MUCH has been said and written about the United States of America over the last few days - not all of it positive.

I have no complaints about a vibrant debate about the rights and wrongs of Iraq, and I will defend to the last the rights of people to protest peacefully against President Bush or anyone else.

But I wish those who indulge in gratuitous and condescending criticism of the U.S. could have been at a ceremony in Washington I spoke at last week.

The event was to commemorate the work of my American opposite number and good friend, Colin Powell, and was a celebration of the best of America and its international role.

Many distinguished figures spoke, including Stan O'Neal, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch. I'd neither met nor heard Mr. O'Neal before, and although his name suggests an Irish heritage, he is - like Colin Powell - a black American who has worked his way to the top.

His unpretentious words about America as a land of opportunity, and the realisation by him of the American dream, was poignant. You'd only ever hear a speech like that in America, because what was said and felt represents a singular American truth.

The generalised parody of America which almost demonises its power and its purpose, and seeks to place the ills of the world at its door, is easy enough to knock down in detail. But the more dangerous consequence is that it can feed misunderstanding, push the two sides apart, and encourage isolationist tendencies on both sides of the Atlantic.

When we give thanks - as we just have on Remembrance Day - not least for America's sacrifices to save Europe in two world wars, we may tend to forget that at the time the Second War started so poor was America's view of Europe that the prevailing opinion across the U.S. was to "leave us to it".

Without the feline skills of then President Roosevelt and the oratory of Winston Churchill, who knows what the result would have been? But what I do know is that the transatlantic partnership has been critical to our security and prosperity in the last half-century, and that it has constantly to be nurtured if it is to survive.

There should also be admiration for the fact that America's amazing scientific endeavour is not an aberration, but a product of the forces of imagination and endeavour which its system has been able to unleash.