Jonathan Raban seems to know. At least, the truth about terrorism. For that is the title of his piece in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books.
If you live, as I do, in an American city designated as a likely target by the Department of Homeland Security, the sheer proliferation of security apparatus in the streets assures you that there is a war on. Yet the nature and conduct of that war, and the character—and very existence—of our enemy, remain infuriatingly obscure: not because there's any shortage of information, or apparent information, but because so much of it has turned out to be creative guesswork or empty propaganda.
He gets pretty critical of Podhoretz, too, and about his dismissal of US policy towards Israel as one of the "reasons why 'They' hate us."
If you live, as I do, in an American city designated as a likely target by the Department of Homeland Security, the sheer proliferation of security apparatus in the streets assures you that there is a war on. Yet the nature and conduct of that war, and the character—and very existence—of our enemy, remain infuriatingly obscure: not because there's any shortage of information, or apparent information, but because so much of it has turned out to be creative guesswork or empty propaganda.
He gets pretty critical of Podhoretz, too, and about his dismissal of US policy towards Israel as one of the "reasons why 'They' hate us."