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Strange Maps —

15 – Divided States of America

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I was alerted to these maps by a Turkish gentleman, who posts them on his website. They are a reaction to the map of the Middle East, re-drawn as it was in the July issue of the US Armed Forces Journal(mentioned earlier in this blog). This American vision has upset a lot of people in the Middle East, not in the least in Turkey, which, in that American scenario, would lose about a quarter of its current territory in the East to a Free Kurdistan.

Unfortunately, my Turkish is not very good, so I can’t read the text explaining the map-drawing competition. The caption above the maps is, however, clear: Divided States of America in, United States of America out. Some maps are funny, others are a bit grim, but every map speaks volumes about the ‘hearts and minds’ the current US administration has lost, around the world and particularly in the Middle East.

Here is a selection, taken from Açik Kistihbarat‘s site.

(a) Canada comes south

  • Greater Canada eats up a big slice of the US south of the 49th parallel, which presently forms the border between the US and Canada from Washington State to Minnesota.
  • Greater Cuba includes Florida and parts of Georgia and Alabama.
  • The rest of the East Coast states are the Republic of Afro-Americans.
  • The Mid-West is divided between an English Colony in the north and a French Colony in the south – a reference obviously to the Louisiana Territory, which was a lot bigger than the present state of the same name, and French until 1803.
  • Greater Mexico has reclaimed some of the territory lost after the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, including Texas, the original cause of the war when the Mexican ‘rebel province’ was annexed by the US.
  • The West Coast states form an Evangelist Republic of America, which has re-sold Alaska to Russia.
  • The rump of the US is a Republic of Native Americans.

    • (b) Afghano-America

    The three countries most affected by American foreign policy get a big slice of the US, Iraq occupying the West Coast, Afghanistan the eastern part up to the Mississippi, Palestine most of what’s in between. A purple sliver between Iraq and Palestine is reserved for something I can’t translate. Bizarrely, two UN institutions get Louisiana (WHO) and Wisconsin and some of Michigan (Unicef).

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