It was early morning and I was still puttering around my tiny West-side apartment drying my hair absent-mindedly with a towel and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The TV was blaring something about a plane flying into each of the Twin Towers though no-one could tell whether this was some kind of accident or deliberate. Could the first one have been an accident and the second some kind of botched rescue attempt? There were also scattered unconfirmed reports of planes being hijacked from JFK and Boston but no-one was putting the two together yet. I hurried downstairs. The subway to work wasn't working -- bad sign -- the train originated at the World Trade Centre -- so I hailed a passing cab and getting in told the cabbie to put the radio up. A third plane had just flown into the Pentagon. That settled it. This was no accident.

Crowds of my colleagues had gathered visibly anxious and frightened -- at the reception area next to my office to gaze tearfully through the floor-to-ceiling picture window at the devastation just south of us. I preferred to observe in solitude through the window in my own office hoping that no-one I knew at my previous firm -- I had myself worked in Tower One for two years until September 2000 -- was caught up in the inferno. I remember that it was just as I was thinking to myself how fortunate that the towers had been hit so high that they looked unlikely to fall -- that the top of Tower One began to crumble spewing massive clouds of dust and debris and collapsing in on itself one floor after another all but vaporising as the tower disintegrated before my eyes.

The next few days I still remember with some measure of shock and disbelief: walking home on foot in the blazing heat through crowds of panic-stricken New Yorkers -- being glued to the TV and the endless loop of the planes hitting buildings and the buildings coming down for the next 48 hours -- the massive despairing candle-light vigils held by friends and family of those who were still missing and the heart-breaking hand-made flyers with which they wall-papered the city seeking information on their loved ones. Adversity brought out the best in New Yorkers who pulled together and showed a lot of resilience and compassion to get one another through the tough times and whose response to 9/11 to this day does them credit.

We all hoped at the time that the response of the country as a whole and its political leadership in particular would similarly reflect America at its finest. For once the world's heart had gone out unequivocally and unquestioningly to America and counted its pain as theirs. "We are all Americans" empathised the front page of Le Monde and candle-light vigils blanketed the planet as the people of the world expressed their sympathy and solidarity with America in its hour of tragedy. And in the days immediately following it seemed as though the Americans had understood and appreciated the reaction of the world to their plight. In his address to the nation and the world shortly after 9/11 President Bush seemed to manfully hold back tears of gratitude as he overflowed with thanks for the world community's generous response and vowed that America would never forget it.

The emotion on both sides was genuine and -- for all its tragedy -- 9/11 marked a real opportunity in America's relationship with the rest of the world. However the vast reservoirs of good-will and sympathy that were spontaneously generated in the wake of 9/11 have been squandered by President Bush's arrogant unilateralism and evident contempt for what the US Constitution calls "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind."

In its every action both before and since 9/11 the Bush administration has shown a truly breath-taking indifference to popular opinion beyond its shores (and within its shores too for that matter). The tone of its foreign policy seems calculated to offend and to show disregard for the sentiments of others. Shortly after its election the Bush administration moved quickly to pour scorn on the Kyoto Accord and the ICC and to impose its views on matters from UN public health funds to abrogation of the ABM treaty.

The outpouring of sympathy and good-will following 9/11 was if nothing else an opportunity for the Bush administration to put its foreign policy on a different track. Sadly, the administration has resisted this approach at every turn. The war on Iraq which the US has lied and blustered and bullied its way into is the perfect example of the Bush administration's utter disregard and contempt for the opinion of others. Nothing could convince the world more of the administration's arrogance and xenophobia than the manner in which it has rushed to war and continues to mishandle the peace and to resist all dissenting opinion.

Nevertheless, on this second anniversary of 9/11 I would urge the world not to give America up as lost and to reflect on the fact that President Bush was elected with less than 50 per cent of the popular vote and is becoming increasingly unpopular in the US. I would suggest that arrogance and xenophobia and contempt for the world is not endemic to the US but is a trade-mark feature of the Bush administration and represents an approach which is supported by a distinct minority of the country. In addition, bear in mind that the populace has been cowed both by the unprecedented events of 9/11 as well as the adminis-tration's blatant scare-mongering and so support for an over-aggressive foreign policy can perhaps also be understood in this context.

But there is hope. One should not confuse the Bush administration and its arrogance and swagger with the sentiments of the US population as a whole. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776 out of "a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind" and 225 years later there are still many Americans who harbour such a sentiment -- and some of them are even running for President.