IA's

[Suff]

What are IA's? In the Army they are known as Immediate Actions. The immediate action is carried out immediately on meeting a crisis of some kind.

So an Army IA could be drop down and shoot, or it could be drop down and don't move.

So, tonight, I find it quite amusing that the EU is unable to understand this simple principle. When you find yourself in a hole and you can't climb out, the IA is _not_ to polish the sides.

Somebody might want to tell Donald Tusk and the EU council of Ministers, the EU Commission and the EU Parliament how this works.

This statement

European Union President Donald Tusk's diplomatic bombshell listed the Trump administration as a threat alongside China, Russia, terrorism and radical Islam

Is about as politically inept as I've seen in a long time. He just alienated a LOT more than 50% of Americans and showed a level of arrogance which has rarely been seen in politics outside of absolute dictatorships and communist states (which are absolute dictatorships in my book).

Given that America is the backbone of NATO, the key leader in the world on conflicts and trade and is the richest and most militarily powerful nation on the planet; telling them that they are synonymous with Terrorism and Radical Islam is not just a slip of the tongue. It is a direct slap in the face. Now Trump may have been telling the world he does not like the EU, but someone has to be the grown up. The EU just stepped into the kindergarten and started the "IS. Is NOT" argument.

Sadly, this is no surprise to me and, very wearyingly, was totally predictable. Fortunately the rest of the world now knows that the EU does not speak with the voice of the UK in it's gaggle of "member states".

Perhaps we could dub this the "bone head manoeuvre"?

[Workingman]

If he says something he is criticised, if he says nothing he is criticised.

His letter was such a 'bombshell' that it has dropped off the front pages in record time. Nobody is that bothered, or taking it too seriously, as it is nothing more than a politicking sound-bite ahead of an EU talking shop.

[Suff]

Yes and NO.

I picked that up off CNN. A US liberal media outlet.

Whilst we can ignore it, the US and the rest of the world will not. If you check google you find that the CNN link remains on many front pages within the last hour and the US is only just up again.

This one is not going to quietly slip away. Whilst Trump may blow off about what he thinks are unacceptable ways of operating within the EU, the EU are not quite so much at liberty to do the same. After all the EU is not the guarantor of US security from attack.

Tusk may not see what he has just said as any big thing, but you can bet your ass the rest of the world can. Yoshimura Honda, on hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, likened it to waking a sleeping Lion. Not a bad analogy. Except that Tusk's comments are more like walking up to the wide awake Lion and kicking it in the nuts.

Even Democrats who don't like Trump are, seriously, not going to like the US being branded a "threat" and used in the same sentence as IS.

But then when did the EU ever make sense? A cabal of self interested states, protected, mainly, by UK and US military power, going about their business as if the UK and the US are insignificant little irritants...

If you were interested and were willing to dig, during the referendum, you would have unearthed some very deep unease about the loss of the UK from the EU in the former eastern states. Whilst the press in the UK were talking daydreams about the UK being "less secure" outside the EU; the Eastern European states were living the nightmare of watching half their direct assurance of security walking out of the door.

Then we get this idiot telling their security blanket that it is a threat and lumping it in with IS. Tusk may actually believe that he was just talking ahead of an EU talking shop meeting. But, in fact, he just convinced wavering Republicans and wavering Democrats, that Trump might be the right person in the job after all! What a crowning achievement.

Perhaps the greatest threat to the EU is Donald Tusk???