Ink, you need to hang your hatred of Bush on another argument other than the "he allowed 9/11 to happen" bilge, for there isn't a sane person of any political stripe in the entire United States who believes it. There is no concrete evidence of any sort to back up such vitriolic claims.
As to how the United States is perceived by radical Muslims in the Middle East, let me posit the following: the U.S. didn't actually have to do anything of any consequence to provoke an attack by them, for they don't really need a reason to attack us. They have despised the West since the Crusades, yet today they lack the military power to challenge any modern western nation. While the average muslim might resent western intrusion into middle eastern affairs they're not willing to go to war because of it. Other nations have been interfering in their affairs for hundreds of years, so an intrusion by the U.S. would not be anything out of the ordinary.
The radicals, however, are different. As long as the Middle East remained poor, they were basically powerless to carry jihad into infidel nations. The discovery of oil changed everything. Oil money not only enriched the Persian Gulf nations, it filtered down into the hands of these undesireable factions. They now had the resources to resume the spreading of their faith. All they needed was a target, or a pretext, to galvanize their supporters and bolster their ability to recruit.
They needed an 800 pound gorilla; a pretext for tweaking its nose would be fabricated as needed. This has been the favored tactic of militant Islam for initiating conflict with infidel nations since the time of Muhammed. The fact that much of the Middle East's new found wealth came from the US., or that the American government had devoted time and material toward protecting muslims from genocide in places such as Kosovo, mattered not one bit.
