I'm not sure I'd just blow off Kaplan to make a general, superficial point about American crypto-imperialism. In the absence of other evidence I'm going to assume his argument is armed with more facts and analysis than yours.

Peter Moskos has been writing about the Greek riots for a few weeks now --- http://www.petermoskos.com --- and the picture he paints make the situation in Greece sound very different from student riots in South America (and also different from Kaplan's somewhat alarmist take).