We'll never really know for sure but I know a couple of things.
1) We will never know what it is like to be American. The US is the prime target and there are many around the world who will continue to work to bring down the US no matter what it takes or how long it takes.
2) The US has the capacity to do something about some of the threats it sees to itself and is therefore doing something (right or wrong)
3) If Australia had been hit with 4 suiside planes and suffered the same devestation that the US has, would there be so much oposition to Australia trying to do something to ensure that it did not happen again?
4) If what happenned to the US had happenned to Australia, we do not have the capacity to do much about it. Therefore we would be reliant on the US and the rest of the world to do something for us. Now think about that for a moment.
5) If the US turns out to be right and nothing is done now and say a biological or dirty bomb attack is successful in the US or say London, what will the rest of the world think then? "Oh darn, the US was right, too bad about the 300K people that just died or will die as a result, not to mention the birth defects etc for generations to come".
6) Who has weapons of mass destruction is not really the point. It is who will lose control of them or willingly allow them to fall into terroist hands that counts. This crap about the US having the worlds largest store of weapons of mass destruction is just irrellevant because the US won't use them or allow them to fall into terrorist hands.
So, for us, we just have to hope that they know what they are doing and offer calculated support or we will not get any help when we are in trouble. The world forgets very fast just how important the US was in allowing all of us to continue to enjoy our freedom after WWII and at great expense to them in lives lost. The French are quick to forget this ( at least the government is, I don't think the average Frenchman forgets so easily).
The US has a lot to answer for in mistakes made but it is all too easy to take a swipe at them out of context of what has happenned on average over the past 70 years.
Just think of a world with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and possibly Russia in full control. It is a very horrifying thought.
