In an article chiding Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson for “a surprising lack of foreign policy knowledge” in admitting to not being familiar with the Syrian city of Aleppo, The New York Times was forced to issue two separate corrections after misidentifying the city as both the political capital of Syria and the capital of the Islamic State.
Aleppo, while a pivotal outpost in the Syrian civil war, is neither. It has recently become the focal point of fighting between Syrian rebel groups and dictator Bashar al-Assad. Earlier this week, human rights advocacy groups accused Assad and the allied Russian military of dropping chemical weapons on civilians in a suburb of Aleppo.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, Johnson was asked what his policy as president would be regarding the current conflict in the city. He responded, “What is Aleppo?“
“Mr. Johnson indicated that he really was not aware of the city, which has been widely covered during the years that Syria has been engulfed in civil war,” the New York Times’ Alan Rappeport writes, later noting that “some even attributed the flub to Mr. Johnson’s acknowledged use of marijuana.”
The Times was forced to issue the following corrections on Rappeport’s article: