Do these conmen, professional liars and hysterics dominating America feel any shame? Do they ever get embarrassed? Why doesn’t polite society shun them? Why doesn’t the blob (America’s foreign policy establishment) cast them out? Why do universities honor them?<\/p>\n
I love this 2006 book by John Mueller<\/a>. He does a great job taking down the shysters who dominate our public life.<\/p>\n ChatGPT:<\/p>\n Short answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Shame\/embarrassment: rarely. The incentives reward alarmism, not sobriety; non-alarmist statements are \u201cexceedingly rare,\u201d while the market keeps producing fear. <\/p>\n \u2022 Why they aren\u2019t shunned: media, bureaucratic, and political ecosystems pay for worst-case talk and barely notice when the danger ebbs. <\/p>\n \u2022 Why the foreign-policy \u201cblog\/establishment\u201d doesn\u2019t cast them out: overestimation is career-safe, underestimation is punished (\u201cCYA\u201d), and the industry keeps cultivating fear. <\/p>\n Why the system protects alarmists (from ‘Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them<\/a>):<\/strong><\/p>\n Media economics: \u201cif it bleeds, it leads.\u201d Terror alerts led the news 23 times; de-alerts almost never did. Context (e.g., terror kills only a few hundred worldwide in most years) is seldom reported. <\/p>\n Bureaucratic incentives: agencies amplify vague threats so no one can blame them later; the formal term is \u201cCYA.\u201d <\/p>\n Official messaging promotes omnipresent peril (\u201cany place, any time, virtually any weapon\u201d), which justifies spending everywhere and makes backtracking embarrassing. <\/p>\n Security theater sticks: duct-tape guidance, almanac \u201cwarnings,\u201d and color-coded alerts train audiences to expect drama, not probabilities. <\/p>\n No scoreboard for failure: even after years without the predicted carnage, leaders retreat to \u201cwhat we are not seeing\u201d rather than admit error. <\/p>\n Fear is sticky: once embraced, it resists rational analysis; the \u201cterrorism industry\u201d keeps cultivating it. <\/p>\n What actually changes behavior (Mueller-Style<\/a>):<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Force probabilities into every claim; stop letting possibilities masquerade as certainties. <\/p>\n \u2022 Publish the crossover math (e.g., when flying becomes as risky as driving) every time fear is invoked. <\/p>\n \u2022 Reward officials and outlets that reduce fear where risk is low; shame the ones who sell hysteria. <\/p>\n \u2022 Sunset \u201ceverywhere spending\u201d unless programs show measured safety gains; stop treating omnipotent-terror talk as a blank check. <\/p>\n Bottom line: the shame deficit isn\u2019t a moral mystery; it\u2019s an incentives machine. Change the incentives; the embarrassment will follow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Did the hysterics who pushed for the 2003 invasion pay any price? Did the people who warned against invading get any reward?<\/p>\n \n\u2022 The Iraq-war boosters mostly kept their platforms and careers; a few paid limited or unrelated costs. Who paid a price (somewhat):<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Judith Miller left the New York Times in 2005 after intense criticism of her WMD coverage. Who largely didn\u2019t:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 CIA chief George Tenet received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 despite the WMD debacle. Who was penalized in real time for dissent:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Phil Donahue\u2019s MSNBC show was canceled on the eve of the war; a leaked memo called him a \u201cdifficult public face for NBC in a time of war.\u201d Who was eventually rewarded or vindicated:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 The Knight Ridder (later McClatchy) team\u2014John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel\u2014was celebrated after the fact for getting the WMD story right (Moyers\u2019s 2007 special, Nieman honors, later retrospectives). Bottom line:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2022 Prices for being wrong were modest and uneven; institutional incentives favored alarmists and punished dissent in the moment. The few \u201cprices\u201d (Miller, Wolfowitz, Libby) were either partial or for adjacent issues, while genuine skeptics were validated only later\u2014and mostly by reputation, not power or pay.