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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 8-Oct-06
Learning-disabled journalists and politicians continue to predict Iraq civil war

Web Log - October, 2006

Learning-disabled journalists and politicians continue to predict Iraq civil war

Occasionally journalists take a break from their heavy-breathing over Congressional pages, and when they do, they go back to predicting a civil war in Iraq.


Panelist Fareed Zakaria on Sunday's <i>This Week With George Stephanopoulos</i> <font size=-2>(Source: ABC)</font>
Panelist Fareed Zakaria on Sunday's This Week With George Stephanopoulos (Source: ABC)

Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek International editor appearing on ABC, said that the Iraqi government has failed and the American mission has failed.

"If you look at the last 3-4 months, it's absolutely clear that a civil war dynamic has set in," said Zakaria on Sunday. "This is happening. ... The trend is moving in the wrong direction on every issue that relates to a building civil war."

If I'm not mistaken, Zakaria has been saying almost exactly the same thing for several years. If he predicts a civil war week after week, and a civil war never materializes, you'd think that he'd learn.

Zakaria is a "Generation-Xer," born in Mumbai (Bombay), India, in 1964. Most Indians I've known have been extremely intelligent, and I recall from my days as a mathematician studying at MIT that Srinivasa Aaiyangar Ramanujan is considered by many to be the greatest and most brilliant number theorist in the history of mathematics. But that brilliance hasn't rubbed off on Zakaria.

Obviously he must be learning-impaired. When a two-year-old baby fails to balance one ball on top of another a few times, sooner or later he realizes it isn't going to happen. But this guy keeps trying to balance the ball week after week, repeating his civil war theory, and just can't seem to learn, a fairly frequent problem among Boomers and Generation Xers that I've known.

The learning impairment includes an inability to connect closely related events. If he'd read his own magazine this week, he would have found an interview with Jimmy Carter saying, "I would say that in the last 30 years or so one of my main commitments in life has been to bring peace to Israel. But I am frustrated when terrorist activities cause a serious setback as they have among the Palestinians, and by Hizbullah and the reluctance of Israel to withdraw from occupied territories."

Or, if he'd read the competing Time Magazine, he would have found an article saying, "dreams of peace are fading fast" in Gaza. It says,

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