America bears some of the blame for the bloody wave of Islamic extremism that has brought terrorism to San Bernardino, Paris and locations around the world, according to a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
In a Friday CNN interview, Hussam Ayloush, of the group's Los Angeles chapter, said American foreign policy has helped fuel the rage that drives Muslim radicals to kill in the name of their faith.
“Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the west, have fueled that extremism,” Ayloush told "New Day" host Chris Cuomo during a discussion about Wednesday's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., where a Muslim married couple killed 14 and wounded 21 at a holiday party for the county health department that employed the husband, Syed Rizwan Farook.
“Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the west, have fueled that extremism.”
Ayloush said U.S. support for repressive regimes in the Middle East, including Egypt, “push people over to the edge.”
“Then they become extremists,” said Ayloush. “We are partly responsible. Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem. And the solution has to be global. Everyone has a role in it.”
Cuomo did not challenge him on the assertion that American foreign policy triggered terrorism. In Egypt, former army general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won election after first staging a military coup against Mohammed Morsi in 2013, after declaring Morsi was leading the constitutionally secular nation toward Islamicization.
The discussion focused on Farook and Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik's indoctrination to Islamic jihadism and a purported backlash against American Muslims in the aftermath of the latest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Farook, an American-born citizen, and Malik were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack at the party, held in a conference room at a social services facility. On Friday, Fox News reported that Malik had pledged her allegiance to ISIS.
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