Monica Crowley

Dateline: Jerusalem

I woke up this morning to see the sun rise over Jerusalem. Everything in Jerusalem is built with limestone--there are no skyscrapers, no towering steel monstrosities. Everything is built in keeping with the Old City, and with the traditions of thousands of years ago.  It is a breathtaking sight.

You cannot throw a small limestone in this country without hitting a site significant to either Jews or Christians--or both. Yesterday, I visited the tomb of Abraham in Hebron. Earlier, I entered Bethlehem and saw the traditional birthplace of Jesus. There is something calming about standing in these spots, something that transcends the centuries and places you in the bigger narrative of mankind.

It's an important thing to remember, especially as war in the name of religion is waged all around us here in Israel.  The Holy Land is both stunningly beautiful and ravaged by holy wars of every century. Looking around, you wonder why God chose this place. And you realize that when you stand in Israel, you are at the fulcrum of an epic battle, regardless of what century in which you stand.

This Weekend: Live from Jerusalem

This weekend I'll be doing the program from Jerusalem.  There's much to talk about from the front lines of the war on violent Islam.  The big story here: violence across the Gaza Strip that killed at least 13 people, including a 2-year-old boy.  The fighting on Friday was among the deadliest in nearly two months and marred the first anniversary of Hamas' upset victory in Palestinian elections.

Also this week, Israel's prime minister made his strongest warning yet to Iran - saying Israel would meet a nuke threat with "all the means at our disposal.   I'll be talking with Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post.

I'll also be talking about the news back home in the race for 2008.  Hillary and Obama have hit the ground running.   I'll also be joined by Dr. Daniel Pipes to talk about the war on terror. (see below)

I hope you'll join me this weekend on the radio!

Weekend Guest: Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University, and a prize-winning columnist for such newspapers as the New York Sun, Jerusalem Post, L'Opinione, La Razón, Australian, and Globe and Mail.

His website, DanielPipes.org, is the single most accessed internet source of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. It offers an archive of his work and an opportunity to sign-up to receive e-mails of his writings as they appear.

The Wall Street Journal calls Mr. Pipes "an authoritative commentator on the Middle East." CBS Sunday Morning says he was "years ahead of the curve in identifying the threat of radical Islam." "Unnoticed by most Westerners," he wrote for example in 1995, "war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States." The Boston Globe states that "If Pipes's admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11."  SOURCE: DANIELPIPES.ORG

Purchase Pipe's great book, Militant Islam Reaches America at Amazon.com.

All the news that's fit to leak

Well, there they go again. The liberal mainstream press cannot get enough of leaking America's national security secrets. Splashed on the front page of this morning's New York Times is a story entitled, "Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S.". It reports  efforts by the Pentagon and CIA to obtain banking and credit records of some Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States. The FBI, the main agency responsible for domestic counterterrorism, has played a lead role in doing this kind of thing since 9-11. This story goes on to say that the Pentagon and CIA have also gotten involved on the domestic side "only rarely," and that the legal authority for such action "dates back nearly three decades" and "was strengthened by the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act." In other words, such action is legal and used only very rarely. But that doesn't stop the Times from trying to imply that the Bush administration is doing something wrong, overstepping its bounds, and oh yeah, spying on you. Ridiculous. Unless you are wiring dough to al Qaeda in Pakistan (or London or Detroit), you have nothing to worry about. What's more disturbing is the pattern we continue to see from the New York Times and others of  reporting what should be SECRET efforts to fight terror.  They don't even do so reluctantly. They fall over themselves to report these secrets. Disgraceful. And even more disgraceful: the people leaking this stuff to begin with. Find them. And prosecute them. Enough already.

This Weekend on the Radio

President Bush continues to seek support for his military surge in Iraq.  Democrats on the hill continue to blast the plan, while offering no real solutions of their own.  We’ll talk about the President’s plans with Colonel Jack Jacobs (US Army, retired), Medal of Honor Recipient for service in Vietnam.

There was something rotten in the City of New York this week and it's STILL unexplained.  We’ll discuss some of the possible causes.  Plus, Americans who go to the Hajj, and Mecca will never be the same!  And the real reason Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran (memo to the new Congressman Keith Ellison).

