John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, gave a speech at the Istanbul consulate’s Independence Day reception, in which he urged Turks not to make the same mistakes the United States had in combatting terrorism. According to the Embassy’s transcript of his speech, Bass said:

We support the Turkish government’s ongoing efforts to bring to justice those who were responsible for the terrible events one year ago. In our own experience in dealing with terrorism in recent years, in the United States we have learned some painful lessons. Among those lessons we have learned that a rush to justice or an overly broad definition of terrorism can erode fundamental freedoms and undermine public confidence in government. We learned those lessons the hard way and it is our fervent hope that our friends here in Turkey will avoid making some of the same mistakes that we have made.

There is tendency deeply engrained both in State Department culture and that of U.S. international broadcasting to self-efface and even criticize the United States as a way to build bridges and credibility. Seldom, however, has such conventional wisdom been so wrong.

Bass seems to imply that debates about the balance between security and individual liberty in the United States are somehow equivalent to the post-coup purge in Turkey. That purge has seen the imprisonment of tens of thousands, has led to more than 100,000 losing the jobs, and led to the government seizure of more than $11 billion in businesses. Even if the coup in Turkey was legitimate rather than Reichstag fire-type episode, the United States has an independent judiciary and legislative branch to ensure the protection of individual rights. Erdogan has extended a state of emergency indefinitely. In short, even the most afflicted by Bush, Obama, or Trump Derangement Syndrome would be hard-pressed to draw any parallels to the situation the Turks face.

Bass, of course, knows this. By engaging in this sort of equivalence, he diminished the United States and played into the hands of the state-controlled Turkish (and Russian) press, which argues that the United States is really no different than Turkey, Russia, or any other autocracy.

Bass’ speech dismissed the situation faced more than 55,000 Turks imprisoned without evidence or due process and equated them with Guantanamo Bay detainees, no-fly list members, or those who accuse the U.S. government of illegally monitoring them via poorly-conceived FISA court rulings. There is a real tragedy underway in Turkey. The voices of a democratic Turkey and, frankly, a post-Erdogan future are probably in Turkey’s prisons right now. The U.S. ambassador in Turkey is doing both a disservice to them and minimizing the abuses Erdogan perpetrates on the one hand, and downplaying the real security threats faced by the United States at the hands of al-Qaeda and other would-be terrorist groups on the other. Perhaps it’s time for Bass to come home.