Writer James Carroll is an outspoken columnist who calls the world as he sees it in all its glory and moral failings. A former priest, he is a bitter critic of many of the Bush administration’s policies in the war on terror and challenges his readers to examine their own beliefs. In a column about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, Carroll asked: “Why, actually, did the United States go to War? And why, even now, do citizens of the United States apparently feel so little compunction about having waged war without justification?”

Carroll has written a new novel–”Secret Father.” The thriller is set in another dark time, 1961Cold War Berlin in the days before the Wall went up. Carroll brings unique perspective to the telling of this story. His father was an Air Force intelligence officer stationed in Germany at the time and Carroll saw first-hand what it means to live in a country occupied by a foreign power. How the line between good and evil, light and dark, friend and foe, can be easily transposed and trespassed.

Did the long twilight of the Cold War prepare the US for the long twilight struggle of the war on terror–for better or worse? Are there fewer moral ambiguities in the war on terror?

Guests:

James Carroll, novelist and historian, author of the new book “Secret Father.” His other books include the New York Times bestseller “Constantine’s Sword.” James Carroll writes a weekly op-ed column for the Boston Globe.