Politics & Power Quote by John Howard

Howard’s line does two jobs at once: it absolves and it rallies. By insisting terrorists hate “not because of what we have done but because of who we are,” he pulls the debate away from policy and into identity. That move matters. If violence is framed as blowback, then governments have to answer awkward questions about interventions, alliances, detention regimes, and regional power plays. If it’s framed as a clash with “values,” the response becomes simpler, cleaner, and politically safer: defend the nation, tighten security, stand with allies.

The pairing of “the United States and Australia” is deliberate. It places Australia inside a moral and strategic bloc, converting the ANZUS relationship into a shared civic character. “Values that we hold in common” compresses messy national histories into a single democratic brand, the kind that can travel well in speeches and justify coordinated action. Subtext: disagreement at home starts to look like disunity in the face of an existential threat; critique becomes, if not disloyal, then at least beside the point.

Context sharpens the intent. Howard governed through the post-9/11 years and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, when leaders needed language that could sustain public consent for risk, surveillance, and military commitment. The elegance of the sentence is its moral asymmetry: “they” are animated by hatred; “we” are defined by values. It’s a powerful rhetorical shield, and also a strategic narrowing of causality that turns geopolitics into biography.