I am sure that I am not the only person who has been struck by the tone of this campaign. There is an element of discord, a feeling of discontinuity, between the rhetoric of the campaign and the observed empirical evidence when it comes to the War on Terror, and the situation in Iraq. A Bush supporter such as myself frequently finds himself shaking his head at the actions and statements by the Administration. This is naturally supplanted by the slackjawed disbelief in the statements by the opposition. The opposition frequently seems to to inhabit a different reality, where white is black, black is white. Or more accurately, gray nuance is black and white, and black and white is gray nuance.

The problem is not that the opposing sides disagree, it is that the Republicans and Democrats disagreements are so profound. While other political entities may be able to survive such divisions, the United States may not. For instance, it is acceptable for French, German or Japanese politics to be severely fragmented because those nations have other mechanisms to maintain political continuity. Americans are Americans because of a basic political belief. There is really no other reason, no real shared history, or ethnic identity. If this basic political belief is undermined, it will be very problematic. Stephen Green notes this but does not carry it to the next level. What if that belief is undermined? What other mechanisms are in place?

I think we need to trace back to where the disconnect began. I think that it became most apparent on 9/12. It may have been in place before, but I think it became most apparent in the discussion after the events of 9/11. Basically the problem is that we never came even close to a general common consensus about who our enemy was.

In every other instance that I can think of in our history, we have always reached this common consensus. For instance, even though many people argued that the Communists were not a threat, almost everyone knew they were. I don't think that this is true today, and I think it is a fatal flaw.

It should be remembered that in the days after 9/11, the debate was undertaken, but was quickly sidetracked by both the Administration and the opposition. The Administration engaged in a confusing mess of declaring that you were either with us or against us, and that Islam was a religion of peace. The left contributed by ensuring that any rational discussion about the situation quickly deteriorated into an examination of the questioners bigotry. (Something I am sure will happen even now)

The result is that there is a wide disparity of who the enemy is. And this division crosses party line, and even family lines. This is quite understandable because the question of who exactly the enemy is is a very complex and difficult question. For instance, I think that most people were highly skeptical of the claim that Islam is a religion of "peace." It just doesn't empirically hold water. Most people look to the region where Islam predominates and see a mess. However, the statement that Islam is the problem is also deeply unsatisfying. I have devoted extensive time into studying the problem, and realized that the problem is extremely complex, and defies my ability to fully comprehend. In short, at this time I don't know exactly who our enemy is.

To a person that has neither the time nor the inclination to spend time on the problem, it must be completely confusing.

The consequences of this is that the rational behind the Administration's action is not easily explained. In many ways, I think the action in Iraq was our least worse action. There really weren't any good options. Our good options bypassed us somewhere around 1993, and 9/11 woke many up far too late. However, when someone doesn't understand the problem, they are unlikely to be very accepting of the least worse option. They naturally feel that there has to be a different way. Kerry has been able to exploit this. In this regard, I think he has been astoundingly reckless, and so have his supporters.

So how do we get out of this jam? Surely not in the middle of a presidential election. If Bush loses, it will be because he and the Administration blew the explanation. It may well be that there was no way for the Administration to explain it to us. I can think of a number of reasons why the Administration was unable to fully explain the situation to the American people. One reason may be that it would have been tactically and strategically unsound. In essence, the Administration would have had to say, trust us. And I think they considered this, and discarded the idea for obvious reasons.

It could well be the case that Kerry may have to say the same thing. And somehow, I don't see a significant segment giving him that leeway. What does all this mean? Beats me. I just can't shake the feeling that we are in an awful mess, and that regardless of the election results, we will remain that way.

So Kerry finally comes out and says George Bush will have a draft if reelected, after letting his surrogates (like Michael Moore) say it for him up to now. [Note, I've been saying for a long time the draft would be the stealth issue of this campaign. But this isn't how I pictured it.]

Anyway, let's look at that AP piece:

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt dismissed Kerry's comments as "fear mongering" and suggested the Massachusetts senator was spreading "false Internet rumors."

Kerry has suggested that Bush's heavy use of National Guard and Reserve troops has created a "backdoor draft." But his latest comments went further.

....

In the second presidential debate, Bush said, "We're not going to have a draft, period."

Now, let's visit Mr. Lileks, circa, well, the first debate:

Senator Kerry, you’ve said that President Bush intends to reinstate the draft. On what evidence do you base this assertion?

“This president has consistently underestimated the nature of the threat, and the nature of the forces we need to deal with, and confront, in this new century, and in doing so has placed us in a position where we find ourselves overextended. And alone. And we’re the target. I have a plan to bring our allies to the table, to forge new alliances as well as strengthen old ones, in such a way that fills out our options and gives us the flexibility to meet the changing needs of today with a military that will not be asked to shoulder the burdens of the world, when the world itself has a stake in these obligations. That’s what I meant when I suggested that there might be a draft in a second term of this president. He has boxed us in to a situation where our only solution to our go-it-alone policy might well be forced conscription of our young people, and I’m against it.”

Thank you. President Bush?

"There won’t be a draft."

Does he capture it, or does he capture it?

I travel a lot for work, on short notice, so I voted absentee today. There were a fair number of people there to vote absentee.

Meanwhile on Fox News tonight, John Fund was talking about all the preemptive tactics being taken by the Democrats. Poisoning the well. And the result is as Fund said, "welcome to election month."

Stephen Green, Vodkapundit, just realized something and is getting widely linked for it:

Because, in the end, that's what the national Democrats are doing: They're trying, however inadvertently, to destroy the Republic in order to rule it.

