Oriana Fallaci, RIP

The Posse notes with sadness the passing of Oriana Fallaci, fearless civilizational warrior.

We own her book The Rage and the Pride and of al lthe voices of the secular left raised after 9/11, hers was the most logical but also the most passionate.

Of particular note was her ringing call for clarity and strength from the Church, specifically His Holiness Benedict XVI.

Michelle Malkin makes the clear link between her passing and the Pope's remarks we referenced below.  It is the kind of connection Fallaci would have approved.  The opening paragraphs of The Force of Reason (which we read online) were a recitation, a much-needed history lesson on Islam's war with Christianity and the West.

It catalogued how - long before the first Crusader took up the cross, Muslim raiders ravaged the coasts of Italy and France.  All of the Mediterranean basin trembled before the armies of the Prophet, from Egypt to Spain.  Only in Asia Minor did the Byzantine Empire stem the tide.

Elsewhere the Crescent was triumphant, destroying the Visigothic kingdom of Spain in only a couple of years and driving on into France.

There, Charles Martel arguably saved Christendom by defeating the Muslims at Tours.  This was in 732, centuries before the Crusades.

Fallaci made clear that the Crusades were defensive campaigns, the long-delayed response of a disorganized West riven by dynastic rivalries.  Yet this is the sin - resistance - the Islam will never let go of.

Fallaci has passed on, but her words are shining beacons.  Would that George W. Bush had her vision and eloquence.  We have just lost our Churchill.