Post-Democracy 
Richard Rorty on anti-terrorism and the national security state
Europe is coming to grips with the fact that al-Qaida’s opponent is the West, not just the United States. The interior ministers of the EU nations have been holding meetings to co-ordinate anti-terrorist measures. The outcome of these meetings is likely to determine how many of their civil liberties Europeans will have to sacrifice.
We can be grateful that the attack in Madrid involved only conventional explosives. Within a year or two, suitcase-sized nuclear weapons (crafted in Pakistan or North Korea) may be commercially available. Eager customers will include not only rich playboys like Osama bin Laden but also the leaders of various irredentist movements that have metamorphosed into well-financed criminal gangs. Once such weapons are used in Europe, whatever measures the interior ministers have previously agreed to propose will seem inadequate. They will hold another meeting, at which they will agree on more draconian measures.
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Richard Rorty, whose books included Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Truth and Progress, was professor emeritus of comparative literature and philosophy at Stanford University. He died in June 2007.
Other articles by this contributor:
How many grains make a heap? · After Kripke
To the Sunlit Uplands · Richard Rorty replies to Bernard Williams
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