Do you feel it? That electric charge in the air? That faintly metallic taste of gunpowder on your teeth? That renewed sense that you just really really want to run people over with your shiny new knobby-tired Escalade and not only would it be fully justified, but righteous and Christian and good? That's patriotism, friend.

It is a time of renewed bitterness and fabricated rage and many heavyset white males who scowl and prognosticate and claim they're in power to make you feel all safe and secure and cuddled in big swaths of paternal nuclear quilts, but who only manage to make you uneasy and chilled and more than a little bit ill.

It is a time of stern warmongering and a renewed macho kick-ass American attitude in which this country will no longer stand idly by like some pansy doe-eyed wallflower, pretending to be a nation of rationality and peace and warmth and good microbrews and open-heartedness and caution and careful consideration of our military actions and reactions. That is just so, you know, wimpy.

Cheney announced it and Bush mispronounced it and it will be in the new national security strategy document presented to Congress this fall: We will now become a "strike first" nation.

We will no longer wait around for an excuse to bomb swarthy countries whose names our president has difficulty spelling. We are officially Changing Our Tune to include lots of heavily beating war drums and angry oboes and "The Ride of the Valkyries" on infinite loop.

We are now apparently going to be nimble and mean and quick and foolproof, just like in the movies. We will now attack the evildoers first and ask questions later except we'll just skip the part about the questions.

This is the message. This is our new attitude. Boom crash attack. Utter destruction of our enemies. Crush through mostly violent means any sign of anti-Americanism, no matter the cause, no matter that we can't actually pinpoint the source, no matter that we claim to be the most peaceful and progressive and intellectually advanced superpower on Earth. Be pre-emptive and destructive and bomb-happy, or be a tree-hugging traitorous liberal commie sympathizer. There is no in-between.

The Cold War is over, Cheney & Co. remind us; ideas of negotiations or compromise or a possible reassessment of our hate-generating foreign policies are useless. Because they said so, that's why.

And if there was any doubt about how flagrantly this current administration intends to leverage the horror and sadness of 9/11 to turn America from a place of nonpanicky relatively calm defense into a seething pit-bull death squad of desultory military aggression, this announcement killed it for good.

Sure you could see this new kill-'em-all American posture as an excuse to bomb whomever we want for just about any reason we desire and call it "homeland security" and no one will ask questions. But of course, that would be unpatriotic.

Sure you could see the recent rash of falsely manufactured terrorist attack warnings from the government as a hollow ploy to generate more fear among the populace to the point where more Americans cower and whine and forsake even more personal freedoms, allowing the FBI to read their email and cavity search their daughters, all so no one will dare question anything when we start a full-scale assault of Iraq and Iran and maybe parts of Egypt and what the hell, let's say Colombia. What, you're going to argue?

And sure you could see how this new attack-first policy provides a beautiful and even poetic, circular excuse for us to enrage more nations and spawn more terrorist factions, who will then make ugly noises against America that will then give the Cheney war machine a fresh excuse to blow them up and build more missiles and thus create more terrorists and keep the whole machine rolling along as long as possible. Do you see it? The brilliant self-regenerating loop? This is the plan.

How easily we forget there was more than one possible reaction to 9/11. How quickly we forget that a massive raging ongoing multibillion-dollar military assault on a nearly defenseless and rubble-strewn Afghanistan was not the only path to be taken.

Or that declaring war against an abstract term only served to validate the religious zealotry and perpetuate the terrorist cause and make the relatively tiny imbecilic fringe factions much more looming and omnipresent than they really are. But maybe that was the point.

We forget that maybe a unified and aggressive UN police action combined with a thorough reassessment of our oil policies and Saudi Arabian connections and general Mideast egomania might've gone a lot further and served a much greater good than simply bombing for six months straight with zero tangible results, except for a lot of very happy Bush pals in the military-industrial complex.

Yes there were other alternatives. And yes there are still other options than becoming a nasty first-strike violently pre-emptive nation. But that is not up for discussion. We are being told what to believe in, and apparently most are believing in it. Or else.

Will this new thick-necked first-strike posture actually intimidate some terrorist groups? Possibly. Will it gratify and satiate the more paranoid and gun-happy God-fearing right-wingers among us? Very likely.

Will it also make us more loathed and tumultuous and combative and confrontational and openly despised among the international community for our isolationist attitude and immature cockiness and love of ham-fisted reactionary politics? No question.

But so be it. It's Us against Them, baby. This is what they want you to believe. And as the saying goes, if you don't like the way America drives, stay off the damn sidewalk.

©2002 SF Gate

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