Americans will be learning a lot about themselves as six Islamist terror "suspects" (I guess we have to say, technically) held at Guantanamo Bay finally face trial on murder and war crimes charges connected with 9/11.

A country in which women fall in love with convicted murderers, one largely alienated from the president who brought down Saddam Hussein, may have some surprises in store for foreigners who think the Yanks mean to hang, draw and quarter these lambs.

Prosecutors at the military trials of the six will seek the death penalty in each case. That's as you might suspect, given that the death toll the six are accused of engineering totaled nearly 3,000.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- do you often see, by the way, more baleful mugs than his, even if physiognomy signifies neither guilt nor innocence? Khalid, I say, supposedly has confessed to numerous anti-U.S. terror activities, with 9/11 the capstone atop the granite shaft. Ramzi bin al-Shibh is said to have signed up for the hijackings, only to fail in his attempt to procure a U.S. visa. He carried out, supposedly, other assignments for the brothers.

What mood the country, and the world, will be in to hear the charges is something we may not know for a while. There's an abstract quality to the setting in which the proceedings will be held. So many accusations about American policy and behavior in the Iraq War have for so long filled the air that portraying the United States as innocent victim of unprovoked attack may be less easy than it seemed back when Khalid & Co. were first hauled in and the snaring of bin Laden himself seemed imminent -- or anyway not out of the question.

The corrosive power of Western anti-Westernism has been a work for a long time, dulling the thirst for justice, posing a false equivalence between victims here and victims elsewhere in the twilight war on terror. "Can't we all just get along?" is the refrain of many, many Americans and, especially, Europeans. Continued...