Ayloush
So much for CAIR’s claims of moderation when one of their operatives indulges in overheated and unjustified rhetoric like this. From AP:
As he led Friday’s prayer service in Mission Viejo, Hussam Ayloush said the war on terror had become a “war on Muslims” and that the United States had become the “new Saddam.”
“So let’s end this hypocrisy, this hypocrisy that we are better than the other dictator,” Ayloush, the executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told several hundred worshippers.
Several people said afterward that the abuses had undermined America’s moral standing in the world and perhaps made it a greater target of terrorist attacks.
“It will make recruiting terrorists a lot easier for whoever wants to recruit them,” said Syrian native Mutaz Ascha, a Mission Viejo construction contractor.
In the San Diego suburb of Vista, Nadia Keilani, a 32-year-old Iraqi-born attorney, said the abuses have also damaged U.S. efforts to stabilize the political situation in her native country.
“The rest of the world has grown more and more to dislike the American efforts in Iraq,” she said. “This has really taken away our moral high ground.”
El Kurd, who says he won’t vote for Bush again, was outraged at the damage he said the abuses have caused.
“A country that stands for justice and democracy is being viewed as a tyrant,” he said. “These people were treated this way under Saddam, so what did we accomplish? We just brought another Saddam to them.”
As I have said many times already, the moral high ground does not always manifest itself in perfect behavior, but in the punishment of those who commit the crimes. Even if the Abu Ghraib prison incidents were equivalent to Saddam’s gassing the Kurds, mass graves, etc., the reaction of Bush and Rumsfeld is 180 degrees different.
But of course, Ayloush is no stranger to reckless charges and vicious invective.