Trump's Soviet-style military displays can't erase weakness that destroyed national security

Enough of this nonsense.

The politicians who claim flights of military aircraft are the ideal way to show respect for health care workers and first responders are glorifying weaponry over humanity.

Eielson is planning an F-35 flyover of Fairbanks and Anchorage May 15.

It appears that Alaska is going to repeat the Lower 48 political stunts engineered by Trump, who loves Soviet-style military parades. He is the self-proclaimed wartime president, a character who lives to hear the hosannas.

The political military complex, alert to Trump’s whims, has been eager to order pilots to fly over hospitals and rehab centers nationwide, as if the window-rattling sound of an F-16 is just what sick people need to feel better.

It’s a nationwide Air Force initiative to massage the presidential ego by brandishing weapons of war, an attitude that would work well in Moscow or Pyongyang.

Defenders of the Trump stunts say the pilots need training hours and these flights may cost plenty, but the expense is already accounted for in the military budget. An F-35 costs about $100 million and its operation runs $35,000 an hour.

The flights are about politics, not training, and trying to show toughness at a time of universal vulnerability.

The aerial shows are a stunning display of misplaced priorities by the guy who says that victims of the virus and those who care for them should be rebranded as “warriors,” as if they enlisted in a cause greater than themselves.

In the Trump mind, those who work in health care and grocery stores are dying to see costly examples of military power flashing across the sky. A real leader would understand that proper protective equipment in hospitals and widespread testing are what we really need, not reminders of death and destruction.

Perhaps we should take a moment, as a country, to show some humility and think about what might have been.

Had we diverted some billions from the F-35 program—the most expensive weapon in world history—and put those billions into public health and research, at least some of the 75,000 Americans who have died in the last two months from COVID-19 would still be alive. And millions of unemployed Americans might still be working.

There is no need for celebratory flyovers in Alaska or anywhere else in the United States. A declaration that this is a time to mourn, reflect and strive to do better would be more to the point and far more patriotic.

Elected leaders from the president on down are trying to distract from the weaknesses that have been exposed.

For all of our military might and expensive hardware, our national security was destroyed without a shot being fired.