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here\u2019s your 50 pompous blowhards list straight from ‘Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them<\/a>. To be clear: John Mueller doesn\u2019t always call them out by name, but he systematically rips apart their claims, categories, and hype. I\u2019ve broken it down by who they are, what they said\/did, and how Mueller exposes them.<\/p>\n Politicians (fear as political currency)<\/strong><\/p>\n George W. Bush \u2013 made terror central to reelection; approval ratings soared with every alert. Exposed: riding fear like a surfboard.<\/p>\n Dick Cheney \u2013 \u201cdownplaying the ongoing threat\u201d is dangerous; used constant doom language. Exposed: fueling paranoia.<\/p>\n Donald Rumsfeld \u2013 hyped WMD \u201cknown unknowns.\u201d Exposed: linked phantom weapons to Iraq.<\/p>\n Richard Myers (Joint Chiefs) \u2013 said 10,000 deaths would \u201cdo away with our way of life.\u201d Exposed: absurd underestimation of U.S. resilience.<\/p>\n Karl Rove \u2013 engineered terror as campaign centerpiece. Exposed: pure political exploitation.<\/p>\n Tom Ridge \u2013 presided over color-coded alerts, later admitted White House pressured him. Exposed: fear theater.<\/p>\n Administration speechwriters \u2013 Bush\u2019s \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d rhetoric. Exposed: invented existential menace.<\/p>\n Congressional hawks \u2013 demanded DHS overfunding for every cow pasture and theme park. Exposed: pork-barrel patriotism.<\/p>\n Rudy Giuliani \u2013 declared more 9\/11-style attacks were inevitable. Exposed: wrong; the \u201csecond shoe\u201d never dropped.<\/p>\n John Kerry (2004) \u2013 insisted terrorism required a \u201cwar footing.\u201d Exposed: mimicked Bush\u2019s hysteria to stay competitive.<\/p>\n Bureaucrats & Agencies (security theater)<\/strong><\/p>\n Department of Homeland Security \u2013 \u201cterrorists can strike any place, any time, with virtually any weapon.\u201d Exposed: fatuous and misleading.<\/p>\n TSA \u2013 $4B\/yr screening; made flying so miserable people drove instead (causing extra deaths). Exposed: net negative for safety.<\/p>\n FBI \u2013 warned Americans about people carrying almanacs. Exposed: paranoia disguised as intelligence.<\/p>\n Post Office \u2013 spent $5B on anthrax response (=$1B per fatality). Exposed: wildly disproportionate.<\/p>\n Air Marshal Service \u2013 billions to chase phantoms. Exposed: low-value deterrent.<\/p>\n Local officials \u2013 Weeki Wachee Springs mermaid park sought anti-terror grants. Exposed: pork grabs justified by fake threats.<\/p>\n DHS duct tape campaign \u2013 told families to seal houses with plastic sheets. Exposed: laughable and useless.<\/p>\n Visa\/immigration bureaucracy \u2013 choked foreign students and scientists. Exposed: undercut U.S. economy and research.<\/p>\n Pentagon planners \u2013 exaggerated rogue state threats. Exposed: North Korea and Iran far weaker than portrayed.<\/p>\n State\/local police \u2013 forced to divert resources to counterterror drills instead of real crime. Exposed: violent crime ticked up.<\/p>\n Media Amplifiers (fear merchants)<\/strong><\/p>\n Bob Simon (60 Minutes) \u2013 rebuked Michael Moore\u2019s factual claim about low terror risk. Exposed: hysteria trumps math.<\/p>\n Mark Bowden \u2013 wrote of \u201chousewives in Iowa afraid al-Qaeda\u2019s charging in the door.\u201d Exposed: media-fed panic.<\/p>\n Charles Krauthammer \u2013 declared post-9\/11 terror waves inevitable. Exposed: wrong prediction.<\/p>\n Time magazine (1985 cover) \u2013 hyped \u201cphantom proliferators\u201d of nukes. Exposed: never materialized.<\/p>\n CBS News poll framers \u2013 questions assumed terror inevitable. Exposed: surveys manufactured consent.<\/p>\n CNN \u2013 ran constant threat countdowns. Exposed: fear as ratings gold.<\/p>\n Talk radio shock jocks \u2013 equated terrorism with Armageddon. Exposed: turned bathtubs into a bigger killer.<\/p>\n Print editors \u2013 125,000 stories on the Tylenol poisonings. Exposed: no copycat wave followed.<\/p>\n War journalists \u2013 treated Pearl Harbor\/9-11 parallels as gospel. Exposed: sloppy analogies.<\/p>\n Terror \u201cdocudramas\u201d \u2013 amplified WMD nightmare scenarios. Exposed: science fiction dressed as analysis.<\/p>\n Think-Tankers & Academics (professional alarmists)<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Ignatieff \u2013 WMD inevitability claim. Exposed: terrorists still haven\u2019t pulled it off.<\/p>\n Graham Allison \u2013 \u201cmore likely than not\u201d nuclear terror within 10 years. Exposed: deadline passed, no nuke.<\/p>\n Brian Jenkins \u2013 forecasted portable WMD proliferation. Exposed: decades later, none used.<\/p>\n C.P. Snow \u2013 1960s alarmist predictions of nukes everywhere by 1970s. Exposed: wrong timeline, no \u201cnuclear cascade.