It’s Always Something
Fareed Zakaria said something remarkably stupid on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He was embellishing his usual theme that the insurgents are fueled mostly by the forces of disaffected youth:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What is behind these young people going, in several countries, now in the heart of Europe, joining the Islamic jihad? What is motivating them? Is it the occupation? Is it Islam? Or are these the kind of people who at the turn of the last century would have been Marxist-Lenninists?
FAREED ZAKARIA: I think it is more that; radical ideologies feed on disaffected youth, disaffected young men in general. A hundred years ago they would have been radical anarchists or Marxists; fifty years ago they would have been followers of Che.
I think the reality is there will always be a cause. You know, if it weren’t Iraq, it was, remember, Bin Laden’s original demand was that we get out of Saudi Arabia; well, we’re out of Saudi Arabia, and now we’re on to Iraq.
What?? I mean, Jesus H. Christ, we didn’t even announce that we were planning to leave Saudi Arabia until six weeks after we invaded Iraq in 2003. It’s incredibly disingenuous to say, “Well, hell, we got out of Saudi Arabia, like you wanted, and now you’re complaining again, this time about Iraq? It’s always going to be something with you!”
(I don’t doubt that alienated young men are easy prey for terror organizations; but his example is idiotic.)
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