"No one should be surprised when Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States. I don't believe in inevitability. But I think it's pretty close to being inevitable"
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Scheuer’s line works because it’s engineered as a controlled panic: he opens by stripping the audience of its favorite refuge - surprise - then immediately gives them a faux escape hatch. “I don’t believe in inevitability” nods to American optimism and the policymaker’s allergy to determinism. But the follow-up (“pretty close to being inevitable”) slams that door shut. The rhetorical move is bureaucratic fatalism dressed up as prudence: he keeps one hand on the brake for credibility while flooring the accelerator for urgency.
The specific intent is less prediction than provocation. By declaring WMD-on-U.S.-soil almost certain, Scheuer isn’t just warning about capability; he’s indicting willful ignorance and institutional complacency. The subtext is that the post-9/11 security state, for all its budgets and reorganizations, still can’t solve the core problem: a motivated network needs only one success, while defenders need perfection, forever. “No one should be surprised” is also a moral preemption. If it happens, the public can’t claim it was unimaginable; the failure becomes political, not merely tragic.
Context matters. Coming from a public servant associated with counterterrorism analysis, the statement channels a particular era’s anxiety: the fear that the next attack would be spectacular, unconventional, and punish a country that treated terrorism as a headline rather than a strategy problem. It’s a warning meant to harden attention - and, implicitly, justify controversial measures by framing restraint as naivete in the face of near-certain catastrophe.
The specific intent is less prediction than provocation. By declaring WMD-on-U.S.-soil almost certain, Scheuer isn’t just warning about capability; he’s indicting willful ignorance and institutional complacency. The subtext is that the post-9/11 security state, for all its budgets and reorganizations, still can’t solve the core problem: a motivated network needs only one success, while defenders need perfection, forever. “No one should be surprised” is also a moral preemption. If it happens, the public can’t claim it was unimaginable; the failure becomes political, not merely tragic.
Context matters. Coming from a public servant associated with counterterrorism analysis, the statement channels a particular era’s anxiety: the fear that the next attack would be spectacular, unconventional, and punish a country that treated terrorism as a headline rather than a strategy problem. It’s a warning meant to harden attention - and, implicitly, justify controversial measures by framing restraint as naivete in the face of near-certain catastrophe.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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