Monday, September 03, 2012

INFORMATION PORTAL: US PROPAGANDA

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department considers Pranab Mukherjee to be India’s foreign minister! More similar gaffes inside...

This was apart from the CIA correcting the misrepresentation of the number of deputy prime ministers that South Korea had had. However, the country is still trying to convince the agency to rectify names of two locations on CIA’s map of South Korea.

On the same lines, Northern Cyprus is still being shown as a part of Republic of Cyprus, despite the region having gained independence in the year 1983, 27 years earlier. On another line, while the whole of Kashmir is shown as being “disputed”, Taiwan is peacefully included on the map of China. This has to be seen along with the fact that Taiwan is shown as a separate country on the US Department of State site with the names of its President and Prime Minister. And when it comes to Myanmar, both the CIA and US State Department list the country under its old name Burma. In 1989, Burma changed its name officially to Myanmar; a rename that was endorsed by the UN. Apparently, not by the CIA/State Department.

While some of the mistakes – including India’s foreign minister’s name – are evident typographical mistakes (and show the lack of intent within the government to keep critical diplomatic facts updated), some of the mistakes, like Kashmir or Taiwan, seem deliberate and evidently committed with political intent. This can be considered even propaganda if one were to assume the worst, as many institutions globally (including schools) refer to these websites for authentic information. There’s a thin line between a diplomatic error and a strategically planted insult. Imagine if were considering Bush still to be the US president.


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posted by Editorial at 5:51 PM