Oh, what a timeline we live in!
CNN reports: State Department says it made ‘an unfortunate error’ when it mislabeled countries on map of Africa.
The US State Department on Thursday said its use of a map that incorrectly labeled all the countries it identified on a map of Africa at an international conference this week was “an unfortunate error.”
The map was shown during an event at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro. It highlighted six countries on the continent: Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Malawi, and Cameroon. Not one of them was correctly identified by lines pointing from the names to the positions on the map. It showed coastal Nigeria as landlocked. Mozambique, which is in the southeast of the continent, was shown in the Horn of Africa. Cote d’Ivoire was shown on the wrong side of the continent.
One suspects that the proximate culprit was the use of some AI tool to generate the map. But even so, and even if done in haste, it should have been immediately caught by, well, almost anyone with a passing knowledge of basic geography. I will confess, I could not properly fill in a blank map of all of Africa, but I do know which side of the continent the Ivory Coast and Cameroon are on, among other glaringly obvious errors. Never mind that one should be more mindful about one’s slide deck when making a presentation on behalf of the US government (if not simply because one cares about one’s personal and professional reputation).
Of course, what does one expect when the president and his minions do not respect expertise?
Cameron Hudson, a former State Department and NSC official on Africa, said that the mistake is “a reflection of what happens when you fire ⅓ of the State Department, eliminate multiple layers of bureaucracy and have too junior staff performing work under-supervised.”
“There isn’t just a cost savings when eviscerating staff and expertise. There’s a real cost in reputation and effectiveness,” he posted on X. “I suspect many people don’t actually care because they say it’s Africa, but the same thing is happening with teams trying to negotiate nuclear deals with Iran. That should concern everyone.”
Indeed.
But don’t worry! This same leadership will surely extricate us from Iran with skill and élan.