I guess that memo Drudge dredged up is pretty hard to ignore on the issue. But they've been poisoning the well for a while now. I mean, they've been publicly calling for UN vote monitors for a while. They've been attempting to preemptively dismiss any capture of bin Laden - for a long time now.

And they did it in the Clinton days, too. They went scorched earth during Monica days. "Everybody does it," they said, choosing to cast aspersions on everyone else's marriage and integrity in order to defend their own. Prominent historians rushed out to trash Jefferson's reputation - Jefferson! - so that President Clinton would look good in comparison.

And remember the "October surprise" talk about Bush sitting in an SR-71 and negotiating to have American hostages held longer?

And that whole thing about Vietnam - about how Americans were cutting off heads and all that back in 1972?

Certainly Republicans have played a part in the erosion of trust in the government, Nixon was, if not a crook, an untrustworthy man in the Presidency. But it is the Democrats who have been decrying the American system - or nowadays the two American systems -for the past generation.

Listened to the first part of the debate on the radio. One of the health care exchanges. Kerry's last followup, I think, time running out, and he blurts out "We aren't going to just give it away for free," or close enough. Can't wait to see the transcript. Sounded like he almost exposed his big idea, that makes his health care like Hillarycare, which was going to require you to buy health insurance whether you wanted it or not. But it wouldn't be a tax, you see.

Kerry had said before that he planned to increase the military by 40,000, and he is now saying that he will increase the Army by 2 divisions. Tonight, he said he would increase by 2 divisions - 1 combat, 1 support. Hmmm. We don't have support divisions. That seems like the sort of thing that he should know.

And he should also know that 40,000 troops isn't really 2 divisions. Yes, if you look at the MTO&E (modified table of organization and equipment), you will count about 20,000 troops in a division - actually somewhat less in the newer "digital divisions."

But in reality, a division is substantially more than 20,000 troops. When we had a 16 division Army, we had 785,000 people [note - John of Argghhh! caught my ixselydness on that - it used to say 875,000] in the Army. Today's 10 division Army is about 450,000. In reality, a division means about 45,000 troops. If you lump 2 divisions on the Army without the infrastructure that goes along with it, it will actually make some things worse.

So Navy combat veteran Kerry is missing the boat here. And the press people - who know nothing of the Army - won't question that at all.

Who wants to be the last network to die for a mistake?

Some spokesman for Kerry was on TV talking about this whole "nuisance" thing, and said something to the effect that Kerry would hunt down and kill terrorists as President just like he did in Vietnam. And in the first debate, Kerry said "I will never let those troops down, and will hunt and kill the terrorists wherever they are," and "I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are."

Now, is it just me, or does it sound like they are saying Kerry is going to pick up an M-16 and go into the caves of Afghanistan all by himself? That was Mrs. Blaster's take, when she heard it in the debate.

I think this is part of Kerry's problem - it isn't about how macho he is. It is about commitment - political commitment. The kind it takes to take a stand unpopular with France.

Some time ago, someone made the point that there was a danger of Kerry being like LBJ, trying to prove how tough he was by committing more troops in Vietnam, but not having the political will to win. That Matt Bai article is more revealing than the "nuisance" quote. Check this out - Kerry is talking about 9/11, walking out of the Capitol:

"You know, my instinct was, Where's my gun?" Kerry told me. "How do you fight back? I wanted to do something."

Mrs. Blaster's instincts on what Kerry (and his spokesman) seems to be saying is dead on. Need more convincing?

When I asked one Kerry adviser what it was that voters needed to know about Kerry and terrorism, he replied without hesitation. ''That he's strong and tough,'' he said. ''In the case of John Kerry, unlike Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, he's looked people in the face and shot them dead.''

However, I have to be fair, here, and note that in that first debate, the President said this: "I want to tell the American people, we're doing everything we can at home, but you better have a president who chases these terrorists down and bring them to justice before they hurt us again." Pretty much the same locution, but I don't think anyone - espcially not the folks claiming that the President is a coward - thinks that President Bush is talking about strapping up and going down the spider hole.

Also, I think the "nuisance" bit is a bit overblown. Hell, I've written that myself, when I was advising the terrorists:

You've got a decent deal right now - you can kill all the Muslims you want, and every once in a while get an American, too, and pocket a little cash from the Saudis. You might even just wear out our will if you don't make too much of a nuisance of yourself. Hell, stop being a terrorist, you could even start living instead of hiding. But that's probably too much to ask.

But the key is that we can't go "back to where we were" until they change their outlook. As Lileks said, when we were back where we were, we were losing. Win first. That's what we need. Not a break from history, not a return to normalcy. Victory.

Not asking for money (though if you want to give, ask me how!), but some assistance on dusting off my old engineering/operations research education. I am doing a paper comparing methods of explosive detection at airports. Basically looking at probabilistic models of mixing a couple of types of equipment to do this type of screening at airports. I think I remember how to put it all together, but there is some info about volume and reliability that I am looking for, though it may turn out that this stuff is not general release kind of information. Any help appreciated and acknowledged.

UPDATE: What I need help with is constructing a Monte Carlo simulation.

Yeah, I know Duelfer said no stockpiles, but read this:

The discoveries are separate from several attacks this year involving chemical munitions, the report says. In May and June, insurgents used old chemical-filled artillery shells, left over from Iraq's pre-1991 stocks, in three roadside bombs. Partly because of the age of the weapons, no chemical injuries were reported. In all, U.S. forces have recovered 53 decaying chemical-filled shells or artillery rockets that apparently were looted from unguarded ammunition bunkers or other sites.

So if these old weapons came from unguarded bunkers and other sites, why are we even saying no stockpiles? Clearly, if these weapons were pulled from locations like that, there are likely to be others there.