Where is eye-raq again?

I found this article today in the Irish Indo:

Iraq . . . isn't that up near Alaska?

MOST American young people can't find Iraq on a map, even though US troops have been there for more than three years, according to a new geographic literacy study released yesterday.

Fewer than four in 10 Americans aged 18-24 in a survey could place Iraq on an unlabeled map of the Middle East, a study conducted for National Geographic found.

Only about one-quarter of respondents could find Iran and Israel on the same map.

While 69pc of young people picked out China on a map of Asia, only about half could find India and Japan and only 12pc correctly located Afghanistan, where the US has troops.

"I'm not sure how important it is that young adults can find Afghanistan on a map. But that is symptomatic of the bigger issue, and that's (US young adults) not having a sense that things around the world really matter," said John Fahey, president of the National Geographic Society.

Half of respondents said it was "absolutely necessary" to know how to read a map, but a large percentage lacked the basic skills.

In general, natural disasters appear to have a limited impact on young Americans' view of the world.

Only 35pc identified Pakistan as the country hit by a catastrophic earthquake last October and 29pc thought it happened in Sri Lanka.

The study was conducted in face-to-face interviews with 510 respondents in the continental United States in late 2005 and early 2006.

Now this is kinda scary. I know there's the old Gulf War (well, Gulf War I) joke about "Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student - at least they can find Baghdad.", but now it's been proven true! So what exactly do they do in geography class then over there? Then again, we're talking about the country whose education system is based in "the three R's" - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.......