\u201d<\/p>\n Warren Buffett (quoted by Allison) \u2013 \u201cnuclear terror is inevitable.\u201d Exposed: Buffett clarified he meant centuries, not a decade.<\/p>\n Analysts hyping \u201cdirty bombs\u201d \u2013 claimed cities would be uninhabitable. Exposed: at worst, minor contamination.<\/p>\n Experts predicting \u201cbioterror pandemics\u201d \u2013 claimed it was \u201cas easy as brewing beer.\u201d Exposed: Aum Shinrikyo failed miserably despite $1B and 300 scientists.<\/p>\n Ethnic conflict alarmists \u2013 forecast \u201cglobal ethnic wars.\u201d Exposed: fizzled out.<\/p>\n Rogue-state alarmists \u2013 hyped Castro, Qaddafi, Saddam as existential. Exposed: all faded into irrelevance.<\/p>\n Cold War strategists \u2013 overblew communism\u2019s reach. Exposed: USSR collapsed under its own weight.<\/p>\n Contractors & Risk Entrepreneurs (profiteers of fear)<\/strong><\/p>\n Defense contractors \u2013 pushed scanners, surveillance toys, and missile shields. Exposed: billion-dollar boondoggles.<\/p>\n Biodefense firms \u2013 pocketed billions for anthrax vaccines. Exposed: flu vaccine shortfalls killed more.<\/p>\n Airport security vendors \u2013 sold tech that solved no real risk. Exposed: cost lives by slowing air travel.<\/p>\n Local lobbyists \u2013 demanded anti-terror funding for irrelevant targets (dams, petting zoos, theme parks).<\/p>\n Security consultants \u2013 billed cities for \u201cworst-case\u201d tabletop drills. Exposed: fantasy scenarios, real invoices.<\/p>\n Private trainers \u2013 cashed in on fear with active-shooter \u201cterror camps.\u201d Exposed: taught paranoia, not resilience.<\/p>\n Politically connected contractors \u2013 funneled billions into border \u201cterror tech.\u201d Exposed: failures like \u201cvirtual fence.\u201d<\/p>\n Surveillance profiteers \u2013 peddled warrantless spying as \u201csafety.\u201d Exposed: no terror cells ever caught.<\/p>\n Alarmist publishers \u2013 churning out \u201cDoomsday\u201d books. Exposed: Mueller shows odds are microscopic.<\/p>\n Military-industrial complex (as a whole) \u2013 fed by \u201csimplicity and spook.\u201d Exposed: bled trillions fighting phantoms.<\/p>\n The Punchline<\/strong><\/p>\n John Mueller\u2019s demolition job in Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them<\/a>:<\/p>\n Terrorism kills fewer people than bathtubs, toilets, or bee stings.<\/p>\n Overreaction killed more Americans (car crashes, wars) than terrorists ever did.<\/p>\n $1\u20132 trillion blown could have saved lives elsewhere (health, crime, disasters).<\/p>\n Terrorists didn\u2019t destroy America; our own \u201crescuers\u201d did the damage by panicking us into paranoia and waste.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do these conmen, professional liars and hysterics dominating America feel any shame? Do they ever get embarrassed? Why doesn’t polite society shun them? Why doesn’t the blob (America’s foreign policy establishment) cast them out? Why do universities honor them? I … Continue reading
\n\u2022 Skeptics often paid costs in real time (fired, shunned) and only later got partial vindication or modest rewards.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Paul Wolfowitz left the World Bank in 2007 over an ethics scandal (not a formal sanction for Iraq, but his reputation never recovered).
\n\u2022 Douglas Feith was rebuked by the Pentagon\u2019s inspector general for feeding \u201cdubious\u201d intelligence that buttressed the case for war.
\n\u2022 I. Lewis \u201cScooter\u201d Libby was convicted (2007) in the Plame affair; his sentence was commuted and he was later pardoned (2018).<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 High-profile pro-war pundits mostly kept or regained megaphones (e.g., Bill Kristol moved among major outlets even after the war).
\n\u2022 Core prewar claims were later discredited (e.g., no Saddam\u2013al-Qaeda cooperation), but many original advocates faced little professional penalty.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 NYT reporter Chris Hedges was reprimanded after an anti-war commencement speech and later left the paper.
\n\u2022 Brent Scowcroft publicly warned \u201cDon\u2019t Attack Saddam\u201d (Aug. 2002) and was sidelined by the GOP foreign-policy apparatus for years.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Barack Obama\u2019s early opposition to the war (\u201cdumb war,\u201d 2002) became a key asset in the 2008 primary and his rise.
\n\u2022 In the UK, the Chilcot Inquiry (2016) judged the case for war \u201cdeficient,\u201d cementing reputational damage, particularly for Tony Blair\u2014yet few legal consequences followed.<\/p>\n