Rhinocrisy

On the way back home from Boston^* I connected through Denver, where I’ve never been before. I always imagined it as a kind of Shangri-La thrown high up in the teeth of the mountains, teetering against a mile-high precipice that overlooks the flat, endless expanse of the Midwest. But no; the city is smeared across the plane below, and the mountains are empty. Shucks. Reality is beggared by the expectations of fantasy once again.

^* Strange inversion, that.

They say that wars are how Americans learn geography. But how are we supposed to learn ggeography when our own army gives us maps like this. Click and ye shall see — a map part way down the page showing the Iraq war, Operation Iraqi Liberation (Libation? Lieberman Nation?), taking place half in Iraq and half in Iran. More strangely, it shows a huge imaginary body of water, depicted in white and considerably bigger than the Caspian Sea, to the east of the Caspian, roughly on the ancient lakebed of the Aral Sea (PDF). It immerses the embarassment known as Uzbekistan. Talk about a whitewash.

To the southwest of this imaginary lake, apparently on the real-world border of Iran and Turkmenistan, we are told U.S. forces are hard at work on something called Operation Enduring Freedom, which at last report was still focused on Afghanistan.

I wonder if this website used a Pentagon base map. Because if so, that might explain some of the tactical difficulties currently facing our armed forces.

Update 2 p.m.: Mr. Schwarz makes a similar point.

I like this map. By my count, there are 5 different satellite images stitched together in this remote mountainous area.