefront (Take the oil money from the islamofascists! And not for the UN. Only UN-Americans ignore U.S.)
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