Friendly Fire

We are used to read, but without much emotion, about civilians killed in Afghanistan and other areas of the world by friendly fire, due to errors in identifying the targets.

No wonder, Americans ignore geography (they canceled its teaching about 15 years ago) and rely on automation. But also automation requires some knowledge the Americans seem to miss. In a recent correspondence from the USA, Antenne 2, a leading French public to illustrated some recent errors in the CNN Maps:

- Cannes, where Obama went for the G20 last October, was shown in Northern Spain instead of Southern France. Once the error was corrected, it was shown again in the wrong location near Spain;

- Tripoli, the Libyan capital, was located in Lebanon. True, there is also a Tripoli there and both countries start with an L....

- Switzerland was shown in Central Europe instead of the Czeck republic;

- Iraq was shown instead of Afghanistan in a report on refugees;

- A Japanese town hurt by earthquake was located on a Map in Central Africa;

- Kieav and Ukraine were shown in North Korea; and so on and so forth

Fox News is no better: a couple of years ago it showed Egypt instead of Iraq and vice versa...

No wonder if sometimes "very intelligent weapons" operated by ignorant idiots fall on the wrong target. Friendly fire, sorry....

So an advice to all: check on Google, CNN and Fox News where they locate the place you live in. And ensure that there is no place with the same name in a war area. And move out fast....if you see possibilities of mistakes. In particular if any of the so-called Iranian nuclear sites have a name that may sound similar to that of the place you live in: Israel may misdirect its bombs meant for Iran. The links between the US army and Israel are so close that the US may provide wrong maps.

See: http://www.gentside.com/insolite/la-ville-de-cannes-placee-en-espagne-a-l-occasion-du-g20_pic61517.html