I think perhaps he spent some time at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s very own beer summit in Colombia before making his latest gaffe. But we shouldn’t be surprised that President Obama confused the Malvinas with the Maldives which are some 8000 miles apart since this isn’t his first geography related gaffe. First he ran an exhaustive campaign having visited our 57 states. He invents the Austrian language. He condemned the storming of the English embassy in Iran. Then he said he was born in Asia which will spark more fuel for the fire of birthers, but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) he was referring to Hawaii.
So perhaps the gaffe at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia doesn’t seem as bad unless you consider the foreign policy implications behind the error… or more to the point what he meant to say. In his address he said that he wanted to stay neutral between Argentina and the UK in their dispute over the Falkland Islands. So why did he use the Argentinian name? Everyone else calls the islands the Falklands. The United Kingdom has controlled these Islands, of whom the population is 90% British, since 1830. The UK fought to liberate the Islands after Argentina invaded in 1982.
The U.S. declared support for Britain in their war with Argentina so it is telling that the supposedly “neutral” President Obama would call the Islands by the Argentine name after Argentina has been ramping up talk of invading the Falklands again on the 30th anniversary of that war.
Another geography gaffe on top of another foreign policy gaffe, just another day in the Obama administration.
