Sitting in a Queens pub with a dozen shell-shocked New York firemen within days of September 11th, 2001, what Kathy Sheridan remembers most clearly was the sudden, unexpected turn in the conversation.
Surely now, said one, people would understand the reasons behind their resistance to attempts to dilute the (white/Irish/Italian) ethnic make-up of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY)?
The highly charged media coverage back then, remember, was firmly centred on the fathomless bonds of trust and loyalty between firemen, cultivated through long hours of shared living in the fire stations and carried into life-threatening situations. As FDNY coffins were carried through New York on a tide of public emotion and regular guys were feted as babe magnets and heroes, the firemen were feeling increasingly vindicated in their stance. They sincerely believed that the legendary brotherly bond could never be forged between men of different languages or cultures; ergo, firefighters' lives were being endangered by moves to introduce diversity.
The irony was stunning. Beyond the lines of elegant New Yorkers queuing at street-front fire-stations to donate cheques, flowers and roast turkey to men being celebrated as the personification of the American spirit, courageous white folk were queuing to escort Arab-American children to school in safety, risking ignominy and worse to show solidarity with their darker-skinned neighbours.
The reflectiveness of locals interviewed at random was remarkable. Here was a second-generation Irish-American policeman at Ground Zero: "Of course we want someone to pay for this but I hope we're smart enough not to start something that's going to hurt us even more. We've seen enough tragedy here. You can't classify anyone as 'the enemy' - Muslims are Americans too."
And here was a young mother of two, as wary about the White House mindset as about entering her blown-out apartment: "What lies ahead? The FBI on every corner? Anti-aircraft guns on rooftops? I'm not sure that I like the idea of our troops sailing off to the strains of New York, New York to fight some mercurial blob we say we're at war with . . . I still don't know who or where this blob is or even whether it's the right blob."
Those early fears were uncannily well founded. Not only is the FBI on every corner, the Patriot Act has given it the power to monitor the reading habits of American citizens, the videos they watch, the websites they look at. The same Act defined "terrorism" to include direct action by protesters, widened the use of wire-tapping, recruited campus police officers to monitor students and academics, and paved the way for mass internment of several thousand foreign nationals, mostly Asian, Arab and Muslim males, being held without legal representation or hope of release, in the most massive case of ethnic profiling since the Japanese-Americans in the second World War.
In our own little Republic, Aer Lingus is being forced to comply with US authorities' demands for details of all passengers to America, including credit card details and dietary requirements that may indicate if a person is Jewish or Muslim.
What more vindication could the lads of the FDNY want?
Meanwhile, far from crushing the terrorists by invading Iraq - which had no proven links to al-Qaeda - the coalition has turned the country into a global magnet for them. Just four months after his Top Gun-costumed show aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln declaring that the US had prevailed in Iraq, a more sombre George Bush last Sunday defined Iraq as "the central front" now in the so-called war on terror.
The murderous "awakening" ushered in by bin Laden has exploded across Bali, Jakarta, Mombasa, Casablanca, Mumbai, Riyadh and Baghdad.
Nearer home, a UK-based radical Islamist group, Al-Muhajiroun, is cocky enough to advertise its conference for September 11th with a poster hailing the hijackers as "The Magnificent 19 that divided the world on September 11th". The City of London runs rehearsals for dealing with a dirty bomb, British Airways considers fitting its planes with anti-missile equipment and Britain's top policeman believes - like Tony Blair - that a serious terrorist attack in Britain is inevitable and public trust in government has collapsed.
How far we've travelled in two years . . .
George Bush has just asked Congress for another $87 billion to fund the wars, making a grand total of $166 billion in 18 months, about a sixth of which will go on Iraqi construction this year, a third of the estimated requirement. In another world, that $87 billion could fund the development goals the UN agreed to achieve by 2015, such as eradicating extreme hunger and poverty and universal primary education.
Mr Bush is in a mess. Election year is looming. And so - surprise, surprise - he's back at the UN, not to acknowledge mistakes, but to lecture members about "responsibility" and the need for troops and money.
It might be funny if it weren't so tragic.