Or is he just acting that way?

It's difficult to understand why the Bush administration insists on endlessly banging around the globe like a ticked-off bull in the proverbial china shop.  Didn't anyone ever teach these people to walk softly and carry a big stick, as coined by the original empire-building neocon, Teddy Roosevelt?

Not to belittle the 911 attacks, and even if their War on Terrorism is perched on the loftiest of moral high ground, it's hard to understand what motivates Bush and his not-so-merry men to say the false and belligerent things they say.  Is it just that they want to keep Enron and the growing economic crisis from capturing national attention, as many have suggested?  Are they clumsily trying to drum up support for National Missile Defense?  Is Bush trying to stave off the kind of post-war popularity slump that did in his old man?

Whatever their reasons, if one were to design a policy for the purpose of bringing about another terror attack, one wonders how it would differ from what we're seeing.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

1. - They are backing Saddam Hussein into a corner with bellicose rhetoric, and a cornered animal is most likely to strike back.

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3. - They are threatening Iran, pushing the growing moderate population toward the country's militant Islamic clerics, and perhaps making terrorists of their idealistic youth.

5. - Ugly American officials are humiliating Pakistanis in their own country in their single-minded pursuit of escaping Taliban or Al Qaeda members.  They demand that they alone be served in Karachi, causing the five-star hotels to put up ‘fully booked’ signs.

7. - They are implementing a preemptive first strike policy toward suspect nations’ weapons of mass destruction, encouraging a use-it-or-lose-it attitude on the part of these “rogue states.”

9. - They display a callous indifference toward the “collateral damage” inflicted by their bombing of Afghanistan, pouring fuel on the fires of anti-American sentiment.

11. - The FAA has spent nearly three months dragging its feet implementing a new federal law permitting airline pilots to use firearms to protect their airplanes.  One wonders if there’s a policy of benign neglect at work.

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13. - They show no sign of upgrading the newly federalized airport security personnel, in spite of daily reports of guns slipping past the somnolent gazes of bored high-school dropouts, broadcasting America’s vulnerability to the entire world. 

15. - They are burning their figurative bridges by haughtily copping a "don't call us, we'll call you" attitude toward European leaders.  This contrasts sharply with a quietly unilateral approach, if called for by current conditions.

17. - Bush is making belligerent and preposterous accusations of an "axis of evil" where no axis exists, and the evil is of questionable strategic importance.

19. - They are actively supporting Ariel Sharon's brutal policies, needlessly creating a true American-Israeli "axis of evil" in the minds of potential Islamic terrorists.

21. - They are building garrisons in the heart of Islam, with new or expanded bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, so the locals can never forget that Americans violence can erupt at any time, and providing convenient targets for indigenous "terrorists."

23. - They are planning to implement one of the national ID card schemes floating about, which will disenfranchise thousands of Americans, and make criminals and perhaps terrorists of some.

25. - They are creating thousands of new enemies by expanding their fight to the Abu Sayyaf criminals, whose insurgent activities until now have been limited to Philippine territory. 

27. - They are avoiding any action against Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which appear to be at the center of anti-American terrorism.

29. - They are violating US and international law in their treatment of terror suspects and prisoners of war, adding credence to foreign impressions that the US is a lawless and brutal nation.

31. - They are extending their terror war to Columbia, where Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are now being identified as a terrorist threat to the US, though they operate solely in Colombia, thereby creating an entire new group of people with reason to hate America.

In his state of the union address, Bush asked us to pray, so let's pray that terrorism never returns to America.  But if it does, we're sure to hear the worn out "they hate us because we're free" mantra in the hopes that we don't notice the American imperial elephant stomping around the room.