Dick Cheney is Insane

Or something very near to it. Listen to Cheney's remarks on the recent crisis in Beslan:

I think some have hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire, they wouldn't get hit. I think what happened in Russia now demonstrates pretty conclusively that everybody is a target, that Russia, of course, did not support us in Iraq. They did not get involved in sending troops there. They've gotten hit anyway. And I think people are back sort of reassessing now, in terms of what the motives may be of the people who are launching these attacks or using these kinds of tactics against our people.

What on earth can explain this line of thinking? Russia, as all my readers surely know, was attacked by terrorists affiliated with the Chechen side of their ongoing war in the Republic of Chechnya. But somehow, in Cheney's eyes, the attack on Beslan is proof that terrorists will attack anyone, anyone! Even poor little pacifist Russia, who's never earned the animosity of an Islamic terrorist in its own right!

What can explain this? Is it crass cynicism and exploitation of the American voter's presumed ignorance about world affairs? (This was in a response to a question at a town hall) Is he legitimately this ignorant about current events? Is he simply that narcissistic, that the only metric of motive for terrorism is complicity in America's invasion of Iraq?