Well-educated by politically active parents who opposed Italian Fascism, Ms. Fallaci was old enough during the rise of Mussolini to observe and understand the terrible and unnecessary calamity that befell her country then. She saw intelligent journalists and local civic leaders cry out in articles and speeches to warn their fellow Italians of the danger. She watched as they were imprisoned and, if they escaped to other countries, assassinated, until the warning voices were all stifled and silenced. She learned from history as it was happening the horrific price that Italy paid for its failure to recognize evil in the making. She lived through relentless bombings during which destruction rained on artifacts of Italian culture. She was aware of her father's torture at the hands of the Fascists, saw him retire to a remote hill town and die in defeat. She knows first-hand the cruel toll exacted on both Italian resistance fighters and Allied liberators to correct the mistake her people made in allowing Fascism to gain power.

Now the same pattern is repeating itself in Europe and America, as the tentacles of Islamo-fascism engulf western civilization. In their written manifestos, the Islamists make no secret of their intention to conquer and subjugate Europe and America. In the sermons that rant from the leaders of their mosques week after week they exhort the faithful to commit without reservation to the holy war against western culture. They live on the largesse of their western host countries, while working steadfastly to destroy their benefactors. Living on public welfare in England, they call for the destruction of England. Living in America, they openly burn and trample the American flag. And through lawsuits, intimidation, and assassination, once again they are silencing the voices that warn against them.

Recently, a preliminary judge in Italy succumbed to political pressure from Islamists and their Italian apologists who brought suit against Ms. Fallaci on charges that she defamed Islam in her most recent book, La Forza della Ragione (The Force of Reason).** Judge Armando Grasso, in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, ordered Oriana Fallaci to return to Italy from the United States to stand trial in her native country. According to Hyscience, this is "in spite of the fact that state prosecutors had originally dismissed accusations of defamation from an Italian Muslim organization, and said Fallaci should not stand trial because she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech."

With a courage learned from her parents and refined during a lifetime of frontline journalism, Oriana Fallaci still cries out against the impending danger. She describes in detail the methods by which the Islamo-fascists penetrate a civilized country, by which they develop the skills and resources in loco to destroy their host nation, by which they stockpile and train for Jihad against those who made them welcome. She watches with pain and disbelief as the western countries ignore the warning--even after the strike on the Twin Towers which should have been a louder wake-up call than the attack on Pearl Harbor. She sees the affluent westerners lulled in the apathy of their materialism return to buying their SUVs, going to their soccer games, watching Hollywood fantasies instead of understanding real life, worshiping liberal entertainment icons instead of national patriots. And she weeps with words, and her words are tears.

Cross posted at American Daughter

*The Rage and the Pride, by Oriana Fallaci, Rizzoli Press, New York, 2002

**On "Fallaci Charged With Defaming Islam" at Hyscience