Accuracy 101

A letter sent February 9 to the Globe and Mail and not published:

Your story, "French offer hope, but no promises" (Feb. 9), contains three major errors of basic fact. The French have not promised 2,100 troops for a "Darfur protection force". Those troops are for a European Union force to be stationed in Chad, not Darfur (admittedly with a mandate to protect refugees from Darfur--deployment of the force has been delayed by the recent rebel violence in Chad).

French troops are not in Kosovo with an EU force, nor are they in Bosnia with a NATO force. Rather it is the other way around. The French indeed participate in the international military missions in Kosovo and Bosnia. But the Kosovo mission is actually the NATO force and the Bosnia mission the EU force.

One expects rather better from "Canada's National Newspaper".

References:
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL08701404.html
http://www.nato.int/KFOR/
http://euforbih.org/eufor/

Mark C.

Posted by markc at February 12, 2008 07:07 AM