Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps | Hacker News Reader

Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps

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41 pointsbjonathan21 comments

I wonder if Nicaraguan military would have made that mistake if Costa Rica still had its own military.

This thing that i am really suspicious about is why was a Nicaraguan army, so close to Costa Rica a nation know for not having a standing military. I love Costa Rica for the exact reason that they don't have a standing military, they really do have a live and let live philosophy. I have many times thought about "screw it all, I am moving to Costa Rica" but it is thing like this that really concern me about doing so. Latin America has been known for it's eternal left / right struggle and Costa Rica just seems too be to easy a victim if the wrong people come to power in one of it's neighbors.

Maybe that border area is a good training area? Training areas are typically kinda hard to find. Have to find a place where people won't mind alot of people with guns running around and possibly blowing stuff up.

You'll also recall a bit ago, a Swiss Army company accidentally waltzhed into Lichtenstein, or when some British Marines missed the Gilbrator and landed in Spain instead on a exercise.

Sometimes mistakes do happen.

Sure, there could be a legitimate reason, but given Latin America's history, I would not blame the Costa Ricans for being suspicious.

If you count the number of people killed by wars in Europe or North America in the 20th century, Latin America is the place to be. Latin America has numerous social problems but the number of conflicts (and their magnitude) between countries has been traditionally very small.

I am less concerned with being killed and more concerned with living under a dictatorship. I mean that would be the antithesis of the reasons I would move to Costa Rica in the first place. South America has hand it's share of them, and the disease that causes the symptom still exists.

Was I the only one who expected to be redirected to The Onion?

The only thing crazier than fiction is reality.

It sounds like something The Bugle would make up, with their focus on geopolitical humor.

Edit: Or a joke on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me.

basically the Nicaraguan commander was acting inside the space of an augmented reality where the "augmentation" was skewed. In the bright technological future who controls the augmentation controls the reality.

Or using the error as an excuse. The taking down of Costa Rican flags is rather suspect.

Perhaps, its doubly dubious given that Costa Rica doesn't have a military... however Costa Rica hasn't had a military in like 60 years, so the question is why didn't they do this sooner?

IMO the taking down of flags is probably the cause of not knowing where the border truly is. Up until recently there were sections of the US/Canadian border where you could accidentally drive into the other without going through a passport check by making a wrong turn.

Imagine been a farmer in the middle of nowhere, why does this land here belong to me, but that land on the other side of the old rubber tree doesn't? You wouldn't care if you hadn't seen a government official in your entire lifetime, you'd just go and build a house and put up a flag.

Again think of it from the PoV of the soldier who took down the flag. You're following orders, you're told you're performing an operation in your own territory near the border. This is your country... you don't know that the top brass isn't entirely certain that it is and that they're relying on an American company to have reliable maps of their own territory.

You're ignoring the fact that the flags were there. This isn't simply putting one's own flag, it's seeing another country's flag up and taking it down, then going, "What, we thought we were in the right place, despite the flags."

the thing is the border between costa rica and nicaragua is a river (hence a natural boundary instead of an imaginary line somewhere) and part of the conflict is that they are working on changing the course of the river so it can increase their territory... and come one which serious commander will use google maps to back up and strategy when every other single map on earth calls the territory costarrican?

been a costa rican myself it's hard to understand the mind of this nicaraguan leaders... been the 2nd poorest country in latinamerica shouldn't they be more concerned about making it up for the people rather than invading another people's land? the worst of all is having Chavez behind it pushing for a military conflict :S

> been the 2nd poorest country in latinamerica shouldn't they be more concerned about making it up for the people rather than invading another people's land?

That's not how politics works. Invading another country is a good way to keep the people from noticing how badly the govt is doing.

This could be a case of a "cartographer's watermark", a purposeful error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartography#Cartographic_errors

also this: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs#Exa...

I have nothing against Nicaragua, but they (well, their goverment) have tried to claim San Andres & Providencia islands, which belong to Colombia...

and here is google's official take on the issue

http://googleamericalatinablog.blogspot.com/2010/11/aclaraci...

basically what every body knows, the SLA for Google Maps doesn't cover military actions and no country in the world should use it as the basics for a military conflict.

yes, we made a mistake and we are fixing it.

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