We’ll also mark the 5th Anniversary of Guantanamo Bay.  We're there, we're fair, and we're not going anywhere!   I’ll share more of my observations from my recent trip there and speak to Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the Joint Task Force, Guantanamo.

I hope you’ll join me on the radio this weekend!

Two Thoughts For Today

1.  On Monday of this week, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at Rev. Jesse Jackson's annual Rainbow/PUSH--Wall Street Project and said that it was about time to "raise taxes" on the rich people, by which she means, of course, middle-class people too.  Let's see.  The Democrats took control of Congress on Thursday, January 4.  That means it took Hillary all of 5 days to admit she wants to raise your taxes.

2.  This morning on ABC's "The View," Rosie O'Donnell took time out from dueling with Donald Trump to say that one of the first things the Democrats should do is "repeal the Patriot Act" because "it's robbed us of our civil liberities."  I would like to know a single civil liberty that Rosie feels she's been robbed of.  Just one.  Perhaps her ability to go on live national television every day and bash the president of the United States, the nation's foreign policy, the nation's laws on gay marriage, and on and on?  Her freedom of speech and to do what she likes really has been curtailed by the Patriot Act, hasn't it?

Senators & The Road to the White House

This Sunday morning on "Meet the Press," Senator Joe Biden of Delaware formally announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president. Well, you know what they say about the U.S. Senate: it's made up of 100 legislators who each think they can and will be president. And yet, American history is replete with examples of Senators who have run for president and gone down in flames. In fact, the last time anyone went directly from the Senate to win the presidency was John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Every president since then has either ascended through the vice presidency or come from a governorship. The reason: executive experience. Most voters feel an uneasiness with electing a legislator (making the sausage of laws for a living) to Commander in Chief.   And yet, this time around, the top tier Democratic candidates are all Senators: Clinton of NY, Obama of Illinois, and Edwards of North Carolina.

Biden has now thrown his hat in, and Dodd of Connecticut is making similar sounds. There ARE two governors toying with getting in:  Vilsack of Iowa and Richardson of New Mexico. But they are considered second and even third tier candidates. All will have to walk over Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. Will a heavily Senate-oriented field damage Democrats' chances of winning the White House?

History says yes.  Stay tuned.

P.S.  And don't think former VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore doesn't know this!

This Weekend's Show: Pelosi-Palooza!

Brand new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged Friday that voters would see big results from the Democratic majority in Congress.   So far all we've seen is three days of festivities Pelosi orchestrated to introduce herself to the nation.    Crooner Tony Bennett provided the week's soundtrack at a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser Thursday night for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."   I'll be joined by Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner and author of Strategery.

We'll also be discussing the Alice in Wonderland coverage of Saddam Hussein's hanging.  Plus, 20,000 new troops?  All armchair generals reporting for duty!

I hope you'll join me this weekend on the radio-- or listen later this week on my podcast!

Saddam's Media Makeover

Last Saturday, December 30, I took to the radio waves to discuss, among other things, the execution of Saddam Hussein, which had literally just happened hours before.  There was a general sense of relief and jubiliation in the streets of Baghdad, and although there were two car bombings reported that day, the violence was much less than had been anticipated.  I reported, as did so many others that day, that Saddam's execution was good riddance to bad rubbish.  We were already talking about the effect it might have on the healing and reconciliation process in Iraq.

Fast forward 24 to 48 hours.  The American media---indeed, the Western world's media---got ahold of a cell phone video of Saddam's hanging and promptly turned a bookend of an event into a new cause celebre. "Saddam was taunted," they said.  "The Shiites mocked him."  "They hung him on Eid."  "This has sparked more sectarian wariness and violence."

Actually, no.  In the first 24 hours after his hanging, Iraqis were pretty OK with it.  It was us---our media, our pundits, who want so desperately for the US intervention in Iraq to fail---who decided to turn the hanging into a PR nightmare for the United States.  "WE were at fault,"  they argued.  "How could this have happened?"  "Is THIS what we've been fighting for?"  Once some of our enemies got wind of our handwringing and bellyaching, they ran with it.  And who can blame them?  If we hand them the ammunition, they are going to use it.

Getting lost in all of this strum und drang is the simple fact that this mass murderer deserved to be mocked, deserved to be taunted, and deserved to be hanged.  It's about time we started seeing our enemies as they are, not as we wish them to be.  And to stop making apologies for our decision to fight them.