{"id":1862,"date":"2010-12-16T14:22:09","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T10:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=1862"},"modified":"2010-12-16T14:22:54","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T10:22:54","slug":"the-poisoned-fruit-of-anti-americanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/international-relations-analysis-middle-east\/the-poisoned-fruit-of-anti-americanism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poisoned Fruit of Anti &#8211; Americanism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Conspiracy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1863\" title=\"Conspiracy\" src=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Conspiracy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>No more do I want to hear that Europeans are more sophisticated than Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alertnet.org\/thenews\/newsdesk\/L23109558.htm\">latest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>BERLIN, July 23 (Reuters) &#8211; Almost one in three Germans below the  age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the September  11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll  published on Wednesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In Europe the lunatic fringe is going mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>Maddening as this is, I really do worry for them. I&#8217;m beginning to think something terrible might happen over there.<\/p>\n<p>I have an American friend who lives in Belgium, and he recently came  by for a visit. I asked him why he thinks Europe is becoming such a  dark place all of a sudden, and I must admit I wasn&#8217;t prepared for his  answer.<\/p>\n<p>He said Europe has always been a dark place and it hasn&#8217;t changed at all.<\/p>\n<p><em>UPDATE:<\/em> A couple of readers emailed and accused me of hyperbole.  Fair enough. This German conspiracy theory isn&#8217;t the mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s right to compare German gullibility to  American gullibility by pointing out, for example, that lots of  Americans falsely believe Saddam Hussein was involved with the September  11 attacks.<\/p>\n<p>There is a qualitative difference between believing Saddam was  behind an attack on America and believing that the American government  was behind an attack on America.<\/p>\n<p>It is at least plausible that Saddam had something to do with it,  even though he didn&#8217;t. The idea that the US government committed that  deed is insane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MICHAEL J. TOTTEN: In Europe the lunatic fringe is going mainstream. Maddening as this is, I really do worry for them. I&#8217;m beginning to think something terrible might happen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,82],"tags":[204,423,3198,3199,1968,203,470,1171,3008,2817,18302,2020],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}