I was walking along the beach in Maine last month when this thought came unbidden to my mind. “If the USA were attacked today like they were on September 11, 2001, would other countries come to their aid?”

Twenty-five years ago today the US suffered the worst terrorists attack in its history. More than three thousand people died when members of Al Queda hijacked four jetliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. (Passengers in the fourth jet, headed for the White House, fought the terrorists and the plane crashed in a field.)

The world was shocked. Canada was the country offering the most immediate response, accepting thousands of diverted airline flights and hosting the passengers and crew until it the skies were considered safe again. (Check out the musical Come From Away to get a feel for that.)

There was no doubt as to our response. Our friend and neighbour had been attacked. We would do anything we could to help.

NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history, considering this attack on the US as an attack on all. Other nations sent military support as American troops went hunting for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Would that happen today?

Twenty-five years ago America was a friend to all. Today it is more likely to be viewed as the world’s bully. North Korea on steroids. Or perhaps as the recreation of the Third Reich, with immoral racial policies instituted by an insane leader.

It has surprised me how quickly the USA has devolved into a rogue state and how the people have endorsed the policies that have brought it there. Politicians are inherently untrustworthy, but I had expected better of the electorate.

Would Canada send i’s soldiers to die for the USA as it did after 9/11? Why would it?

After all, the first Canadian deaths in the Afghanistan campaign came not from battles with the enemy but from trigger-happy American pilots shooting at our soldiers. Why should we join the bully in his wars?

Would we host planes and passengers like we did in 2001? maybe. But this time we would charge for it. We have seen what American gratitude looks like. We don’t want any more of it.

(If American readers want to see what gratitude looks like, they should travel to Holland and tell people there that they are Canadian. More than 80 years later, the Dutch have not forgotten that it was Canadian troops that liberated them in 1945.)

Canadians didn’t come to America’s aid in its time of need expecting gratitude. Friends help each other, and generally don’t keep accounts. We did expect that the friendship and our mutual respect for each other would continue. We didn’t expect to be threatened with annexation.

Outside the USA, MAGA stands for Make America Go Away. I don’t know if the USA has any friends left after almost two years of the current administration, which has shown itself to be belligerent and untrustworthy, not good traits for countries to have.

The people on the planes had families and friends who are still grieving. I feel their pain today as they remember. Every anniversary is hard, but this one seems harder because 25 is a milestone.

That empathy doesn’t change the reality that times have changed. The USA is on its own now. Americans may be feeling a little lonely with no friends left in the world.

On September 11, 2001 no-one would have thought that possible.