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Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps
Garabito writes "An error on Google Maps has caused an international conflict in Central America. A Nicaraguan military commander, relying on Google Maps, moved troops into an area near San Juan Lake along the border between his country and Costa Rica (Google translation of Spanish original). The troops are accused of setting up camp there, taking down a Costa Rican flag and raising the Nicaraguan flag, doing work to clean up a nearby river, and dumping the sediment in Costa Rican territory."
A classic case of misinformation being worse than no information. However, Google does have a disclaimer on the service about possible errors.
It shouldn't, but it amazes me how a military force from one country can take action based on information from a free service offered by a company in another country. It boggles the mind.
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The clueless summary gets it wrong. I live in Costa Rica - the problem isn't dredging the river, it's that Nicaragua is dumping all the gunk on the Costa Rican side of the river and destroying protected forests.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
For instance, in 2002, the UK Royal Marines accidentally invaded Spain, because of a map reading error.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1827554.stm
Hence the old joke: "What's the most dangerous thing in the British Army? -- An officer with a map."
I concur. This wasn't a mistake. Map & compass has worked well for a long, long time. Soldiers were able to navigate the jungles long before the arrival of GPS, Google Maps, and checkin apps. In a country like Nicaragua that has a small military budget, land navigation training has to be part of the core training, at least for NCOs, and certainly for officers. I can't think of a single nation that has done away with land nav training; doing so would be like forgoing marksmanship training.
The only other explanation is that the guy in charge of the mission was a complete incompetent, and his subordinates either weren't paying attention or didn't have the balls to tell him he was fucking up.
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