A simple matter of geography

The geographical illiteracy of much of the US population is something of a joke both in-and outside of the United States. But it’s a shame that it’s shared by so much of its media, particularly when they’re frequently sending reporters to distant lands.

For their assistance:

Distance from Baghdad, Iraq
Tehran (Iran) 442 miles
Damascus (Syria) 466 miles
Washington DC (U.S.A) 7000 miles (approx)

or to put it another way, where is the USA on this map?

Map of the Middle East

So which country should we be surprised has been invited to a regional summit to discuss Iraqi security?

(In response to an NPR story based on this, but seemingly expressing surprise that Iran and Syria had been invited to a regional meeting)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Current affairs. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 comment

  1. Eric
    February 28, 2007 at 6:36 am

    Excellent post, James.