George Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, rallied his own people and the people of the world in the fight against terrorism. He reminded us then, as we should be reminded today, that terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common, and that terrorism-and we should remind ourselves of this again and again-is as much the enemy of Islam as it is the enemy of Judaism or Christianity.
The boldface is mine, because it's the crux of Howard's justification for the extreme measures in the War on Terror. I have not sought any actual evidence that terrorists think in this way, but it does authorise nations like Australia to concentrate on fighting 'terror' or 'evil' to the exclusion of direction their efforts to the development of peace or human rights in the Middle East.
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