chickenfeet

I find foreign confusing at the best of times but right now I'm having to draw diagrams to understand what western (specifically Anglo-American) policy actually is. I think it goes something like this:

The AAs are arming and providing air support to Kurdish fighters including Turkish Kurds who are still officially considered to be terrorists.

This support is so that the Kurds can fight IS which is an organisation established and financed and trained by some combination of the CIA, Israel and the Sunni Gulf States specifically to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria.

Surprisingly, this American trained force is quite effective (possibly the only effective fighting force the Americans have ever trained) and so now the US is providing air cover for the said Assad regime which continues to use chemical weapons against its own civilians.

Meanwhile, slightly further north, Ukraine has been completely destabilized by a CIA backed coup which has caused the Russians to get very cross indeed. They are backing a bunch of loons who make Bronislav Kaminski look almost sane, and the SS had to shoot him.  The West's reaction to this unpleasantness has been to cut the Kremlin's foie gras ration.

Does any of this make sense or are Obama and Cameron complete and utter fucking morons?

I've just received an invitation to a drinks reception with the new Vice-Chancellor of Durham. Now, this reception is at the University of British Columbia, which is, predictably, in British Columbia which is to say roughly 4500km away, which is only marginally closer than Durham. Do you think they would expect someone from, say, Omsk or Dakar, to pop over to Durham for drinkies? It's the same distance.