Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them

About a year after 9/11, I was thinking there are so many little things terrorists could be doing, Why aren't they? All of a sudden we went from not being able to prevent planes from being hijacked to being able to prevent suicide bombers from blowing themselves up in malls. Or is it simply, there just aren't that many that want to attack us and have other concerns (moderate Islamic gov't's, European countries). This book discusses all this and more. Very enlightening read that rightfully questions conventional wisdom.

This is an interesting, valuable and important book, and I'm fairly sure almost no-one has or, for that matter will, read it. I will do what I can to change that. John Mueller is from a venerable but sadly rare tradition of Academic commentators: the skeptics. It's that perspective he lends to our "troubled times" and over this course of this tidily executed, thoroughly sourced and entertaining book, Mueller systematically demolishes much of the public hype which holds us up in airport terminals, eats up our tax dollars and does its level best to prevent us sleeping soundly in our beds. He makes, and repeats, a point which many otherwise perfectly sensible and well-informed commentators can't fathom: The biggest source of terror in our lives is not terrorists in Afghan caves, but our own politicians and media pundits constantly blathering about them. The terrorists themselves cause sporadic but, in fact, very limited mayhem. The thousands of hungry mouths who comprise the "terrorism industry" on the other hand - the politicians, civil servants, defence contractors, security analysts and media commentators - each of whom is primarily interested in justifying his own existence or convincing us to open our wallets - each has a vested interest in persuading us we should be soiling rather than sleeping in our beds. Their statements, therefore, we should take with a pinch of salt. But even though we all know we ought to, we don't. We acquiesce: we put up with speculative, unsourced, unattributed, and frequently credulous nonsense - we tolerate queues and being unneccesarily fondled at airports, hikes in tax rates and restrictions on our civil liberties. John Mueller's book sets out to provide us a reality check and ask, pointedly, why we are so easily prepared to do that. By way of preface Mueller lists a series of items which ought to be - but aren't - conventional wisdom. They're all very big points, among them: * Terrorism just doesn't do much damage considered in any reasonable context (nine times as many Americans are struck by lightning in the average year as are killed by terrorists) * Even where Terrorism has horrendous results, it tends to be one-off events (despite six years of anxiety, there has not been another terrorist attack in the U.S. *at all*, let alone one on the scale of 9/11) * Catastrophic events are by their nature are hard to repeat (never again will a plane full of unsuspecting passengers sit and allow unarmed men to fly them to their deaths without intervening, since the assumption "we'll be used as hostages so we're safe for now" no longer holds) * Terrorist actions tend to be counterproductive on almost every level any way: far from throwing New York into chaos, panic and Hobbesian brutality, the direct and immediate result of 9/11 was the sudden blossoming of compassion, cooperation and cohesion in the city on a completely unprecedented scale - a place not usually known for its neighborliness or Samaritan spirit *

I listened to Michael Medved [right wing radio talk show host with whom I usually agree] interview John Mueller about this book. Medved stronly disagreed when John said that terrorists are not a big deal. I had to agree with Mueller. It is the difference between perceived risk and calculated risk. Mueller is calculating the risk. Mueller is the man. The emperor has no significant terrorist risk and is over reacting.

At long last, a book has been published that takes a realistic look at the so-called `Global War on Terrorism' (GWOT) and provides an honest assessment of terrorist threat to the U.S. and its citizens. Its author John Mueller is to be congratulated for being the first author that this reviewer is aware of to put the 9/11 tragedy in a rational context. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 were indeed terrible and tragic. Yet according to Mueller, there is ample evidence that these attacks were aberration and not the prelude to an all out asymmetrical war against the U.S. by the Islamic extremists influenced by Osama bin Laden in a movement called al Qaeda. Indeed in his opinion the U.S. reaction to that dreadful day were completely out of proportion to the danger actually posed by Islamic terrorists. Looking at the essentially pointless GWOT, this book points out that terrorism like crime will always be with us, but the chances of a U.S. citizen being killed by a terrorist are considerably less than the same citizen being killed in a robbery. It also points out that the recurring phantom of terrorist use of WMD within the U.S. or any place else for that matter is highly implausible at best. Since 9/11 the U.S. Government has spent millions of dollars to protect Americans from a threat which, as this book points out, scarcely exists at all. The tragic events of 9/11 have basically served to fuel to the political demagogy, curtailments of constitutional rights, and bureaucratic absurdity that appear to be the principal fruits of the first foreign attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. A Baltimore newspaperman and acute observer of the human condition (H.L. Mencken) once commented that real motto of the United States ought to be "Safety First" not "E Pluribus Unim". He comment was based on his observations of the irrational fears that often drove his fellow citizens into ridiculous follies. This book supports his point.

I think people don't like this book because it forces us to reassess our fears. Many people criticize Mueller by saying he claims Al Queda is not a threat. On the contrary Mueller contends Al Queda is a threat, just not a very big one. Every time a catostrophic event happens in this country, we tend to falseley label it as an omen of things to come. If you disagree with Mueller thats fine, but the book is well written and presents points nobody else is bringing up.