Oriana "gets it"

Some of us got it in stages. Most of us got it by tying up disparate events over a long period of history.

Just started The Rage and the Pride. Oriana goes through many phases I shared.

1. Jihad is a cultural/religious phenomenon. Those of us who get it reject Marxist economic determinism or capitalist reform-by-trade economic determinism. Jihad is in the books, schools, and culture. Job training and welfare won't solve the problem.

2. Those who kill, or attempt to kill, massed civilians are not legally insane, "alienated," or "troubled."

3. If it's warfare, jihidiot, follow the rules of war. Wear uniforms and don't attack civilians.

This is why people are wary of Muslims. It has nothing to do with any pre-existing bias. Fact is, most Americans learned about Islam and Arabs through terrorism and jihad conducted by 'civilians.'

4. Negotiations, apologies, and other acts of surrender (see, dhimmitude) won't make any difference.

5. Moderate Muslims should be encouraged, but we can't expect them to take down Ikhwan by force.

6. Major lefty papers like the NYT can't be trusted. They'd rather jail middle America than some of their 'Oriental' spice friends. In Europe it's worse.

"Oh, Buffy, you're dating a bearded Taliban?"

"How totally post-colonial."

UPDATING:

Oriana’s Screed:
Truth we’re sure to miss.


Roman Candle:
Oriana Fallaci sheds heat and light.


The Rage of Oriana Fallaci

It's still just a book, even today. Twelve Danish Cartoons War has a higher body count, but the fight over the Rage and the Pride rages on in Europe. I'll review Force of Reason when I get to that one as well.

Fallaci three years ago.

"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......

.....It remains for the reasons I will try to state. And the first one is that, contrary to the pacifists who never yell against Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden and only yell against George W. Bush and Tony Blair, (but in their Rome march they also yelled against me and raised posters wishing that I'd blow up with the next shuttle, I'm told), I know war very well. I know what it means to live in terror, to run under air strikes and cannonades, to see people killed and houses destroyed, to starve and dream of a piece of bread, to miss even a glass of drinking water.....

.....The second reason is that this war should not happen now. If just as I wish, legitimate as I hope, it should have happened one year ago. That is, when the ruins of the Towers were still smoking and the whole civilized world felt American. Had it happened then, the pacifists who never yell against Saddam or bin Laden would not today fill the squares to anathematize the United States. Hollywood stars would not play the role of Messiahs, and ambiguous Turkey would not cynically deny passage to the Marines who have to reach the Northern front. Despite the Europeans who added their voice to the voice of the Palestinians howling "Americans-got-it-good," one year ago nobody questioned that another Pearl Harbor had been inflicted on the U.S. and that the U.S. had all the right to respond. As a matter of fact, it should have happened before. I mean when Bill Clinton was president, and small Pearl Harbors were bursting abroad. In Somalia, in Kenya, in Yemen. As I shall never tire of repeating, we did not need September 11 to see that the cancer was there. September 11 was the excruciating confirmation of a reality which had been burning for decades.....